Senate Special Committee on Special Committee on International Sporting Events: Olympics and World Cup Soccer

States Senate Special Committee on International Sporting Events. And it's a real honor to serve as chair of this Committee along with my distinguished colleague, Senator Maria Lena Durazo. We have a wonderful Committee, great Senators from all over the state who are part of this Committee.

We're going to be doing a lot of work over the course of the next year, a couple years, as we, as we build up to both the World Cup, the Olympics and Paralympics and some other major events that are going to be in our state over the next couple of years.

Big thanks to my colleagues, to our invited witnesses. Thank you for being here, for coming up from Los Angeles and also Members of the public who are here today. The Committee seeks to explore topics related to the state's readiness for the FIFA World Cup next summer.

And then of course, the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games coming up in Los Angeles that will also be have some events up in Northern California. Each of these events presents a very special opportunity for California to welcome the world, to enjoy all that our state has to offer.

Though of course we know that there are enormous and vexing challenges associated with putting on events of this size. And that's the goal of the Committee to do a deep dive into both the challenges and opportunities that these events present and ensure that California puts its best foot forward in the years to come.

So the focus of today's hearing specifically is on the LA28 Olympic and Paralympic Games, which is an international event of historic scale that will place California on the global stage once again. As I think we've discussed, it's like putting on several Super Bowls every single day for two weeks.

And while the Games is still three years away, the scope of preparation is enormous and the time to begin serious legislative oversight and collaboration is now. So the Olympic and Paralympic Games represents four weeks or so of competition.

It's a multi year undertaking that touches nearly every corner of public policy, from infrastructure to transportation, security, workforce development, housing, environmental sustainability, economic input and impact, community engagement, tourism and international engagement. There are incredible opportunities. There are also real risks, especially if we fail to plan carefully and equitably.

So today's hearing is designed to provide a broad overview of the current planning and preparation efforts for LA 28. We're going to hear from some key partners, including representatives from the LA28 organizing Committee. We have representatives from the city and County of Los Angeles. We welcome you.

We also have Visit California Here, which is our main body that oversees tourism and travel here to the state. So it's all about trying to understand various roles that Stakeholders are playing and there are a number.

As Council Member, Council President Kakorian and I were discussing, there are a number of some confusion, I think in the Capitol about who's playing what role with regards to this Games.

As we look at the various jurisdictions, as legislators, we all have a responsibility to ensure that California's involvement with the Games delivers long term value to our residents and our taxpayers.

And that means making sure the public investments are strategic, the communities are protected, the benefits are shared, and that the state is truly positioned to succeed not just in 28, but in the years to follow. And so I look forward to a thoughtful and forward looking discussion today.

And before we invite our panelists to speak, I'd like to offer our Vice Chair dudrasso the opportunity to say a few words.

Great. Thank you Mr. Chair, and thank you to all of our speakers for taking the trip up to Sacramento and helping everybody understand what the Olympics and Paralympics are all about, what they will be all about. And you know, once again we will welcome the world to the great State of California.

The world will see what makes Los Angeles a community that embodies strength and resilience. We play a dynamic role in the world economy and again, that economy is based on creativity and diversity. Our economic leadership fuels what we do, but it is also a moral leadership that we will provide with everything that we do.

California's Games will succeed, for example, because of our diversity. California Games will succeed because we have people who have been here for generations or just recently arrived people from all over the world. Immigrants are an extraordinary part of our success. So just as these Olympics and Paralympics will change California, California will also change the Games.

So we've had many examples of successes on the things that we, I think are really important to the success of the Games. Centering on working people is really important.

We have examples of our past of project labor agreements and community workforce workforce agreements and the kinds of things that we know are very specific to the well being of not just Angelenos, but those who will come in to work. For example, LA Metro has incredible benefits for communities.

They apply best value procurement through billions of dollars worth of contracts and many other successes that create pathways for people they have. They will see this as an opportunity not for a job that comes and goes for a month or so, but here's an opportunity for my future career.

And of course we will assess what impact the wildfires are having could have and how we address that. So we look forward to talking about things that everyday people don't get to hear about and Our concerns and the way that we are going to succeed and make these the best ever, best ever Olympics and Paralympics.

So thank you all very much. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I want to recognize the presence here of our great center from San Jose De Cortese. And we know there will be some Olympics related events up in the Santa Clara area.

And then also I know that Senator, also from Los Angeles, Senator Lola Smallwood Cuevas, wanted to say a few words and then also recognize our friend from Santa Clara.

Good morning. Good morning. And it's so wonderful to be here with you. And I want to thank our chair for pulling this Committee hearing together. It's been a long time coming. Certainly there's been tremendous work in our communities, our cities, our counties, preparing for this very moment.

And the purpose of this Committee, I think the purpose of our time together is to really make sure that we show the world exactly what LA is made of, that we lean into the legacy of Los Angeles in these Games and we create a bridge and a pathway for the future in terms of what gets left behind, what new international partners we have, what new community infrastructure we build, what new jobs and innovative industries that may come to Los Angeles as part of our procurement and all of the investments that we will made, we have made.

It's also a very difficult time for Los Angeles. And I would say for many of our communities, this is the opportunity for hope. It's an opportunity for resilience. It's an opportunity for us to lean into what we know. Los Angeles is a beautiful, peaceful place where families come to live out the California dream.

And that's what we have to offer to the world. I represent South Central Los Angeles, Culver City, Mar Vista, Louisiana. Live the heart and soul of Los Angeles. These games will be in the backyard of many of my constituents. 1.0 million.

And we also have some of the most vibrant middle class neighborhoods, but we also have some of the most challenged communities that are drowning in disparity. That through these games we can shed some light, help to add to that resilience as we celebrate the culture and the contributions of these neighborhoods. I'm a longtime labor and community organizer.

That's how I came to the Senate.

And I think one of the most important things is to tap into the type of organization that we have in Los Angeles and that we're prioritizing working class communities in particular, that this is not going to be the tale of two games, but this is going to be a beautiful story of one united Los Angeles where we can grow our economies together.

I don't see the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games as just a global event.

This is a chance for us to showcase, lift up and strengthen all of the things that our great Senator talked about in terms of the way that we do business, in terms of the way we include communities through things like local hiring, the way that we think about the sustainability of our neighborhoods by ensuring living wages, the way that we think about creating inclusive economies by preparing small businesses to participate and being intentional about those communities that don't often get an opportunity to participate in California tourism.

I think we have one of our biggest strengths is our diversity.

And I think at a time such as this, this is something we have to see as a commodity, as our currency, and to see how do we build economic centers around the richness of our diversity and show the world that America does believe in diversity, equity and inclusion.

I think as I meet with many people around the world and talk to many leaders who come here to the state Capitol, that is a concern and they are excited about the possibility of what our role in the Olympic Games will be.

I will just close by saying South LA is, you know, committed to not watching the Games, from bmo, from the Memorial Coliseum, from Expo park, from the sidelines. Our communities want to be front and center in the opportunity.

Our communities want to ensure that this game is successful, but most importantly, that we are successful in doing what we did in 84, which was leaving a whole lot behind for us to build on.

And with that, I am looking forward to the conversation, looking forward to hearing your information, sharing what information we have, questions that we need to answer together and ensuring that Los Angeles prevails and that we're stronger together.

Thank you, Senator. I know Senator Wahab has a few words.

Thank you. First and foremost, I want to thank all of you guys for being here and working hard on this. I represent the Bay Area and more specifically the World Cup will be in my district.

I have also been meeting with the Bay Area Host Committee almost every other week for the past year and really advocating for the state to not only Fund a portion of the Games, but also just, you know, prioritize the safety and security of the district. First and foremost. I don't want any issues to come up.

We've seen also COPA and some of the things that happened there. I do want to highlight that we haven't had a World cup in the United States in 30 years. It's very different than copying and pasting.

Super bowl, if you will, which I will also have in my district as you all know, and so the Olympics is largely an LA effort and this body is mostly LA Members and you have two Bay Area Members, myself included, and my counterpart, Senator Cortese. You know, and I will just be very Frank.

I think that there is a slight issue with transparency. For example, the funding is the biggest concern that you all have. And I know that you all are asking for federal funding and at the same time state funding.

We are in a significant crisis when we're talking about the State of California's economic outlook in some regards, more specifically because of the LA fires and the cuts that we are seeing to our most vulnerable communities at the federal level and what that impact will really actually result in.

And so I think that we can all agree that first and foremost our obligation is to the most vulnerable in this state, as well as the safety and security of the individuals that are either tourists, players and the districts that we represent.

So that is my interest first and foremost, and I want to be very transparent about that. I am more than committed to working with all of you to make sure that the LA Games are extremely successful because there is a significant amount of economic opportunity for the State of California, right.

From, you know, even some of the local cities that aren't necessarily going to be the host of a game, but the regional areas will have an increase in people going out to restaurants, people going to the entertainment shows, the zones there, the hotels, the tot that is going to be developed for the local cities and much more.

So I'm deeply interested in the success of, of all of the Games that we are going to host in the next couple of years and you know, again, want to prioritize the security efforts. Right.

And there has been commitments made in conversation with the Administration to really prioritize security for the, you know, I'm going to say again, I focused on the World Cup because that's my challenge as far as the roughly two and a half weeks that were flip flopping between the Bay Area and LA Games. Right.

So I, I just wanted to state that I want to thank the Chair and the Vice Chair on this effort as well as the Members that represent the district that is really going to see influx of individuals and much more. So thank you for your time.

Thank you, Senator. Senator Richardson. Then we'll go to Senator Valladares.

Well, I'm ready. Let's go. Let's go. We're ready. We're ready first of all, to build upon my colleague from Wayward. I represent the 35th Senate District, which includes Sofi, Inglewood, also includes Carson, where you have the Dignity Sports park and then down into San Pedro. So quite a few activities will be going on.

I will though say to the gentle Lady from wayward that in my district, I'll also have FIFA, I'll also have the naacp, I'll also have the super bowl and the Olympics and the Paralympics. So there's a reason why we call ourselves from La. That being said, and she's we're good twins. That's why we sit on opposite sides.

Just two things I'm hoping to hear more of today.

One, in terms of the revenue, because we're having such a tough budget year this year, next year, and leading up to these incredible events, it's going to be important to know not only the bottom line number you need 1.3 billion, but in what stages do you need it because we may not be able to deliver it all at once.

And I think some people talk about duplication, talk about whether all this is really needed. So I would say more details on the numbers, you know, what's going to be transferable from one event to the other, what's not, what do you need, you know, in 12 months? What do you need in 24 months?

And then the final thing is I'm getting a lot of people in my district who want to know how are they going to be able to participate from a business perspective? So I think understanding what will be some of the business opportunities and how will people be able to get involved?

So I don't know if you've thought about creating a list of the, you know, 10,000 things that are going to be needed to be done from the very minute of picking up trash to the very, you know, complicated whatever that might be.

But the sooner rather than later that we can begin to understand the business opportunities so that we can begin to engage the community in preparing themselves to be able to participate. Thank you very much for being here.

Thank you, Senator. From North LA County, we have Senator Valladares.

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. And I am most excitedly looking forward to this conversation, to hearing what is going on, what needs you have. I represent California's 23rd Senate district, which is I'm a lifelong Angeleno and my district starts off in Santa Clarita, home of Six Flags.

Magic Mountain, goes into the high desert area of Lancaster and Palmdale, home of the B1 bomber. I am particularly interested in to echo the sentiments of my colleagues from colleague from Long Beach.

What I'm hearing in my district is people want to know small business, micro business, want to know what their opportunities are and also what the opportunities are. This is more of a regional event, right. Los Angeles. I don't think people realize how large Los Angeles is geographically, even the density of the population.

So would love to have a better understanding of the regional approach that is being looked at and how it's going to impact kind of the outskirts of LA County and Southern California. And then lastly, I'm particularly interested in what the plan is.

Are we planning for the daily impact that this is going to have on Angelenos who may not be a part of the the Olympics, whether they're working or not working or traveling or.

