Lessons learned from the Paris Olympics, according to L.A. City Councilmember Traci Park

Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s Dakota Smith and Rebecca Ellis pulling you through to the weekend.

A little-known fact about the Olympic and Paralympic Games is that they are made possible by tens of thousands of volunteers.

Among other things, the volunteers cut down on costs.

L.A. City Councilmember Traci Park, who chairs the committee helping prepare for the 2028 L.A. Games, recently returned from the Paris Olympics and discussed some lessons she learned about hosting the gigantic event.

Paris “was really intentional and thoughtful” about deploying volunteers, she told city officials, labor leaders and consultants at a Los Angeles Current Affairs Forum lunch in downtown L.A. on Monday.

For instance, volunteers were not only placed inside subway stops but also where visitors might make a wrong turn, said Park, who represents Venice and other Westside neighborhoods.

“You literally couldn’t get lost in Paris during the Olympics,” she said.

About 300,000 people applied to volunteer at the Paris Olympics, and only 45,000 were selected.

Training will be key for any volunteer program. The Times heard mixed reviews from the ground in Paris about the volunteers and how helpful they were.

During the 1984 L.A. Olympics, about 30,000 people volunteered to help out, according to a 1998 Times report. There were medics, nurses, timekeepers, ushers, translators and more.

L.A. City Councilmember Traci Park chairs the committee helping prepare for the 2028 L.A. Games.

(Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times)

The volunteers “drove from as far away as Santa Barbara, San Bernardino and San Diego at least three times a week before and during the Games to work 10- to 14-hour shifts with no pay,” The Times report said.

LA28, the private entity organizing and paying for the Games, hasn’t yet launched its volunteer program.

Park, who also chairs the city’s tourism committee, went to Tokyo, which hosted the 2020 Games, earlier this year, and also made an initial trip to Paris in March.

Unlike some other host cities, Los Angeles and the state of California are ultimately responsible if LA28 blows past its budget.

Another difference is staffing. In Paris, government workers helped out with the Games, Park said.

“In L.A., we can’t just do that,” she said. “If we’re going to do anything like that, we need to meet and confer with the unions now.”

Park said she has asked L.A. city departments to lay out “what we think the additional asks are going to be in terms of Olympics prep and delivery.”

Any public spending on the Olympics will draw scrutiny, particularly amid recent city budget cuts.

Already, some are upset that the City Council approved $500,000 to remove Japanese and Korean artifacts from City Hall to make way for an exhibit on the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

At a press event Thursday about the artifacts’ removal, community leader Scott Suh said that city officials should spend the half million dollars on homelessness instead.

Meanwhile, Paris is famous for its extensive bike lanes, a project spearheaded ahead of the Olympics by Mayor Anne Hildago.

Park, when asked about public spending for the Olympics at Monday’s lunch, said she would like to see a bike lane network between Olympics venues but is frustrated by the spending restrictions required by Healthy Streets Los Angeles, passed by voters earlier this year.

HLA requires that improvements be made according to the city’s Mobility Plan, which outlines where bike lanes, bus lanes and pedestrian enhancements such as wider sidewalks should be installed.

Park said the HLA spending will take “funding away from mobility projects around venues that I think are absolutely essential to deliver before 2028.”

Michael Schneider, CEO of the mobility group Streets for All, disagreed with Park’s assessment of HLA, telling The Times that it’s “completely up the city to decide which streets that they pave and in what order of priority.”

The city could add bike lanes near the Coliseum and UCLA using HLA, he said.

State of play

—REVEALING MEMO: City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto contacted the police chief to assert that People’s City Council organizer Ricci Sergienko was involved in a Thanksgiving protest outside the Brentwood home of a prominent Jewish civic leader, according to a memo. Sergienko is an outspoken critic of Feldstein Soto, and the target of the protest, Michael Tuchin, has donated to her campaign.

—‘DEPLORABLE’: There’s also plenty of scrutiny on the troubled Department of Animal Services. James Johnson, president of its governing commission, resigned after a July meeting during which he chastised a public speaker. General Manager Staycee Dains is on an unexplained two-month leave, and a new report on two city shelters described “failures of appropriate care” that are “deplorable and inexcusable by any reasonable standard.”

—CANAPES FOR ALL: DWP and Accenture staffers worked together to mislabel invoices from a conference so that two DWP officials, including former Commission President Cynthia McClain-Hill, could have their food, beverage and gift tabs picked up by the DWP, according to former DWP workers. McClain-Hill denies that she did anything wrong.

—SCANDAL FALLOUT: The California Supreme Court on Thursday OK’d a $2.5 million judgment against the city of L.A. related to the concealing of evidence by City Atty. Mike Feuer’s office. A lower court had reversed the sanctions. The unanimous opinion “rights a grievous wrong,” Julian W. Poon, a Gibson Dunn partner and counsel for PricewaterhouseCoopers, said in a statement to The Times.

— UNCOUNTED: L.A. County is under pressure to find homes for its oldest foster youth after a federal judge allowed a sprawling lawsuit to move forward. Attorneys updated their complaint this month, arguing that neither the county nor the state knows how many foster youths are living on the street.

— MILLIONS IN THE BANK: State auditors found that the Los Angeles County Probation Department has spent only $9.7 million of $88 million in state money it received since 2021 to rehabilitate young people who committed serious crimes. The main reason: the programs the county plans to fund don’t exist yet.

—MUSICAL CHAIRS: The International Longshore and Warehouse Union blasted Mayor Karen Bass’ recent decision not to renew the term of Commissioner Diane Middleton, reports Los Angeles News Group’s Donna Littlejohn. Meanwhile, Councilmember Tim McOsker wants to ensure that at least two local residents — one from San Pedro and one from Wilmington — serve on the five-member commission.

—DWP SHAKE-UP: Speaking of the DWP, General Manager Janisse Quiñones last week announced David Hanson as the interim senior assistant general manager of the utility’s power system — the top position on the energy side. Simon Zewdu, who formerly held the job, talked briefly to The Times but declined to comment on the status of his employment. An email sent to him bounced back.

QUICK HITS

• Where is Inside Safe? The mayor’s program to combat homelessness didn’t launch any new operations this week.

• On the docket for next week: The City Council on Tuesday will hear comments related to the city’s plan to raise sewer rates. Because the increases are considered a property user fee under Proposition 218, all the city’s parcel owners have been notified. If most object, then the fee hike fails, according to city officials.

  Tuesday is the deadline to lodge protests. As of Thursday, the city had received 6,380 valid protest letters. According to the City Clerk’s office, 393,157 valid protests are needed for the rate hike to fail.