Beset by four scandalous criminal cases and the leak of an embarrassing secret audio tape in just four years, the Los Angeles City Council could take a major step toward transforming itself this week.

An ad hoc committee is expected to recommend broad outlines for the council’s expansion, a process that would divide the city’s 15 existing districts into smaller chunks and add an elected representative for each new segment. The congregation could be more than twice as large.

The goal is simple: increase representation while discouraging unethical behavior. But does LA really need more government? At a potential cost of millions of taxpayers’ money?

“That’s a tough decision,” said Fernando Guerra, a professor of political science at Loyola Marymount. Not only for the municipal council, but also for the voters.

Nearly a century has passed since LA residents approved the existing number of council seats. Since then the population has grown to 3.9 million, with each councilor now representing around 260,000 residents. That is much more than in cities like New York (average 17

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.000) and Chicago (average 55,000).

Another way to look at it: two counties have roughly the same population as Wyoming, which is represented by a large number of city councils, county councils, a state council,

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parliament, two U.S. senators and a congressman.

Los Angeles is a complex city, much more diverse than most cities in the United States, said Gary Segura, a professor of public policy at UCLA. With huge numbers of ethnic and racial populations, it has become increasingly difficult to give voice to diverse communities.

The push for expansion is hardly new to LA, but ballot measures to add seats have failed three times in the last fifty years.

The latest effort is expected to focus on increasing the total number of seats to somewhere between 21 and 31. This was prompted by a wave of misconduct, including separate criminal charges against council members Mitchell Englander, Mark Ridley-Thomas, Jose Huizar and Curren Price. .

Independent reform group recommends expanding LA City Council to 25 members

The audio recording that leaked to the public last year was exposed

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Board members Kevin de Len, Nury Martinez and Gil Cedillo engaged in a conversation that used racist and derogatory language as they devised a strategy to redraw district boundaries to benefit themselves or their allies. (Martinez and Cedillo are no longer present

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council; De Len remains and is running for re-election).

Creating more council seats and reducing the average population per district to just 128,000 could theoretically improve governance in several ways.

Depending on how districts are redrawn, such diverse neighborhoods as Boyle Heights and Eagle Rock, for example, could no longer be represented by the same elected official. Council members would have a better chance of leading what political scientists call “communities of interest,” which have similar needs and concerns.

At the same time, residents could receive more help from their representatives in dealing with everyday problems such as garbage collection and pothole filling.

You’re not competing with that many other people, says Raphael Sonenshein, executive director of the Haynes Foundation, which promotes social science research in the LA region. It is the opportunity to get the attention of your individual council members.

Council members would have less individual influence over the expansion, although not everyone would see this as beneficial. Some see the body’s current power as a counterbalance to the enormous city bureaucracy.

Voters may not agree.

You have more options to hold on [council members] responsible, said Ange-Marie Hancock, a former USC professor who is now executive director of the Kirwan Institute at Ohio State. It takes fewer votes to vote them out.

For all the potential benefits, there are also potential downsides to expanding.

Cost is an issue that opponents often cite.

Each year, the city allocates $31.5 million to the municipality, and $2.1 million to each district, primarily to cover staffing levels. Additional districts would require more employees, more office space, more cars, etc.

For 21 seats, the total amount would increase to an estimated $44.1 million, an additional annual cost of $12.6 million. For 31, the cost would be $65.1 million, an additional $33.6 million.

Expansion advocates point out that even the latter expenditures would represent less than 1% of LA’s $13 billion annual budget.

The truth is, Segura said, we spend very little on governance in Los Angeles.

First cost images

The council could choose an alternative path by keeping total spending at current levels and distributing it evenly across all districts. This could reduce the share of each city office by as much as half.

The LA City Council wants to expand. It could take nine years to get there

Of equal importance could be the question of efficiency. Or the lack thereof.

More councilors will almost certainly mean longer meetings, more negotiations and a more difficult path to consensus. Experts say this model has contributed to the concentration of power in the mayor’s office in Chicago and New York, which have 50 and 51 seats respectively.

I don’t think this is in the cards for LA, Sonenshein said. Going to 30 or higher is just too much.

Second cost chart

There is a lot of work to be done if LA wants to get a bigger council.

After the ad hoc committee submits its proposal, deliberations will begin on the exact number of additional seats. A ballot measure could be ready for the 2024 election.

Then there will be another decision.

The council could postpone any changes until 2032, when the next regularly scheduled redistricting will take place. Or it could try to expand as early as 2026.

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Governance Reform Project, a sort of academic supergroup that includes Guerra, Sonenshein and others, is calling for timely action. It recommended additional measures.

An independent commission should be created to draw new district lines, avoiding backroom dealings of the kind shown on the audio tape, the group’s interim report said. Stronger ethical rules and regulations must be part of the package.

Ultimately, the expansion will come to voters’ attention.

Given the failure of previous ballot measures, scientists believe any attempt at expansion will have to win voters’ trust.

People are concerned that if we just take more of these positions, said group member Hancock, we’d just get more of the same.