I would love to know what the plan is, how we can be helpful to prepare my constituents who do commute into Los Angeles on a daily basis for work. A lot of my district are part of the essential workforce. They are people that can't work remotely. So what is the plan? How are we preparing for that?

And looking forward to the conversation.

Last but not least, our Senator Cortese. Well, I couldn't let San Jose be unrepresented, but I'll be brief and as you can hear people here.

And I really want to emphasize the Los Angeles delegation in terms of their commitment, working with them on issues large and small that I'm sure are going to be of great assistance and insight to all of you.

I had the experience a couple generations of Super Bowls Ago, Super Bowl 50 in the Bay Area, where I was involved with the organizing Committee there as President of our Board of Supervisors at the time, and really having to focus on the law enforcement side of things, which isn't the most glamorous thing on the to do list, but one of the most important things.

So I want to hear zooming out a little bit. The entire State of California and the entire nation to some degree is going to be in the global spotlight.

And I know all of us just want to make sure that we can do our part as elected officials representing the state, following the lead of our co chairs, our chair and Vice Chair, to make sure that we're making our effort to make things go off without a hitch.

I got to believe that's real high on your priority list.

And we want to put our best foot forward for the rest of the world. And I think all of us, including the rest of our caucus, the Republican caucus, all the legislators here in both houses, are going to be very, very interested in supporting that part of the mission. So, thank you very much.

Well, thank you, senators, appreciate it. So let's now, let's now hear from our panelists. We've got a wonderful group of panelists here that all sorts of different perspectives relating to the upcoming games. And yes, we are specifically focused on LA20 today, though there will be future discussions that engage with the World Cup.

But let's get started with Ryan Becker who's here from Visit California. He's the senior vice president for communications and strategy. Then we'll hear from our CEO from LA28, Reynold Hoover, Paul Kokorian from City of Los Angeles, and then Fisher Davenport from the county. So let's start with you, Mr. Becker.

Thank you, Chair Allen, and members of the committee. I appreciate the opportunity to talk about LA28 and the Paralympic Games, and what the challenges and risks are for California's tourism economy. I've prepared some remarks, obviously happy to answer any questions you have.

But drawing largely from our engagement with Paris and the tourism industry around the 2024 games, we have been in touch with them since before they hosted and hope to take a lot of their learnings into LA's hosting of the games.

So, before I dive in, I wanted to share just a little bit of background about Visit California's role. And to clarify, we're a nonprofit corporation that's funded by the tourism industry in the state, and we work in really close partnership with the governor's office of business and economic development, and positioning tourism in the travel economy as an economic development opportunity for the whole state. For 30 years, we've been funded by this self-imposed assessment.

It's modeled on an ag-commodity board. We're the only state in the nation to do it this way. And the good news and the benefit to California taxpayers is the funding for the industry is coming from the industry, not from California taxpayers. The assessment model powers the number one tourism economy in the United States.

And we are led by a board of directors of 37 individuals that from every tourism region in the state, there are 12 of them, and all segments of tourism industry as well. Our charter is to bring inbound visitation to the state. So our marketing programs are focused beyond California borders.

We're talking to the other 49 states, and we also have a footprint and operations in 13 international markets that collectively represent 85% of all inbound international travel to California. The sector is a cornerstone of California's economy, generates 12.6 billion dollars in state and local tax revenues, and supports, directly supports jobs for 1.2 million California workers.

We've seen some modest growth in the post-pandemic environment, but some economic and geopolitical headwinds have softened the outlook for the foreseeable future. And in fact, this year in 2025, we're forecasting a decline in overall visitation to the state for the first time since 2020.

International visitors are especially important and are critical to the health and vitality of California's tourism economy, especially in gateway cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco. In 2024, they spent 26.2 billion dollars here in California. And in fact, international travel is considered the state's largest export.

It's a service export as classified by the Department of Commerce, outpacing even agriculture's 22 or so billion dollars. Unfortunately, as I said, we're expecting to see a slide in visitation this year, and that will be no surprise to anybody, is driven by a drop in international visitation. We're forecasting a 9.3% slide in that international visitation.

Largely economic pressures. The strength of the U.S. dollar is a significant hurdle, makes it much more expensive for international travelers to come here. But clearly there's some shifts in sentiment abroad, along with concerns about safety, security, and overall ease of travel and access into the United States.

Some headlines about border detainments and aggressive enforcement action are certainly heightening concern and exacerbating some longer-standing issues we've had at the federal level, including long visa wait times, in some cases, upwards of 400 days to get an interview appointment with a Department of State official in some of our key markets.

Sentiment and security concerns aside, consumer spending power is the primary factor that influences where and how people travel.

And that strong dollar, as I mentioned, not only makes it more expensive for international travelers to come into the United States, it makes it much cheaper for U.S. residents to travel overseas, in some cases, 25% discount if you will, to go to some markets like Japan from just about five years ago.

As this global environment continues to shift, California's strong brand remains our greatest asset and positions us to carry us through this turbulence. In this three-year trajectory that we're heading into with the LA28 games, our job is to protect that California brand.

And our strong advertising metrics in those markets provide some proof of that enduring appeal of the brand. As I mentioned, we've been engaged in global efforts to promote California before, during, and after the games, again working closely with those partners in Paris. We need support and help.

The industry can't shoulder this opportunity and mitigate its risks alone, so strong partnerships at the state and local level are going to be essential. Let me dive a little bit into some of the metrics that we expect to see from LA28.

And again, drawing largely on what Paris experienced in 2024 and combined with some of our own research and studies in this space, we expect LA28 to reach over five billion global viewers. And as many of you have said, it's quite literally a postcard of California to the world.

Tremendous opportunity for us to showcase what California is all about, and the reality that those of us who are lucky enough to live and work here know every day, it's a tremendous place. The in-person events, of course, are going to command much of the focus from the tourism industry and hospitality providers on the ground.

But the broadcast reach should not be ignored as tremendous potential as well. Paris Olympics saw a record-breaking 23 and a half billion minutes of streamed coverage across NBCUniversal Media, which was the primary broadcast partner, and nearly 7,000 hours of coverage. This is certainly more than a sporting event; it's that moment to define how the world sees California as a place of inclusion, excellence, and ambition.

We are positioning it sort of our internal shorthand, is this isn't about the two weeks of the Games, this is about the two decades and beyond that we can capture and use as a glow effect for the benefit of all Californians.

So as I mentioned, our engagement with Paris tourism, as well as our partners at the Los Angeles Tourism and Convention Board, we've been studying this issue and taking lessons and implementing best practices as we March toward the LA28 games.

Some of these learnings are a little bit expected, and it's going to guide how we approach our planning over the next three years. In Paris, an estimated 11.3 million people attended the Games. Both the Olympic and Paralympic Games, notably, 66% of all attendees came without tickets.

They are drawn by the overall atmosphere and the city experience rather than the specific sporting events. Spectators, ticketed or not, didn't necessarily act like typical tourists. For example, the cultural icons around Paris that served as a backdrop to the game saw significant declines from their typical high-season summer traffic.

Visits to the Louvre were down 22%, down 29% at the Musée d'Orsay during that period of the games themselves. Surprisingly, 85% of Olympic attendees were French residents. 15% were international visitors. And for us, this underscores the need to maintain strong domestic and in-state marketing as well as regional transportation readiness as we prepare for the games.

For context, our typical annual visitation mix is pretty similar to that breakdown that Paris saw. About 80% of it is domestic, and about 20% is international. We expect those trends to hold through the LA28 games. Paris games also disrupted normal travel patterns in a phenomenon known as displacement.

Regular travelers, both domestic and international, might avoid the host region before and during the game, games, leading to unexpected drops in hotel occupancy and that cultural venue visitation that I mentioned. Hotels, our partners in Paris, said they began to see changes in booking patterns about six months before the games themselves.

For the three weeks before the Olympics, the hotel occupancy rate dropped between 11 and 20% over the same period the year prior.

However, hotel stays increased year over year after the Games in September and October, really reflecting that pent-up demand and probably some delayed trips from people who didn't want to participate or were concerned for whatever reason, crowding, cost, security, and other similar issues.

In our conversation with Paris partners, they learned that they should have done more proactive communication to alleviate some of those concerns that visitors had, so they could have mitigated some of that drop during the games themselves and prevented some unnecessary cancellations during that critical window.

We do expect that, generally speaking, travel patterns across the board are going to be tougher to predict and prepare for, largely due to shortened booking windows and last-minute travel. This is going to challenge staffing and inventory planning for many of our partners in the hotel, attraction, and restaurant spaces, especially in Paris.

Last-minute bookings, those are bookings made zero to four days in advance. They rose by 95% and bookings made one to three months in advance. That more typical window for domestic and short-haul travelers dropped by 20, about 25%. Interestingly, and this is the unevenness in.

Those last-minute, were those typically domestic tourists?

In Paris, yeah, a typical window in domestic and short-haul. So in Europe, that could be short haul from the rest of Europe, not necessarily just France. There was a significant increase in activity by travelers who planned far ahead. Bookings made four months to a year in advance, which is very long from a travel planning perspective, increased by 38%.

So a very unevenness to the travel planning and booking windows. Those increases or the shortening of booking windows, as well as an increase in short stays with a decline in some longer international visits, can also stress high turnover.

Hospitality operations, number of international visitor arrivals, air arrivals who stayed for just one night in Paris more than doubled 104% increase, two night stays surged by 89% and then those long-term visitors staying 22 nights or more dropped by 32%. Context here.

California's average international stay is just under 10 days, so we do expect to see perhaps some quicker visits. I will say as context here as well, there was some pricing challenges in Paris, especially in the accommodation space that we think we hypothesized drove some of the last-minute booking windows and the deferral of some of those trips.

Some other challenges that California businesses may face could include rising costs and supply chain constraints, certainly become more commonplace and can disproportionately affect small businesses that don't have the capital to withstand long-term business disruptions. Workforce and training gaps remain a persistent concern, particularly in service and hospitality sectors that are already facing labor shortages.

And then some uneven visitation patterns could overwhelm some certain neighborhoods while leaving others without meaningful benefit, especially those outside competition zones.

So, tourism leaders at the state and regional level are looking closely at that issue to shore up that visitor experience, provide that good on the ground experience experience and ensure that the benefit of the games are felt by the broader region and state as a whole.

So, Visit California's strategy moving forward, we are developing an Olympic marketing plan that's focused on three things.

First, mitigating that disruption and displacement by proactively communicating with travelers and businesses about what to expect and how to navigate the region throughout the games, maximizing the geographic spread of visitors across all of California's 12 tourism regions and leveraging the games for increased demand throughout 2028 and beyond and finally, positioning California as a top global destination during the Olympic spotlight and sustaining that momentum in the decades to come.

We're in the middle of a comprehensive three-year strategic plan right now that will be released in March 2026 as part of our fiscal year strategic framework. We are engaging our industry partners through many feedback sessions that are going to be essential to the success and implementation of the plan.

The discussions in collaboration with Paris, Los Angeles tourism, and Visit California will continue. Our next engagement with them is just a couple of weeks away in later July.

And then of course, as has been mentioned by several committee members, the World Cup in 2026 will serve as a trial run, and this will be essentially a full scale stress test for Olympic planning and the marketing and promotional efforts that will go around that.

I do want to keep in mind that the minimum price tag for Olympic sponsorship is 50 million and up, which puts it out of the reach of Visit California's direct sponsorship.

We're going to capitalize on our existing media investments along with a slate of public relations and own channel executions to secure those high-impact opportunities while staying as efficient as possible.

An example of that as we've already served as the handover sponsor from Paris to LA, which provided significant exposure during the closing ceremonies in Paris and captured four and a half million viewers and generated significant earned media coverage at a beachside event in Long Beach featuring celebrity LA28 ambassadors.

Capturing that broadcast exposure was an opportunity Paris wasn't able to tap into, and we were able to get in early on that initiative. And then we're also working as an extension of our professional meetings and events platform to develop a resource for national teams, athletic teams, for training opportunities.

