Did city officials break the law in homeless case?

Lawsuit accuses L.A. council of approving encampment removal plan behind closed doors, violating open-meeting requirement

- DAVID ZAHNISER

A CITY worker helps clear a homeless encampment in Van Nuys.

Political leaders in Los Angeles are facing a daunting and possibly insurmountable deadline. If they blow it, they could face all kinds of headaches legal, financial and otherwise.

By June, they must show a federal judge that they have removed 9,800 homeless encampments from streets, sidewalks and public rights of way. That means 9,800 tents, cars, RVS and makeshift structures those created out of materials such as cardboard or shopping carts over a four-year period.

The city's strategy for reaching that goal has become a huge source of friction in its long-running legal battle with the LA Alliance for Human Rights, which sued the city in 2020 over its handling of homelessness.

In recent months, the encampment removal plan has also become the subject of a second lawsuit-one alleging that the City Council approved it behind closed doors, then failed to disclose that fact, in violation of a state law requiring that government business be conducted in public view.

The encampment removal plan was "drafted and adopted without any notice to the public (which includes the owners of these tents, makeshift encampments, and RVs that the City has agreed to clear), let alone any public debate or discussion," said the lawsuit filed by the Los Angeles Community Action Network, the homeless advocacy group also known as LA CAN, which is an intervenor in the LA Alliance case.

Lawyers for the city say they followed the Ralph M. Brown Act, which spells out disclosure requirements for decisions made behind closed doors by government bodies.

In one filing, they said, their actions were not only legal but "reasonable and justified under the circumstances." As with everything surrounding the LA Alliance case, there is a tortured backstory.