Many teams come to the site of the Olympics months in advance to acclimate. And so there's an opportunity for California businesses and venues across the state to capitalize on some of that. So we are aggregating that information and brokering the relationships between those teams and our businesses.

So, in closing, we have a real opportunity here for the tourism industry, businesses, and employees in the travel ecosystem.

And that LA28 games can leave a lasting, positive legacy that will include enhanced travel infrastructure and accessibility improvements, a refreshed global image of California as the most welcoming destination in the nation, and stronger regional tourism economies boasting world class experiences that will feel the glow effect of the game for a year to come. Thank you very much. I'm happy to answer any questions.

We're going to do questions when everyone's done, so we can have a free-flowing discussion, but thank you, thank you very much. A lot of data that makes sense to me, but I hadn't really grappled with. So thank you, Ryan. Let's now go to General Hoover, who's the CEO of the LA Olympic Paralympic Games.

Thank you, Senator Allen. Thank you, Senator Durazo, for hosting today and bringing this together. I have a slide deck, and don't worry, I'm a bomb technician, so I generally know what I'm doing here. Let's see, hold on. What's the worst that can happen? Stand by.

Always cut the red wire.

It's the blue wire, actually, most of the time. Well, again, thank you so much for the opportunity to be here today. I am Reynold Hoover. I'm the CEO of LA28, the Los Angeles Olympic and Paralympic Organizing Committee.

And as you know, Senator, you know, I went to West Point, and so I measure things in terms of my cadet experience, and I just finished my plebe year, which was my first year last month.

And so as I look backwards over the last year, I can say without a doubt that your organizing committee in LA is strong and getting stronger every day.

And as we look forward 1,100 days from today to opening ceremonies on Monday will be actually three years exactly to the day of start of the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, we've made significant progress. And so what I hope to do today is just give you a very high-level. I've got just a few slides.

I'll give you a high-level of where we are as an organization and how we, you know, some of the impacts in the region. And my friend Paul Krekorian is going to show you much more detail on the economic impact and things the city is doing as a partner.

And the county will also talk about the things that we're doing with the county and partnering as we go. And I hope that the questions that you have will draw out some of the issues that you've raised in opening comment. I will say that the list of things to do is much longer than 10,000, I think.

Senator Richardson, you were the one that asked about the list of 10,000. It's a lot longer, actually, which keeps me up at night. So let me just start out by saying the organizing committee is a non-profit organization. We get no money from the Federal Government. We ask for no money from the state, and we don't get the local funding.

All of our revenue and all of our operating costs we have a 7.1 billion dollar budget, comes from sponsorship, comes from IOC flow through money, comes from broadcaster money that comes from broadcasting, comes from licensing sales, merchandising sales, and ticket sales.

So when we talk about funding and things like that, it is not money that comes to us. So money that the state brings to the table or money that the Federal Government we'll talk about in just a little bit that is brought to the table does not come to us.

It is for state and local, and our partners who are actually part of the delivery, whether it's at the county or at the state or at the city level. So we have a volunteer board of directors. Our Chairman, Casey Wasserman, serves without paying.

I told people he picked me out of a lineup because I wasn't looking for a job. I didn't know him, he didn't know me. And you know, I was quite a rookie and didn't know that there are actually 88 cities that make up all of Los Angeles.

I thought it was just LA, but part of my kind of, my plebe year, if you will, has been to go out and rebuild relationships in the community and to be, and to be as transparent as I can. We have met with community leaders in the community.

We've met with chambers of commerce throughout the community to talk about economic impacts. We've met with unions to talk about training opportunities and how we can train the workforce to prepare.

We continue to work with the city and the county over procurement, to how we make sure that we bring economic opportunities to small businesses, to micro businesses, so that the entire community lifts up. And I think Paul will talk a little bit about that. And I have a little bit of a slide there.

But part of what we've really tried to do in my first year has been that engagement at the community level. For me personally, but as well as for our organization, I have met with all of the members of the LA City Council in their districts.

So rather than going, you know, to city hall and sitting in an office, I've actually gone out to the community because it helps me, again, just learn the community and be a presence in the community.

It is my goal that people will look at LA28 as more than just an organizing committee, but as a civic organization that is really a part of the community that is trying to uplift our community as a whole, to uplift the State of California, and the nation. This truly is a home game.

And we haven't hosted an Olympics in the United States since 2002. The Winter Games in Salt Lake City, and then before that was the Summer Games in Atlanta in 1996. And we'll talk just a little bit about that as well. There we go. So, a few things, just by the numbers, very high level.

Senator Allen, you talked about several Super Bowls a day. We actually say it's seven Super Bowls a day simultaneously for 30 days, which is just unprecedented. This will be the largest Olympics ever and the first time. And also the largest Paralympics ever.

And the first time we've had Paralympics in Los Angeles. We will have over 15,000 athletes in attendance. This will be the first time that we will actually have more women Olympic athletes competing than men in the history of the game.

We've introduced five new sports to the Olympic program, so that baseball, softball, squash, cricket, lacrosse, and most importantly, a lot of people are very interested in flag football, and we're very excited about that. And on the Paralympic side, we are. We have the first OCOG to actually introduce a new Paralympic sport that will be paraclimbing.

And we are really proud of our Olympic program, which was just approved back in April by the IOC on that. I mentioned our 7.1 billion dollar budget that we are raising. We are well on our way. We just announced yesterday our eighth sponsorship with Uber, who will be our rideshare partner and on-demand delivery partner as well.

And the eight sponsors that we've announced this year outpaces all of what we did last year. We are well on track to hit our numbers at 2 billion dollars by the end of the year, just in sponsorship alone. So we feel very good about where we are on the revenue side of the business.

In terms of ticket sales, we have about four seasons of Dodger Stadium to sell in terms of tickets. So it's about maybe 13 million tickets to sell, and we will go out to public sale next summer. So our ticket plan was just approved back in April again by the IOC on that, and we feel very confident.

You know, people rally around Team USA, and this is a home games team that will shine a light not only on LA, but the city of the city itself, the region as well as the state and the nation.

And part of that is, and we'll talk about on the next slide here, but we will do a 50-state torch relay. It's never been done before. And we believe that that torch relay is the thread that's going to bind the nation to LA and California.

And it's a way that we are going to unify the world, and the world will see that we are LA strong and California is strong. Just a couple other things to just highlight here. We expect about an 18 billion dollar economic impact not only to the region, but nationwide. And these were based on a 2017 study.

We're working actually on a new economic study. We think that those numbers will increase because at the time the study was done in 2017, we didn't have some of the other venues identified. And we think there's going to be a greater economic impact that will include about 90,000 full-time equivalent jobs.

It will be about a 6 billion dollar labor income, and we think somewhere around 700 million dollars in tax revenue to the state and local communities.

And so there really is an incredible opportunity for both California as well as the City of LA and the surrounding, surrounding counties and the surrounding cities that are all part of it to actually shine. And we're super excited about that. A couple of things, as I mentioned, this really is the home games for America.

As I mentioned to you, our 50-state relay really is an important piece because that is that we found in Paris. They touched all of France with their torch relay, and the importance of that because it brought people together and it brought people, you know, to understand the power of the Olympics and the unifying thing.

People ask me, you know, "Why would a three-star general come out of retirement and get off the couch to come to do this and move and move the family from, you know, D.C. to LA?" And it is because there is no better way to capstone nearly 40 years in uniform than to come back and unite the world around sport at a time when we need it the most.

And not only unite the world, but unite the nation around sport. There is nothing like it. When you watch those Olympic and Paralympic athletes on the field of play, it gets in your heart. It really does. And we are so excited to bring that to California and to Los Angeles.

There is no other place in the world that can host the games of this size and this magnitude. When you think about 15 million people will come to the region than LA. The iconic venues. This is a no-build games, so our only build will be temporary builds and temporary facilities.

We will use existing iconic venues throughout the City of LA and the county, and it is going to be just amazing. So we're really excited. The soccer will, the soccer matches will be outside of the city and outside of the region.

Well, basically, we haven't decided on the cities yet, but it'll basically be about six cities for preliminary soccer matches, and then the finals will be at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. And then I talked about the economic impact. So let me just drive ahead.

There are four really lines of effort at the federal level that we're working with very closely with the administration on the security funding side. Again, we don't get any of that money, that all goes to state and local first responders. Nancy Ward is a great friend.

I've known her for 20 some odd years and so she's been great at CalOES, and the Secret Service is the lead federal agency in terms of security coordination. We were designated a national special security event in 2024. In June of 24, the Secret Service kicked off the planning for that.

But the funding still needs to be there. And we continue to advocate with the administration as well as on the hill for 100% reimbursement to our state and local partners who are providing security services for the games.

We're very pleased that in the president's bill, one billion dollars was allocated this year in this most recent bill to help us with that initial funding requirements for security. On the transportation side, we work very closely with Caltrans as well as LA Metro on our transportation requirements to support the games.

And we believe that transportation funding from the federal government will be forthcoming at some point in time, but we continue to advocate for that. Visas and consular affairs and consular operations is top of mind for all of us.

We're very pleased that the administration, even though they've put a travel ban out, that they have carved out specific exemptions for the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

And we have a very good relationship with the Department of State and both between us and USOPC, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, we're working very closely to make sure that all of the athletes and all of the people that are supporting the games and people that want to come and visit LA and visit the region will have the opportunity to, to do that.

And then finally with telecommunications, we work closely with the FCC, both on cyber, but as well on Spectrum management. So we'll actually end up pulling about 250,000 miles of cable to put in our own network that we will leave behind. And we're asking the federal government for some assistance because that is a legacy project.

At the state level, there are four lines of effort that we continue to work with your staffs on and with the legislature. We appreciate the governor's support on this and the legislature's support on a number of these issues. And then let me just go to the next because my time's getting short.

You never want to give a general a microphone, Senator. Just, it's an important safety tip.

Just wait for these politicians.

This, this lays out generally for you kind of the size and scope of the games. We reach from the basin all the way down to Trestles to Trestles beach.

And we have really tried our best to cluster into sports parks so that we don't really have one-offs that we don't have one-off venues because the cost and the complexity of that becomes very, gets very steep, very quickly. And so, to the maximum extent possible, we've tried to put sports parks together and group games together.

The next slide will show you again the Paralympic Games. We're very proud to say that this will be the first time in the history of the Olympics, the Paralympic movement, actually, that we will house all of the Paralympic athletes in one place. And so we're super excited about that.

I think the last slide here just really is how can you all get involved in your districts and your communities with your constituents? The first is there are a number of opportunities for fan fests, and those are opportunities to have big screen TVs and all kinds of other things that gets the community engaged around the Olympics.

And we can certainly provide additional help in trying to plan those and get those together. Our volunteer program, you know, when you went to Paris, the volunteers, to me, were the ones that made it. Besides the athletes and Paralympic athletes, the volunteers were the ones that made it. They were the first people you saw at the airport.

They were on every street corner. They were at every metro stop. They were at every venue. They were the entertainment between, I'll call it, you know, between events on the field of play. They were always happy. They came from all over the world.

If they didn't know the answer to a question, they would take you to the person that did.

They needed 43,000 volunteers in Paris. They had over 300,000 applicants per volunteers from across the world. One of the things, that spirit of volunteerism is just an amazing, powerful, uniting event and we want to bring that to la. And so we are actually starting our volunteer program early.

We will kick that off this summer about 18 months ahead of schedule from what the IOC would be asking for.

Because we, we want that spirit of volunteerism and we believe that we can take that base of volunteers and turn that into a viable workforce that we can then turn back to the community for again, a lasting legacy, economic benefit. And we're really excited about that.

The education program is training that we've been talking to some of the unions about, about how we can provide training opportunities today so that our volunteers and our workforce. And by the way, we'll probably need somewhere between 4,45,000 to 50,000 volunteers.

Our own headquarters will grow to about 4,000, a little over 4,000 full time employees that those people will have skills and jobs that we can transfer to the communities. And so we're working on ways to be able to do that. And then finally I mentioned the torch relays and I think that's another opportunity.

In addition to just the 50 state Olympic torch relay, there will be a subset relay that we will also do for the Paralympic Games as well. And so there are tremendous opportunities across the board for your communities to get engaged. I appreciate your time and welcome questions.

What's the timeline on the torch relays?

So the 50 state torch relay will probably start in April. It's about 100 days. And then the smaller, the smaller one.

Is 14 days for the Paralympics will. Be between the Olympics and the Paralympics and go through California. They will. That's great. Okay, great, thank you.

All right, we will. Or I can run the slides for you. There you go.

Okay, stand by. So, yeah, we're now going to go to Mr. Krekorian. And so Paul, who many of us remember was a Legislator here, of course went on to become council President in Los Angeles and is now the Executive Director of the Office of Major Events for the City of Los Angeles.

We welcome you back to the capital and I look forward to your presentation.

Thank you so much, Chair Allen and Senators, it's a great privilege to be with you all today. And I want to first of all express to you the greetings of our mayor and former Assembly speaker Karen Bass.

She's exceptionally excited that all of you have created this Committee and are digging into the issues that we're grappling with as we embark upon this journey together with the state towards the 2028.

I finished my term in the City Council in December and the following day began my responsibility as the head of the Office of Major Events, which Mayor Bass created because of the many challenges that we have in coordinating preparations for not only the Olympic Games, but an incredible array of major events that we have coming up.

And it's probably likely that this Committee will be considering some of these events as well. But as you can see, LA really has become the capital of major events. We'll have the games in 28, we'll have the World Cup in 2026.

We're right now doing the Club World Cup, we'll have the Super bowl in 2027, and we'll have an array of other major events like the NBA All Star Game, March Madness and other things.

And it's worth noting that in most of the country, most cities would consider any one of these events as a game changing opportunity, an incredible opportunity for economic benefit, for tourism, for uplifting their communities.

I don't think there has ever been a city that's taken on this many major events of this magnitude in such a short amount of time as what we have before us over the next three years. So because of that, Mayor Bass saw a need to create the Office of Major Events.

And our function with regard to the Games is to coordinate all city efforts relating to preparation. We're kind of the hub of the wheel. We have many departments, virtually all of the city departments, who are doing work relating to the Games. So we're the place where that all comes together and is coordinated.

And it's my job to make sure that it's happening on schedule and effectively. Our goal, of course, is to make sure that we have the most successful Olympic and Paralympic Games that we possibly can have.

But it's also part of our responsibility to ensure fiscal oversight both over the city's own expenditures as well as the expenditures of the organizing Committee.

Because of the financial responsibility that the city has as a host city and that the state has, as well as the backstop of financing on this, it's also our responsibility to maximize the economic benefit for the City of Los Angeles and to deliver more broadly meaningful and sustainable, long term legacy that benefits the people of Los Angeles.

Because as excited as we are about the Games and as excited as we are to be the host city, the reason that this city or any other city wants to host the Games is not just to be the host of the Games, it's to benefit the people of that region.

And so that is an incredibly important part of our mission. We are the host city. We are the city that has the most at stake. Of course, we are the only government entity, along with the state, that has an actual financial skin in the game in this, in terms of the outcome of the Olympics.

But the benefits of these Games will accrue around the region, throughout our state, and even in the rest of the country. And so while we're the host city, you can see that there are many other cities in our region and elsewhere that will be hosting venues, so they will directly benefit from participation in the Games.

Beyond that, there will be the ancillary benefits of expanded tourism and exposure of California to the rest of the world that whether a city is a venue city or not, will find benefits overall. And General Hoover touched upon some of these points, but it bears reiterating.

The magnitude of the Olympic and Paralympic Games is really difficult to get your arms around. For those of us who remember, for example, the 1984 Games, this is an entirely different scale of event.

It will be the largest Olympic Games, it will be the largest Paralympic Games in history, and in fact, it will be the largest gathering of people in peacetime for anything in history. So that is the size of the job we have before us. But the benefits include $18 billion in economic output.

The OCOG has a budget of $7.1 billion. Not 7.1, but $7.1 billion. And they will spend about 6.8, I think, of that. There's a contingency Fund built into that budget as well. But well beyond their expenditures is all of the multiplier effect that comes from those expenditures. It's all of the ancillary events that we'll be having.

All of those things will create tremendous economic output. Put for all of Southern California. $700 million in state and local taxes, $1.6 billion in federal taxes. This is the kind of thing that can really be a game changer, especially when we, you know, are also mindful of maximizing opportunities for jobs creation, for revenue generation and so forth.

Now, one of the things that Chair Allen had asked us to talk a little bit about was what kind of coordination of preparation is being done. And so I just want to cover a few of the many that are going on. First of all, as General Hoover mentioned, the 28 games were designated a National Special Security Event.

We got that NSSE declaration earlier than any other event since President Clinton created the concept of the nsse. What that means is the Secret Service organizes preparation around public safety across many different entities.

And in fact, among the Members of the Executive Steering Committee of the NSSE are in addition to the Secret Service, FEMA, LAPD, Louisiana Sheriff's Department, the FBI, the chp, the Coast Guard, County Office of Emergency Management, Cities Office of Emergency Management, the Fire Department and many others, all working together and coordinating.

They have, I think, two dozen different subcommittees that deal with everything from critical infrastructure protection, how to deal with civil disturbances, crisis management, dignitary and VIP protection, and so forth. So that process has been underway for already now for over a year.

And then similarly with regard to transportation, because the transportation demands are regional, not just within the host city. Almost five years ago, the Games Mobility Executives was created and that includes representation from Metro, the City of Los Angeles, Caltrans, Metrolink, LA 28, as well as Skag.

And they have again many subcommittees that are dealing with things like the Games Enhanced Transit system. And the reason that we have to have what we call the GETs is because we have almost a million passengers who ride the Metro system every single day right now. And the vast majority of them are transit dependent.

So when you add to that all of the people that will be coming to town that previous speakers have mentioned, it's imperative to have an enhanced transit system. And that's going to mean a significant infusion of buses that will be leased from agencies across the country together with their drivers, their mechanics and otherwise.

So that's the GETS that has to be planned. There is a requirement of a Games route network which is going to include dedicated lanes and streets that LA 28 athletes, officials and other Games participants are going to need to ensure timely arrival. So that's going to be something that we have to plan.

And it will also dramatically impact everyone in Los Angeles because when you have certain areas that are set aside for that purpose, it's going to have a ripple effect. So these are some of the things that are being coordinated and planned through the GME process because all of these agencies have some stake in it.

In addition, there's a Games Energy Council, there's a Games Water Council, and then there are all of the three LA28 working groups who are working on legacy recommendations around community, business and procurement, local hire and workforce development, and sustainability. So those are some of the. And those have all been underway for some time now.

So when we talk about legacy, and I guess I should have said this at the outset, the organizing Committee is responsible for putting on the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Our office is responsible for making sure that the city is prepared for that that we mitigate the potential outcome, negative outcomes that can come from that, and we maximize the positive outcomes and in maximizing the positive outcomes.

Mayor Bass vision for the legacy of these Games includes the community, business and procurement opportunities that many of you have mentioned and that General Hoover mentioned. They are tremendous and they are one of the principal driving reasons that we bid on these Games in the first place. Likewise, workforce development and local hire.

It is not something that we would want. We would not undertake the risks and the challenges of hosting the Olympic Games if we were not confident that this was going to be an event that benefited the working people and the small businesses of the City of Los Angeles.

There are tremendous opportunities for long term legacy in improving streets and transit, creating greater accessibility, creating greater community activism and engagement. The organizing Committee will probably need 45 or 50,000 volunteers. In addition to that, the city will probably need its own volunteer force of 15 to 20,000 people. Paris had 13,000. Their metro system had another volunteer program.

So when you take all that together and you have 75,000 people who raise their hands and say, I want to do something good for my community, it's imperative that we harness that energy and benefit from it for years after the Games as well by getting those people to continue to be engaged.

There's the Cultural Olympiad, which is the responsibility of the organizing Committee. But the City of Los Angeles and the county will be deeply engaged in making sure that we have an enriching cultural opportunity that really shows off the full diversity of the city and County of Los Angeles to the rest of the world and youth sports.

I just want to touch upon that one briefly because it's a unique aspect of this Games that the IOC has provided advance funding to the City of Los Angeles to support youth sports programming in our parks.

So we have today young people who are benefiting from some of that funding that the IOC has already provided through our Play LA program. So that allows subsidized sports programming for participants in Olympic and Paralympic sports in our parks. That's affordable then to everybody in Los Angeles.

And by the time the Games come to Los Angeles, we will have sponsored a million participation. Sorry, a million subsidized participations by young people in Los Angeles. That's off. Yeah, Transportation. I served on the Metro board for 11 years before I left office.

And throughout that time almost, we've been focusing on major transportation investments for Southern California that the Olympic and Paralympic Games have been a driving force for completion.

None of these are projects that are being built for the Games, but the Games are creating A sense of urgency and focus that's allowing us to deliver them more quickly than probably would have happened. So we've already opened the Regional Connector, we've already opened the LAX Metro long awaited transit center connection.

And you see some of the other major projects that will affect the entire region that will be open in time for the 28 games. And there are more. Mirabas has emphasized that this must be a Games for all. This cannot be a big global event for the wealthy and the elite.

This is something that we expect and will deliver that will benefit every community in our region and certainly every corner of Los Angeles. We will have the benefit of the arts and culture and historical assets and tourist assets of every neighborhood in Los Angeles.

We will have community celebrations throughout the city so that people can participate in fan activations and otherwise. Youth sports. I already mentioned benefiting young people in every park in the city. Workforce development, community business.

I mentioned as much as Los Angeles wants to get as much of the economic activity of these events within the City of Los Angeles, we are going to be very aggressive about doing that, but it will certainly benefit the entire region and indeed the entire State of California. And then accessibility.

This is the first time Los Angeles will be hosting the Paralympic Games. And it's very important to us that the Paralympic Games and the Olympic Games are treated with equal respect and dignity, and they both have an identical role for us.

But even if we weren't hosting the Paralympic Games, the accessibility demands of all of these major events are such that it really provides us an opportunity to change hearts and minds, to inform people about the need for greater accessibility in our public infrastructure.

And we intend to be able to use this as an opportunity to deliver very meaningful change in that area.

And I want to just close with this because we already heard it in some of the opening comments that some of you made, and you correctly note the challenges that the state is facing in its budget, certainly the challenges that we're facing in the city's budget.

I spent 11 years as the Budget Chair in the City Council and I was here in the Assembly during the Great Recession. So I'm very well attuned to how painful it is to try to achieve governmental goals at times of budgetary challenge. I get that. But I want to remind us all of this.

This is the third time that Los Angeles will be hosting the Olympics in 1932. At this point in the preparation, we were in the middle of the Great Depression. There were soup lines stretching down Broadway where people didn't have enough to eat. The greatest economic catastrophe in world history.

We were in the middle of it and Los Angeles raised its hand and said, we'll host the Olympic Games. And it turned a profit and it put LA on the international stage, really for the first time in 1984.

At this point in preparation, three years out from the 84 games, we were in the middle of the worst recession since World War II. We had 10% unemployment. And it was in the immediate aftermath of the boycotted 1980 Moscow Games that could have led to the end of the Olympic movement.

And again, LA raised its hand and said, we'll save the Olympics. And we did. And we produced the most successful Olympic Games in history. Games that were so profitable that to this day, 40 years later, young people in Los Angeles are still benefiting from the surplus that that game's produced through the LA84 Foundation.

So I have no doubt that whatever challenges that we're facing right now, the 2028 games similarly will be the greatest Olympics. It'll be a game changing moment for this state and for our country. And LA is very proud to be the host city that will help deliver all of that. So thank you all very much.

Thank you. All right. Really, really do appreciate all those insights and it's good to remember. I was just looking it up. I guess they got the bid in early 32 for summer of 32, which is really very different than today. Yeah, but if they could do it, we could can do it too.

All right, so now we're going to go to last but not least, our wonderful CEO from the county, Ms. Davenport.

Thank you. Good morning, Chair Allen. Good morning, Vice Chair Durazo and Members of this body. Greetings on behalf of our County Board of Supervisors, Fesia Davenport, Chief Executive Officer. I'm going to try not to repeat a lot of the information that has been provided previously. I do think it's worth noting in the. Mr. Krekorian touched on this.

While the county is not the official host or a financial guarantor of the Games, we will play a significant, critical and essential role to support the rollout of the Games, not just in the City of Los Angeles, but in the entire region.

We know that we have a significant unincorporated area population that will also be looking to participate and show up in the Games in some way. And we know that the county is specifically responsible for delivering core services both before, during and after the Games.

We know that the scale and the visibility of the Olympics will test the capacity of our regional systems. And it's essential that LA County's role is Understood that it's resourced and coordinated with all our relevant partners. Let me just talk briefly about some of our anticipated county responsibilities. We see those falling in three major areas.

One is safety along the lines of law enforcement and first responders. Then there is the public health part of that, as well as what we would call the social aspect for economic development, community engagement and the like.

We know that our responsibilities will touch nearly every aspect of public service, including the areas that I've mentioned previously thus far as I'm aware, and it looks like that list is growing. We know that there are three county owned facilities that have been selected as venues.

Whittier Narrows Recreation Area for shotgun events, the LA County Fairplex in Pomona for cricket, and the Gloria Molina grand park as a live site for public viewing and cultural programming. Even though these are the only official county venues right now, we know that the gains will have a much broader impact and someone alluded to that earlier.

We know that teams will need training facilities and things of that nature. We know, for example, areas like Inglewood and Carson, where the county provides both fire and sheriff services, are expected to see significant activity around SoFi Stadium and Dignity Health Style Sports Park. Just a bottom line number.

During the last super bowl, the LA County Sheriff's Department deployed 350 deputies just to support that event. And so if we're talking about seven Super Bowls a day for 30 days consecutive, we know that that will be a tremendous lift on behalf of the Sheriff's Department.

And then we also know that even in areas that are not directly hosting events, we know that they will also feel ripple effects, some positive, some that we hope to mitigate in terms of transportation and congestion to the increase. And we know that there will also be increased needs related to emergency management preparation.

It's the thing that we all know that we have to do, but we don't often talk about think in a very direct manner. So we are actively planning for these increased demands and anticipate ongoing coordination with LA 28, the City of Los Angeles as well as Metro.

Let me talk a little bit about what we see as our largest risks and gaps. I think we are all at the moment experiencing a season of budgetary austerity at the state level, at the city level, certainly at the county level, driven by a number of factors, many of which are not that are beyond our control.

What we also know is what folks have alluded to earlier is that if we do not have a stable and reliable funding source to start the planning today, we place ourselves at risk of constraining our ability to pull off an elective, an effective Olympics event and the Paralympics event for tomorrow.

Many of our neighborhoods that are closest to major venues are lower income or have been historically under resourced. And so we know that without early and intentional planning, these residents could face displacement, disruption or miss out on the benefits of the Games are supposed to bring.

One of the things that I would like to touch on is the equity and the community impact. You know, we know that LA is LA and we, you know, we have all figured out a way to manage our LA traffic and our congestion and our freeways.

One of the things that we have been talking about internally in the county is the county has 188 parks, we have six regional parks. Over 80% of LA County residents lives within 30 to 40 minutes of a regional park.

And so one of the things that we are looking at now is how can we leverage the parks to expand the network of folks that could have the experience that may not be able to make it to one of the actual venues.

And so we are looking at that now and we have a map of every county owned park, every facility within that park, the types of amenities that the parks could offer, and are having serious discussions of how can we leverage that network to bring the Olympics to those who may not be able to go to the Olympics.

Literally, whether it's taking transportation or driving, or even if they happen to live in a venue. And so that's one of the things that we are looking at in terms of our equity and community impact.

How can we bring the Olympics to others if for some reason they choose to or they are unable to go to the Olympics? We realize that this will be an added pressure on county services.

And so some of the needs that we have identified is, excuse me, we are working to develop a New County wide multi agency coordination center. I think that's just a euphemism for Office of Emergency Management. We have been working on developing a new Office of Emergency Management Center for many years.

It requires a seismic retrofit and other very expensive time consuming capital projects. With the acquisition recently of the gas company tower downtown Los Angeles, we have basically a canvas upon which we can paint and identify what a new State of the art multi agency space might look like.

We are also looking at additional staffing for increased 911 calls, field enforcement inspections, transit safety and special operations. And let me talk about the inspections. Public health will play a very important role in the Olympics. And that's not limited to the things that we know that they traditionally do like inspect street vendors and their services.

We also know that they actually also have a security responsibility and so they will have to staff up. They will have to increase capacity, capacity to do testing, testing of the air for toxicity that helps them prepare for mass events.

Not that we are planning to have one, but we know that we have to prepare to have that capacity and we call that in the county our environmental health enforcement.

And then finally, I think one of the other things I like to call out is our specialized training and possibly equipment for disaster response to essentially better position us and better prepare us to be able to respond and work with our partners in responding to any type of untoward event that could happen on such a large stage.

And so, as my other partners have demonstrated and discussed, we are also mindful of the state's budgetary situation. We also are seeking financial support to help us be a good partner and to be able to double down not only on what our existing pre existing obligations are, but also how can we leverage our county network?

How can we bring the games to others who may not be able to go to the games, including those who live in unincorporated areas? I think the rest of my comments, they have already been stated, so I will not repeat them. And with that I am happy to answer any questions you may have.

Great.

All right, thank you. I think that our chair stepped out for a minute here, but we will start with Senator Rubio and thank you all again for your presentations.

Yes, thank you so much for all this information. It's a lot. So, you know, I can feel we're ready, we're excited, but I really want to tackle a couple issues that are pending in the back of my mind. So let me just start a little bit with the last presenter.

So I think you hit on a lot of the issues that I wanted to discuss and that is how you're really analyzing Louisiana, L.A. County as these. I'm just going to say deserts. What we have these.

I'm a teacher, so I'll say students a lot, but you know, where we have our students who very seldomly have access to these types of opportunities. So I'm really excited that you're really trying to pinpoint where the parks are and where are the opportunities. I still think we have to go further than that.

And I'm just wondering if we're exploring it in a different way. What I'm hearing is trying to figure out how we get these kids to show up to the parks and be part of the experience. But I have to tell you that this is me being, I don't know how old I was 1984.

I live in downtown Los Angeles, right next to the Coliseum, right where the gains were happening. And I just remember being young, low income and wanting to be part of the process.

But I remember my experience of 1984 sitting in my window watching the Coliseum through my window because I could see it and watching this man fly over with his pack and I think he landed on the Coliseum. And so this is me just looking at the world from the outside, looking in. And that made me very sad.

And as I'm hearing it, it makes me sad now because we can try and get all our kids to participate from the outside, but how do we get them in the inside, be part of the actual sports that happen inside.

And so know, again, I'm thinking in ways that we can be innovative, you know, perhaps creating a foundation where we're, where we're offering. You know, I think I heard the number of tickets, 13 million tickets that you have to sell. How do we provide that opportunity to low income communities?

Well, perhaps we create a pool of tickets that we can actually give to these, you know, YMCAs or these community centers where these students can actually get inside and not just always be watching from the outside.

Because if we're talking about really making them part of the process, leveraging what we have, the funding that we're going to be bringing in to me, that's how we make the difference. You know, not continuing to figure out how we have them outside watching in. Right.

But how do we get them inside so they can also come back with the experience? And that's my experience as a little girl standing in my window watching the Coliseum, because I could see it from my window.

And to this day, I remember that was the most memorable piece that I took away because I could see the man landing on the coliseum from my window. And so I need to fix that. I want to fix that for our kids that can't afford it. And it's great.

Everything you said, I think, hits everything that I was saying in my. In my own thoughts, in my own mind, what I've been grappling with. How do we get this experience to be real for them? And what you just shared.

Okay, I understand that we're trying to figure out how we bring them to the parks and be part of the collective experience. Experience. But we must do more. So. And I'll let you answer so I can ask my questions, and then I'll let you all three answer. So that's important to me.

Let's get them inside and not just watching from the outside. The other question that I have, And I think, Mr. Kakorian, I think you did it. You were the one that explained that you've met with everyone in everyone's district. I think you said you met with everyone. zero, I think it was you. Sorry.

The bomb dismantled her here. But you said that you've done a great job of meeting with every Council Member, going to their communities, so you get to really get engaged and see what each community looks like. Well, I represent the San Garo Valley, Pomona, Fairplex, and I know that you're going to be having some events there.

I saw Pomona, Arcadia, Salamani, some of the areas that I represent. But I often also have to fight with this narrative. Right. We are LA County, but we're not LA.

So when we think of council Members going to their districts to understand their demographics and their area, I would like to know in a more nuanced way, how are we reaching out to the council members in these outside communities, bringing them to the table, having dialogues with them, and how are we addressing their concerns?

I hear a lot of just, you know, conversation, how some of them don't know what's happening, they don't know what's going on, and they've asked me how do we do this? How do we come to the table and be part of a collaborative effort? And I'm, you know, I'm not there to tell them how to do this.

That's why I wanted to come to you and say how do we engage them? Not necessarily just Los Angeles County Council members, but those that are being also engaged for their facilities, like the Pomona Fairplex Salamani is also I represent and I see that you have them included here in Arcadia.

I know that the horse track there is going to be engaged. So how do we get them at the table? How do we get you visiting their communities as well? How do we take that more approach being in those communities, trying to understand how do we expand the benefits to everyone? That's not Los Angeles.

You know, it's very different. Lastly, I will say this and I'm having right after this, actually I have to exit at 1:00 o'clock. I'm having Select Committee on Minority Procurement Opportunities for Small Businesses because I'm already hearing how they're struggling.

In fact, you know, when we started the Select Committee was for that particular reason because we know that the Olympics are coming. We know that we're starting five years ago, four years ago, and now we're going to be at three year mark on Monday. Right.

And they're still, they want to get ahead of the line, but they're already running into roadblocks. So how do we help them, you know, be part of the process? I'm not saying they're not, but they're finding themselves being part of the process and then being excluded. So how do we diversify those procurement opportunities?

I just want to learn. So I hope it doesn't sound accusatory, but I'm just going based on what I'm hearing. And so I'll turn it over to you. So I hope you don't mind that I'm a little direct, but I really want to know.

Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to clarify. And I will also defer to Mr. Krikorian. I think it's important to understand our efforts in the county are designed to amplify what the city is doing. We do it regularly.

When the Dodgers has a have a baseball game and they win, we will have the equivalent of fan festival at our county parks. When there's a basketball game, not everybody is able to make it to the basketball venue. We will have the equivalent of fan fest at our local parks run by county staff.

The programming is provided by the county. The swag, for lack of a better word is also provided by the county. So it is not our intent to figure out a way to allow people not to have access to. And I think I'm sure Mr. Krekorian will talk about the plan, about ticket prices, et cetera.

What we want to do is to amplify the efforts that are already underway. And so it's not intended to say, you know, you cannot attend there, and so come here, we're saying if, for whatever reason, you do not attend. We also want to provide fan fest opportunities at many of our parks.

And then I'll turn it over to Mr. Krikorian regarding access and tickets.

Thank you very much, Senator, for those really important points. Your first point with regard to the availability of ticketing opportunities for all, as I mentioned, a Games for all has become the vision that we've set out that Mayor Bass wants to make sure is realized.

And in 1984, the organizing Committee worked closely with LAUSD to ensure that tickets were made available to students in our schools and so forth. And General Hoover will talk a little bit about the actual ticketing strategy that the organizing Committee has that encompasses affordability aspects to it. But in addition to that, there are other possibilities.

In Paris, there was what they called a social ticketing program. So the city actually invested 2 million euros to buy tickets to distribute through social organizations, through schools and otherwise. And we have created in Los Angeles, in Mayor Bass office, a new Office of Strategic Partnership to try to harness philanthropic support.

And this is the sort of thing that philanthropy could play a very important role in. In addition, in Paris, and I'm not sure if we will adopt exactly the model through LA28 or through the city, but the volunteer program included a ticket to an event for every volunteer.

So as Ms. Troover mentioned, we had volunteers from every stripe, every part of Paris and France and beyond, and everybody got a ticket as just a thank you for their service as well, to actually go to events.

So in addition to the very robust fantasy activation outside of venues that we'll be having, there will be those ticketing opportunities as well for participation in the actual events with regard to other cities outside of the City of Los Angeles. Very much respect and appreciate that.

And the county has already convened all of the cities to have kind of a dialogue about what's going, what the needs will be and opportunities will be for all of them going forward.

In addition, Mayor Bass invited to her home, the mayors of all 88 cities of Los Angeles County so that we could have this kind of a discussion. And we made similar presentations to them at that time. And we'll continue to have that kind of dialogue because as I mentioned, we are the host city.

But the benefits, and to an extent, some of the burdens will really fall on the entire, will accrue to the entire region. And then lastly, on procurement, even before Los Angeles bid for these Games, this was one of my personal, most important priorities when I was a Member of the council.

And it is absolutely a central part of Mayor Bass vision for the legacy of these Games to ensure that we have the broadest possible participation in procurement, both from LA28 directly, but also all of the other ancillary opportunities that we're going to have.

So, among other things, in Los Angeles, we created something called RAMP LA, the Regional Alliance Marketplace for Procurement. And this is an opportunity for businesses small and large to be able to register on the website, to be able to be informed about every RFP and every other opportunity that LA28 issues will go through. Ramp LA.

So there's a centralized place that they have access to it. The LA Chamber of Commerce has created something called get in the Game.

And this is an opportunity for small businesses to have identify business mentorship, to have on demand education about certification processes and financing opportunities, procurement opportunities, all of the sorts of things they need to be contract ready. They can get through get in the Game. And it's really a great system that was created by the local LA Chamber.

And then lastly, building on the London Olympic experience, which had great success in local procurement, they had something called Compete for London. And we, working with USC, created Compete for LA.

And so this is a website where local businesses can register so that when we have prime contractors, for example, who very often say, as you well know, in procurement, prime contractors say, well, we were, we really tried to meet those numbers, but we just couldn't find anybody ready to do the work.

We didn't know where we could get local businesses who could meet our requirements. Well, now there's no excuse because we have thousands of businesses registered at Compete for LA that will be able to provide those services and make sure that as much of the expenditure as possible stays here at home.

Senator, thank you for your questions and I'll just do the cleanup here. First of all, you may be pleased to know that Rocketman is still alive and well.

He lives in Buffalo, he's in his 80s, and I have actually been in touch with his daughter who has a lot of his memorabilia which was in a chest somewhere in St. Louis. And so we've captured all of that to be curated in the US Olympic and Paralympic Museum in Colorado Springs.

And so he still loves to talk about his experience flying across the Coliseum. So just that aside, and if you.

Ever talk to him, just let him know, that's the memory for me, the only memory that I. It is a fact 40 years later, that's my memory.

I will let them know. So, just a couple other things. So let me just. I talked about ticketing, and let me just say we have a community ticketing program. There will be affordable tickets available for everyone that wants to come to the Games.

The philanthropy part Paul talked about is in planning so that we can have blocks of tickets available. But I think more to your question was, how do we get kids who are.

Get them who are on the outside looking in to get excited about the Games today so that they'll want to come to the Games wherever they are across the region, and how do we get them excited about that? And there's a couple of things I want to point out.

First of all, we Talked about Play LA, the Play LA program, $160 million that we've committed to the City of LA so that every kid can participate in Olympic sports and sports at under $10, including kids with accessibility. The success of that program is Ariana Middleton. She was a Paralympic.

She was a Paralympic athlete in Paris who got a bronze medal, a silver medal in shot put. She was in the Play LA program. And so we think that there is a great legacy there just in terms of getting kids excited and moving and thinking about sports again. Right.

So that's why the other is Worldwide Olympic Day on 23 June, all across the region, we hosted kids and talked about the Olympics. We had little Olympic events going on across the region and across the world, really, to talk about and get people excited and moving again about sports.

The other piece is we have an education program that we haven't yet launched, which will include our Olympic and Paralympic athletes and others who will go out into the community and out to schools to educate kids about how great the Olympics are and the value that they bring and the values of the Olympics and the unifying effects.

So that's the education part about getting kids excited to come. And then we've got a ticketing program that I think will meet the needs that you're looking for so that kids can now be on the inside and see the Games.

Thank you. And I know there was a lot of questions and I'm, like I said, excuse myself, because I have to go to that other Committee, but I just have to Share with you. I was Belmont High School, which, you know, it's like, like right next door, almost in proximity, I would say.

And you know, in all the leadership groups where I should have known or been engaged and I'm hearing you say that there was opportunities back in the day and I mean, it didn't go get more low income than Belmont High School at the time. Right. And so I missed that opportunity.

So I'm just hoping that our students and our kids don't miss that opportunity. But all of you answered, you know, thank you so much. I think I got a lot of information.

But I would just say to Mr. Kakorian, after my Select Committee on procurement for minority businesses, can I set up a meeting so that I can share how important it is for us to be at the table? And everything you shared with me, I'm going to make sure to take it back.

But I really would like more of a personal connection so we can figure this out in a little bit.

I would love it. I would love it if.

Yeah, I know you have to run, but let me just say I, I'm sorry that you have constituents who feel like they've been excluded from the procurement process. Let me just say that we haven't started our procurement process really. So it will start in 26. We've had these conversations with the city because it's a no build games.

We don't really know what we're buying. We can tell you broad categories which we've shared with the city and others. But it's coming, right? And so please, I'm happy to meet as well and our team is happy to meet and talk about that. But, but our procurement really will start in earnest in 26.

And we really won't know until we've got our venue design books of all of our venues, which we just finalized the venue master plan. Like what are the things that we're really going to need to buy and how we can empower the communities. So we'd like to meet with you as well.

Thank you so much.

And I would just say thank you.

Vice Chair, for allowing me these questions.

Just to follow up on that. Right now, the critical thing is for those businesses to be contract ready and to be visible.

So that's why those resources are so important right now, even before procurement opportunities become available, for them to be prepared to seize the moment when it comes, you know, have their certifications in place, have their financial backing in place and all of that. And that's what these tools will help them to do.

Thank you. Just for me to clarify, so what is the ticketing program for the kids? I mean, are they setting aside tickets explicitly?

So, Senator, there's a couple of things. So on the philanthropy side, we. And we haven't got all the details to it yet, but what we would like to do is find some philanthropic donors who will buy blocks of tickets that we can give for free.

And then there will also be ticketing available at every event, at every venue. That will be like $28. So there will be accessible tickets available to people that want to come to the Games, either through a philanthropic program or buying tickets at a price that, you know, folks. We believe folks can.

And how does it.

I mean, is there sort of dynamic? I mean, do you guys have, like a TKTS thing? We have a ticketing program that was approved by the IOC back in April, and we're happy to share that with you. And can people.

Would there. Do people buy. Is there like a pass that you can buy events or. I mean, how does this. Typically, I've never been in Olympics before.

So, yeah, you could buy blocks of tickets, you can buy hospitality. We'd love for you to buy hospitality. But there. Yes, typically you're buying tickets for individual events. Do you want to talk about that? But it's. It is. You can buy individual tickets, you can buy blocks of tickets, you can buy hospitality with tickets.

There will be a number of different ways. There's not like a pass that people buy. I don't know at the moment. That's a. Okay, you're well into my. Well of ignorance on that side of it. But we can come back and give you a deeper briefing on.

Let me turn it to the Vice Chair. He's got some questions.

Thank you all. Extraordinary. It could be because of a lack of information, still getting out there to our communities. And then, you know, things get put out there that aren't as positive as. As we'd like them to be. Are there?

And what are areas in preparation for the Olympics and the Paralympics that you feel still need some extra work or need work or aren't exactly where you would want them to be, whatever that might be? Of course, there's the big ones, the transportation. There's the big ones, the security and public safety. There's those.

But if you could get us a sense of, okay, we're doing great, moving along our time frame. Here's one that needs extra work, or this one needs extra work, or we do something to give us a better idea. I imagine things aren't 100% perfect. Right now.

But give us a sense and part of that is to know what each of us in our respective ways can be helpful because we want the Olympics and Paralympics to be successful. So how can we leads to that?

Senator, I think from where I sit I would say there's a couple of things.

One is on the and I know you all have been working on it but, but in terms of permitting and streamlining of permitting will be beneficial to us and will actually help us reduce risk and actually be a bit of a cost savings as we think about having to build temporary venues on some state owned property.

Trestles for example is one of them that comes to mind and other locations Long beach so I think the streamlining of permitting is one that comes to mind and the other is on the transportation side. The Games route network is over 350 miles of basically express lanes.

And I know you all have been working on giving us the authority well not us, but giving state law enforcement and community law enforcement the authority to help enforce that. Paul talked about the planning of the GET system, the Games enhanced transportation system.

I think those are areas that those two things, the transportation piece and permitting are the ones that come to top of mind for me.

Yeah, I agree with that. From the city's perspective of preparation, probably the right of way improvements that we're going to have to invest in. When you have millions of people arriving in our city, especially concentrated around the venue clusters around Exposition Park, downtown, the Sepulveda Basin and other venue locations as well.

But particularly in those areas, we must invest in making sure that those routes of access are fully accessible to all that they aren't going to be the basis for future city liability because of defects in the streets or the sidewalks that we have adequate shade, bathroom facilities, water facilities, those are the end first last mile mobility options as well.

All of those things are consistent with frequently stated state policy. And there are things that we have to do particularly in those areas.

We need to be doing those things citywide of course, but where we have this crush of people coming in, that's really where we need to focus our attention on planning and getting that work done now, not in 2028, but right now. And so that that work is underway from a planning perspective.

But you know, we're resource constrained like everyone else and so getting that work done quickly with the kinds of regulatory and permitting reform that General Hoover just described.

We're doing that at the local level as well by trying to through Executive directives from the mayor and also from legislative changes through the Council, we're trying to deregulate our own process so that we can get some of that stuff done more quickly. But we are also resource constrained in getting it done as well.

And that that causes me concern about getting that done and that's why our partnership with all of you is going to be so important.

Thank you. Senator Smallwood.

Thank you and really appreciate the thorough sort of early mini deep dive into this topic.

There are so many questions and I know we will have more and more opportunities to engage, but there I wanted to get a sense of from the Energy and Water Councils to the gets sort of table to the all of the various tables where we have important leaders and agencies trying to figure all of these pieces out.

I'm curious, how do communities participate in some of the planning? My sense is we're a nation state, but I feel like sometimes LA is actually the size of Portugal. So we're in some ways we're the nation city with so many populations with real diverse needs.

And I'm just curious how are those communities helping to inform some of the planning? So we think about Microsoft businesses and what they need. It will be very different, you know, from what TikTok, which is based in my district, will need or an Amazon or, you know, that's based in my district.

So I'm just curious how, how are we engaging? Whether it's the fan zones and the park zones, whether it's the small business procurement and the scale of that.

Just how, what, what is the sort of the echo chamber and the information sort of cycle so that we are getting informed and we're doing things that actually are relevant that will help us not have to backtrack once we press go on implementation.

So we've sort of had a sense of folks to interrogate it a little bit to make sure that we are moving forward. So that's just one question I have in terms of, you know, what is, is sort of the infrastructure for that and what does that look like?

The other question, you know, Expo Park is in my district. I love the Coliseum, I love the pool at the Coliseum, the kids that are still swimming in the 84 Olympic pool and where my kids got their first swim lessons. Right. It's amazing.

And so, you know, to think that we are still moving program based on the legacy work and what, you know, a legacy investment looks like, is there planning to think about what are we looking at in terms of what the legacy will look like and is there some agreement in the works in terms of, you know, how will these legacy investments look and I'm really thinking about you know the evidence Expo Park some of those areas where we're going to have a lot of folk and you know certainly we need we'll need to modernize an update to ensure that we can adequately use them for the games but I am curious just how we're thinking about those legacy investments and how we prioritize those and then you know my other question just has to do with the diversity diversity of small business.

They're women owned they're disabled veteran owned there are lots of pots that potentially can invest in this and equity is hard work. You know just again you know the one size fit all might not always work.

I'm just curious about particularly about those kinds of business owners and then my last question I have more but my last question has to do about the concrete plans for the hiring benchmarks. You know what are the things that we have in place for underserved residents to be prepared so can formerly incarcerated workers participate.

In this, what, you know, if we work backwards, right. What are the things that we will need to have in place?

And especially if some of these plans don't come above ground until a year out, you know, it may put strain on resources, on nonprofits, on all of the folks that can help make sure that our constituents are ready, whether it's volunteering, because I'm sure there are certainly background checks that will go into that, whether it's hiring, certain certifications and trainings that people will need.

Just really trying to think about, you know, if we work backwards, you know, what's the infrastructure that we need for the workforce to ensure that our historically marginalized communities and underserved residents participate. And I want to say to you all, you know, thank you, thank you, thank you for all the work you've done.

Thank you for all the other one-on-one briefings and meetings. General, we're still trying to get our meeting, but you know, really appreciate all of the ways in which we have been able to get information, our mayor convening us and giving us a briefing early on, just about what this 2025 rollout would look like earlier in this year.

So I just want to say thank you for being transparent, coming prepared, and seeing this as a, as a California partnership up and down the state to make sure that we achieve these goals of success, which we know our voters are counting on us to do so.

Well, thank you so much, Senator. And let me speak briefly about the community outreach part. The City Council of Los Angeles retained final authority over approval of the final venue plan because some of the venues that were originally planned to be in Los Angeles were, in the final plan going to be moved out of Los Angeles.

So that plan has been approved. And that was really the trigger point for a lot of the decisions that had to be made about impacts on community, because until we had a final venue plan, we couldn't really successfully do any kind of community outreach to those communities.

The second factor in that, and that's done, the second factor in that is the NSSE process that I described earlier, the security issues relating to the venue clusters. That is a dynamic process that's still going on, and they have to make some.

And actually, the bomb guy could probably speak about this in greater detail than I can, but they actually have to do things like assess blast ratios, and you know, where in the community they need to set up security barriers and not allow access at all. And those sorts of things have to be planned out.

Obviously, where those lines are drawn makes an enormous difference for local communities. So that process is now well underway, and as it gets more finalized, that will be, I think, the appropriate time to ensure that communities are engaged in understanding.

Maybe a business is within the security zone and might be, you know, very adversely impacted because of that, or conversely, a business might be on the venue approach and will have a field day because of that. So those are the sorts of things that communities really do need to understand and be engaged in.

So, how are we starting that discussion? One is through our council offices. And of course, we have 15 council members, each representing over a quarter of a million Angelenos. They know their communities, they know the organizations they're plugged in. And so having that relationship is a very important part of that outreach.

Number two, as I mentioned, the mayor created the new Office of Strategic Partnerships, and we have a deputy mayor of strategic -partnerships, Amanda Daflos.

Who has already undertaken the convening of the philanthropic community in the area in order to begin that dialogue as well about how they can be engaged and how best we can utilize their resources and get information out as well. And then a third way is there is.

There's a new planning effort, stakeholder effort, that called LA Rising, which is doing community-based outreach. Renata Simril is chairing that. You may know Renata.

So they're doing funded by philanthropy, they're doing an analysis of the city, what its community resources are that could be utilized for, whether it's fan activation or otherwise, in order to show the best of Los Angeles and make sure that communities are engaged fully through that. Oh, sorry.

And I think I've already spoken about diversity and procurement, and hiring benchmarks. Both of those things are enormous priorities in Mayor Bass.

And both of those things were built into our contractual relationship with LA 28 to ensure that we have working groups that they've organized to ensure that community leadership has a role in identifying what those legacy goals should be in those areas. And General Hoover can speak to that, I think, as well, maybe.

Senator, it's good to see you again, and thank you for your question. I'll just add a couple of things on the infrastructure for community outreach. Certainly, as you know, Mayor Bass hosted all of the mayors from the 88 cities that make up the county. She did the representatives and senators, and then also our congressional delegation.

The county has 88 for 28, which is another way of outreach to the community. And then earlier this year, we actually sent out a communication to all 88 cities in the county asking them to get back to us with locations that they have in their communities that could be used for training centers, that could be used for other non-competition venue sites, and things.

And because we're compiling a database, we work with all 206 national Olympic committees who are looking for places to not only host their teams. For example, Culver City, I think, has worked out a deal with New Zealand, and they've been talking to Australia and I think Canada as well.

Mayor O'Brien's done a great job there in kind of highlighting what's available in Culver City. And so there is that community outreach, and through that mechanism, and I'll, I'll let CEO Davenport talk a little bit about maybe the 88 for 28 kind of initiative. And then I am still continuing to do the outreach.

We're building, Eric Aldrich and Priscilla are building out our community outreach team. And you know, I apologize it's taken so long to get to you, but that's, I think, on the community outreach side, you mentioned the legacy investment.

So as I said, we, you know, we've already invested 100, you know, committed 160 million dollars for the Play LA Program as an initial down payment for our legacy. Beyond that, we haven't really thought about, you know, what it will look like post games in terms of the surplus that we expect to have.

You know, certainly LA 84 raised the bar, set up pretty high bar at 240 or 245 million dollar surplus. We expect that we'll be able to reach that goal or more. And the mechanism for how we do that and what we do, I think, is still kind of in the planning stages at the moment.

My focus is on 1,100 days from today. You talked about the diversity of small business. So we recently brought on as a subject matter expert advisor Isabel Guzman, who is the former small business administrator, to help us precisely on that issue and to help us build our procurement strategy and plan.

And we're happy to sit down and talk to you more about that. And I know she'll be happy to come and talk to you. And then finally on the hiring piece, our workforce hiring strategy going forward for, you know, whether it's full-time employees or our volunteers that we'll need is really still in development. So I think I just need to come back to you later on that one as well. Thanks for your time.

Thank you.

And then I'll just say really quickly, our 88 for 28 initiative, it's really designed to accomplish the very same goals. So we have the City of LA, and then we have the other 87 cities and over 115, 120 unincorporated areas.

And so it really is us reaching out to figure out what the desires and what the interests are, what are the assets that might be made available that we can leverage for this effort.

And it's also a very, I think, essential communication tool because when there isn't that outreach, even if we as the county, if we don't have specific answers, it's good for them to know here's where we are in terms of planning.

This is what we know, this is what we don't know, and this is what we expect to be on the horizon. And so we've done a lot of that. We mentioned earlier that we have convened all 88 cities and they all want to participate and support in some shape, form or fashion these events.

Let's give Senator Cortese an opportunity to ask some questions.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just really have four points and they're kind of to some degree harkening back on things that you've already presented on. I think one of them is maybe more of a statement, but I certainly would love to have some reaction to it.

And that is, it's extremely admirable to be creating trusts and funds that are sort of legacy funds that can help the community.

I'm sure my colleagues who are down there every day in those neighborhoods, and by the way, way anything you need to know about neighborhoods in that level of needed interaction there obviously would come from these folks here.

Because I could tell, I've told Senator Allen what street my son lives on, my 25 year old and he knows exactly where that is, sitting here in Sacramento. Senator Durazo is the same, Senator Smallwood-Cuevas the same.

So I just want to emphasize, emphasize the fact that these folks could be a tremendous resource that shouldn't be overlooked in terms of communication with folks.

But back to the, you know, the fund, legacy funds, I think aspirationally here, and it shows up in our legislation from time to time we work on it, is to create, is to use opportunities like this for wealth creation longer term. And that can show up in many ways, as all of us know.

You know, there was a representative from LA Building Trades here who walked out a few minutes ago. And I'm not just focused on them or the unions when I say this, but what can we do?

When you're talking about getting people, new people involved in the procurement process, for example, it's not just outreach, it's a matter of making sure that they have the resources to cover payment and performance bonds.

That's really what the bottleneck is, it's not that the smaller contract from one of their neighborhoods, the smaller contractor isn't interested or can't do the work or doesn't have a level of expertise typically, but they can't get through those financial hurdles. I just talked to one of my former colleagues who's now the executive in Albuquerque.

I forget the name of the county there for some reason. They just installed a self insurance program. And it may be something between the city and the county that can be set up. No cash involved. Right. There's risk analysis involved.

But telling these folks who want to come in and do work at whatever level that would normally require a surety behind them to guarantee, you know, that you're going to get this done, that you know, for this limited period of time, the city, the county, and certainly be an advocate here of the state being involved with that, can come in and take care of that requirement.

We're self insured here, you know, probably on 90% of what we do as a state. So if you remove those kind of obstacles, it's really going to open up the opportunity for folks, I think. And the other topic is really just two because I kind of condensed a couple things there.

And this is really something I like to hear a little bit more from Ms. Davenport on because of my dozen years as a county supervisor in Santa Clara County, where again my relationship with big events like this for whatever reason ended up on the law enforcement side.

I don't have a law enforcement background, but we were at the level of the purse strings like you and what we heard. And I don't want to get into this and be in any way, shape or form a downer or anything less than an optimist the midst about how things will actually play out.

But with these big events, exploitation just completely skyrockets. We know that from all the history as well. You can go back and literally measure the spikes in things like trafficking and I think probably speak for all of us here. But my own sense of what I'd like to see come out of this is working ahead.

Now you talked about it in terms of the law enforcement need, all of you and the cost of that.

I think that's a way to approach us is, you know, at that level to say it's not just security in the sense of traffic control and those kind of things, but the state should have an interest in making sure that, you know, there's no taint on these games, that the headlines after these games are not.

The games were great and there was $18 billion worth of economic impact, but there was $1.0 billion worth of economic impact that went into exploiting people. That's what, you know, we don't want, you don't want. But I think we might be able to convince people around here to invest to make sure that doesn't happen.

And I think that helps you on the law enforcement side as well, because it's the law enforcement agencies that end up getting that money to help execute that plan. Just, just my two cents, partially based on professional experience of having to set up some of that in Santa Clara County.

So I think there's like two ways I'd like to see us ask to help if you're interested in, especially on the first one, that really constitutes standing up a new program. And I know the city's probably in trying to try, trying to stay away from standing up new programs right now with everything that's been going on.

But if you want to go down that path, I'd certainly be an advocate here. Lastly, on the transportation stuff, being the Senate Transportation Chair, please let us engage our Senate Transportation Committee staff, my Chief of Staff who's been running transportation issues here in the Capitol for essentially nearly 20 years now.

You know, to help with those very specific transactions that are going to need to happen. I think you have people that understand some of those projects are going to have to go in regional transportation plans. There's lead time for that. They're going to have to come out of certain buckets.

Decisions about those buckets are going to be made, for example, by the CTC in January, February. That's not very far off of this coming year. So we'd like to be able to help you with that as well. Thank you.

That's really mostly less questions, I suppose, mainly some offers, although I would like to hear from the county in terms of kind of natural county involvement in the exploitation issue.

Absolutely, thank you. We are very well aware of the relationship between sex trafficking as well as human trafficking, particularly as it were, relates to large scale events. We've seen it happen in Vegas, we've seen it happen at the Super Bowl. So we in the county have a sex trafficking task force called the Integrated Leadership Team.

It is a body that is staffed by Sheriff, probation and the Department of Children and Family Services. They were created almost 10 years ago, around 2013, 2015, when actually the state provided funding for sex trafficking and human trafficking, education and awareness later and subsequent to that.

I believe that it was a federal grant that the Sheriff's Department received and it was a grant to take a multi jurisdiction, jurisdictional approach to human trafficking. There was dedicated space in one of our facilities in the county.

And I want to say that at any given time there might have been 10 or 12 different law enforcement agencies, along with supportive services from our Department of Children and Family Services that worked on just that, exclusive that was their sole focus. Since that time, the grant has expired. The space is still there.

We still have staff there, but we don't have the robust participation that we had during the time that we have the grant. So we are aware that the phenomenon exists. It is not new to us. We have trained staff.

And I think the question for us will be how do we scale up during not just the Olympics but for all the other events that will be happening in rapid succession.

Keep us informed as to how we can help.

Thank you, Senator. Thanks.

I just have a couple quick things to add. One, we will take you up on the transportation piece and we'll follow up for that for sure. But I do want to talk about exploitation and human rights and trafficking as well.

We have on our staff retired Ambassador Julieta Noyes, whose most recent job during the Biden Administration until her retirement after 30 years in state was the Assistant Secretary for Refugees, Democracy and Human Rights.

And she is helping us develop a human rights strategy so that we can go after, you know, some of these things so that we're not exacerbating the problem. And I'm sure if you'd like, we can, she would be happy to come and talk to you about the plan. We're still in development of it.

She's been doing a number of outreach. She's met with the city a number of times in other community groups. So, and our plan, I think is due the end of the year, I think in December. But if you'd like, we can have her come back and give you a briefing on where we are.

And through the Chair, only to say again, I think we're all really familiar with the strains on local government right now. So they know how to do it and you're the implementers on these things.

We obviously have constraints on our budget as well, but I think these are a couple of the areas that come to mind for me where, you know, folks here would be very sympathetic to, you know, especially since it's, you know, you're talking about spike ups of activity even on the economic development side that are limited in duration where presumably we could afford with one time money to come in and help assist with that work.

I can't promise that I'm not even the budget chair, but I think besides just briefing us, there should be very specific calls to action in the legislature on these areas. And I defer to.

The Chair and the Vice Chair to help lead that effort? Yeah, we're just trying to. It might be good to have a little roundtable with the members of this committee and the leadership of the Public Safety Committee and the budget set, maybe the Budget Chair with the ambassador to just talk specifically about this topic.

Maybe we can figure something out in August when we come back up here. Yeah, sounds good.

Thank you. And I'll just add, senator, that the IOC also has an interest in the human rights piece as well, and they've been very actively engaged with us on the on kind of the planning and the strategies from our perspective.

A couple things have been popping up. Do you know of, kind of programs in the past, maybe with regards to the Atlanta or the Salt Lake City Olympics or other Olympics where the state has gotten involved with kind of backstopping a program for small businesses?

Or is there any idea along those lines, given the questions you've been getting? I don't personally, but a researcher will get back to you. Okay, all right. And then I guess one question I want to just ask folks. How do we make sure.

One of the challenges I think that we face, and I've spoken to a couple of you about this, is that when requests come from the different government entities, sometimes done with couches and Olympics request, and obviously it's all related to Olympics. Visit California, of course, has its own.

I was thinking about why you'd need to even spend $50 million to sponsor when you're we should all be working together, should be free. I don't know. But or at least there ought to be some way to incorporate. Visit California. Maybe not along par with a corporate sponsor, but there's some coordination.

So you all represent organizations that are rowing in the same direction generally, but you all have different hats and there's tensions that bubble up and different local politics and all the rest.

You know, one of the challenges I think for us is going to be how do we take separate messaging from each of you and how do we make sure it's better coordinated? Because I've gotten, as the chair of this committee, get calls sometimes from others saying, oh, what's happening? Wait, hold on.

I got an Olympics request from the city. You know, this is something from the county. Visit California, but the bid's not. So how do we, how should we? How's everybody working together and how do we figure out a more coordinated messaging and interface with Sacramento on the various needs that exist? I just want to have a talk.

I want to chat about this on a going forward basis. So that it can be that all this interaction can be done in a more coordinated and productive manner.

Well, Mr. Chairman, I would say that is a work in progress and it is improving. And I think the creation of my office, General Hoover's arrival, has really given us an opportunity to coordinate in a better way.

But it's a continuing challenge because each entity has its own specific needs, and we hope they're going to be consonant and not step on each other but, they are different.

The needs that we have as a city are different than what the organizing Committee has and trying to put on the games, for example, or that the county has with regard to public health and so forth.

But I want to just tell you how much I appreciate what I take to be an invitation, because I think this committee plays a, could play a very key role in achieving exactly that kind of coordination.

And so I think I can speak for all of us in committing to you that we will certainly work with this committee to try to do exactly that.

What I would suggest, as, I mean, at the end of the day, it's almost a budgetary ask. How do we align, consolidate, prioritize varying requests amongst varying entities, you know, doing budget in the county's budget. You know, I am as you all are. You know, you.

We are accustomed to receiving multiple and sometimes what appears to be conflicting or not in alignment, budgetary requests. And so my recommendation is at some point there is some sort of consolidated document. I won't say uniform, but consolidated. Where we can see here is what the revenue might be.

Here are what the needs are by jurisdiction and for what purpose. And here is what we think it will cost, understanding that they are estimates and forecasts which will change over time. But at least in that way, you could have a single document.

And again, it doesn't necessarily mean that, you know, it's 100% consonant, but you could have one document that you could refer to over time, and you can see how it changes over time each time we come back before this committee. And I think that's something that we.

Can work on, run that document.

So that's why I called it a consolidated document. It would be a document with attachments. And so you could have, you know, Mr. Kerkourian's attachment, and you could have General Hoover's attachment, and you can have the county's attachment.

And even if it is not 100% crosswalked, that would be a great starting place to figure out where there is alignment. And you would also be able to more readily identify disparate requests like this was not in the document that we saw last, whatever, six months ago. Why is this changing now?

So it allows you to be able to identify one offs trends or things that are disparate.

Okay, that's helpful. Yeah. I mean, you know, I think, yeah, this is going to be an area where we're going to have to spend some time. And of course, the asks are different. I mean, I keep hearing from General Hoover, you're not asking for money.

Yeah, but of course our city and county friends are asking for a lot of money, you know, and of course so much of it's Olympics related, but there's also broader infrastructural needs and the infrastructural improvements we make will make the Olympics experience better. And so I think we all understand that. How about from visit California?

What are you looking for from the state beyond massive budget outlays in this area?

Yeah, not asking for funding. You know, it's really, I think our ask is broad and just understanding that the benefits of this will be long. Right.

And acutely felt during the games in a smaller area of the state, but the opportunity is to really extend that glow effect to the benefit of a much broader region to the state as a whole for many, many years.

And to do that, the hospitality businesses that are going to be on the front lines of this effort need, need support in many ways. So, I would just ask that you keep that in mind as the next three years of policymaking goes on.

What are your biggest concerns coming through all of this? You did a great job of outlining what we learned from Paris, but there's.

There's certainly, and I would, I would echo earlier comments about remaining highly optimistic, but there's always the risk of, you know, an incident that portrays California in a negative light. That's kind of our biggest thing but, that's something so far outside of our control that we're not expending any resources on it.

Much more, much closer to the ground is how can we communicate?

You mean like tensions of the Federal Government or natural disasters?

Yes, exactly. Okay. I don't even like to speak the specific natural disasters into existence, but you know, there's obviously that risk, I think much closer to the ground.

And things that we can have an influence on are making sure that there's a sufficient workforce for hospitality businesses to staff up for the spike that we know we're going to get both during the games in those regions, but also, as we saw in Paris, probably a spike following the games from people who had deferred trips and those are, those are challenging issues.

You know, workforce, workforce availability is a challenging issue on many fronts right now.

Yeah. You can have proposed Senator Durazo and Senator plus one.

Yeah. In a similar way to what the questions were about within the Los Angeles broader region, opportunities for business and certain industries. Are you coordinating that on a statewide level as far as opportunities in other cities throughout California?

Yeah, no, that's.

If you could just couple of minutes on that.

Yeah, that's really our strategy is how do we take, you know, while the world's eyes are on Los Angeles and there's 13 million ticket holders who are going to be experiencing our beautiful state, how do we maximize their influence while they're here? How do they extend their trip?

How do you, you know, let's go to San Francisco, let's go to Yosemite, wherever they might be interested in. And then the longer tail of how do we maximize the benefit? So it's not just to the host venues. Paul, I think you said it.

The benefits of this will accrue in a much broader way than just where the events themselves are being hosted. So, Senator Cortese mentioned Super Bowl 50. I'll use that as an example. Right. Obviously right there in Santa Clara new facility.

We developed a marketing program featuring Joe Montana and he was road tripping around the State of California to try to show people that hey, this isn't. Don't just parachute in to San Francisco and you know, go to the game and maybe the, the day before, why don't you extend this trip, make it a road trip.

And even if you're not coming to the game, the exposure that we're giving to other communities through that marketing campaign was designed to showcase much broader swath of the state to take it from a sporting event to a lifestyle and culture event, if you will, with a much longer tail. So that will likely be.

Like I mentioned, our marketing campaign planning is underway for the next six months or so. But that will likely be the overarching strategy for how we try to maximize the promotional opportunities of what's going to be showcased during those games and paraolympic games.

And how and who within the Los Angeles region? Now, how do you coordinate the ideas or the possibilities that different parts of the region have to get people excited, as you mentioned General in advance, leading up to it during the Olympics is, let's just say athletes, right. That are popular in particular sports.

How does that get coordinated with certain areas that want to promote this either way in advance or getting closer or during. There's a difference between them coming up with the ideas to promote. But there are certain things that we don't have access to every single day. So how do you make that happen, Senator?

I think a couple of ways. One is obviously through our sponsors and partners, right? And they are, they will activate in various ways.

You know, ouurrent focus is on helping elevate Team USA as we go into Milano Cortina with the Winter Games coming up in January and February of 2026, and then following right behind that, our own ticketing plan as we go public with that.

And so it's a combination of using our partners to activate, just as you all supported us for our handover transition ceremony and to sell and highlight the Games that are coming and the Games that are just right around the corner.

In terms of the Winter Olympics, what we found is that the Olympic rings and Team USA are incredible, incredibly powerful IP and assets. I mean, people don't necessarily, they're not fans of the NFL, they're fans of, you pick the team. Right? They're not fans of Major League Baseball, are fans of hopefully the Dodgers or the Giants. Right?

I'm a Red Sox fan. I'm a Red Sox fan. I just, for the record, I just, you know, but, but people in the United States are fans of Team USA and that's what we try to highlight and we try to coordinate with the US Olympic and Paraolympic Committee, with our, with our broadcast partner, NBC.

And so those are the kinds of things that you'll see us over the coming days and weeks is start to really celebrate Team USA and making Team USA. And we're in the process of doing that. So that's one way that we do it.

We do it through our social media campaign and our communications team and our marketing team.

And then again, our commercial team is always out there trying to find additional partners at various peer levels to help celebrate and activate on behalf of both California and LA and the county and the region, and then across the nation with Team USA.

That also because we very broadly mentioned our immigrant communities. I mean, we have communities within the region that probably over 100, 150 plus countries that have the largest number of their respective communities in LA County.

And so there's Team USA and our loyalty to Team USA, but there's also an excitement about the teams from their respective countries that excite them as well. And so, you know, we want to use the most that we can to show off and also help spur and move the Olympics forward.

Well, and we do through both the IOC as well as the National Olympic Committees of the 206 countries. So for example, congressman or Councilman McCosker secured the Croatia House in his district because he has a huge, probably the largest population of Croatians living in his district outside of Croatia.

And so there are opportunities like that and we see more and more of those every day. And we try to work with again, those national Olympic committees so that they can see all of the opportunities through the region to find places to celebrate their teams and their athletes as well. Great, good.

I just have one follow up on the, on visit California too, because you said it's not a monetary ask right now, but I'm just curious, what's the capacity to be able to do the traditional sort of international sort of projection of what is happening around the Olympics and California and other places to go and see while here, but also being able to highlight some of these communities and to Senator Durazo's point, the vast cultural richness of LA County itself.

Because I think one of the things that you mentioned in terms of tourism and people coming back to the region is that a legacy is that people can find their cultural home in the west, in our region.

So I'm curious how, how capacity wise, how does that happen for Visit California without having additional resources or capacity to do that? That's one. The other thing I found really interesting about Paris was the social media. They're influencers from the most, you know. Some of them were just really funky.