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

Good. Good. Good. Alright. Let's go ahead and get started. We'll hold call this meeting officially to order. I wanna thank our colleagues, invited witnesses, members of public for joining us today. We can ask I think Joey will probably start us off. We're we're talking about infrastructure and transportation and sustainability goals ahead of the twenty twenty eight Olympic and Paralympic games in Los Angeles. They're just over a year away now.

It's typical for most host cities in Olympic organizing committees to plan for the necessary infrastructural improvements and the necessary transportation projects that are there to host the events and ensure the spectators and athletes can get to each venue. We're, of course, really excited about the new Wilshire Boulevard extension that just just happened this last weekend, you know, and down in LA.

So today's hearing is designed to provide a an overview of the current planning and preparation efforts for LA twenty eight in the areas of infrastructure and transportation. We're gonna hear from key partners, including representatives from the LA twenty eight organizing committee, the city of Los Angeles, Exposition Park, Rose Bowl, LA Metro, and others on their plans. We're gonna look here about their progress on the plans and their outstanding needs.

Additionally, putting together large events like like the Olympics presents a very valuable opportunity for us to think about how to reduce emissions and waste and improve energy efficiency and other environmental harms. In fact, the twenty twenty four games in Paris were known to be the most sustainable games in history. They more than halved carbon emissions associated with hosting the games compared to Rio twenty sixteen and London twenty twelve.

I will say probably wasn't the most sustainable game in history just because we're much more polluting now than we were a hundred years ago, but maybe in modern in the modern era. But we're gonna be hearing from our our partners at LA twenty eight and the LA Clean Tech Incubator on sustainability goals and progress toward these goals.

So let me just, you know, let me let me turn it to my colleagues if anyone wants to make any opening comments. Otherwise, we can just get started. Okay. Let's do that. Let's get started.

Yeah. Of course. Yeah. Senator Senator Durazo. Quick quick.

Is I'm obviously like everyone else very excited and all the progress, all the things that are happening. And we say about how the Olympics and Paralympics will change Los Angeles, but Los Angeles should also change the games. That's the direction it should go in as well. And in my opinion, we will not succeed without the essential workers and the immigrant community. So I hope in the conversation, the presentations that we include that, how those are contributions to, of all those communities, how they fit in.

We have the chance to show the world what is what is possible when we center working people. And, you know, what things have a corporate partners done to make sure we have good jobs and

that we have a trained workforce ready to go. Not just, I mean, everything from the most skilled, highly skilled, to medium skilled. And make sure that there's a permanent workforce asset that is created, for Los Angeles. And just as example, I Aye, requested from the state budget a $10,000,000 for a renovation of a regional worker training center, and without funding that building will be vacant and dormant when it's most needed. So now is the time, and I'm, you know, ready to hear from you all. Thank you very much. Thank you, mister chair.

Great. Alright. Well, let's so the mayor is on she's meeting with the governor, I think. So let's let's get started with, with Joey. Oh, sure. Go for the Senator. Sure.

Thank you. Thank you so much, mister chair, and apologies. We're in between different committees today. I wanna thank the chair for convening this discussion and definitely wanna thank our local leaders for being here with us in in Sacramento and particularly our mayor, who's been doing a phenomenal job in shepherding this work and ensuring that our lines of communication between our state, our county, and our cities are thriving, as we are working, toward a successful games in in Los Angeles.

Aye, also wanna thank Councilman Krekorian for all of his work, Andrea Andrea Ambriz of Expo Park, from my district, and want to say it's been a community effort to ensure that we work collaboratively to ensure that the resources that our communities need for a successful Olympics, but also what gets left behind, it's been an all team effort, and I wanna thank those individuals for for their support.

I also wanna recognize, CEO Stephanie Wiggins. We got to see the opening of the d line, and it was a real celebration, and it shows what happens when we work together, when we work with intention, and when we say 28 by 28, we mean what we say. We say what we mean.

And it was a a wonderful celebration of connectivity and unity that I think sets us up in this hearing and for subsequent conversations for the success that we can already know is coming as we look at that great rail line as as part of our success.

You know, I I have had an opportunity to work with LA twenty eight and with our local leaders in my district around the issues of infrastructure, both in how we are investing in ensuring that our state park, our great city park, Expo Park is ready, for the 15,000,000 visitors who will come.

We've had the state legislature work in partnership toward that. We're part of the way there, and we're hoping to get all of the way there to ensure that people are safe. But this is also about the human infrastructure. This is about what we leave behind. It's about the workers that we put to work in quality jobs.

It's about the community spirit that as we see this, what will be a disruption for local residents, but they will want to do it because they see the return on the investment that is gonna come back to them into their communities. And so I'm very proud of the commitment of leaders to begin to ensure that we have a local investment by LA twenty eight, that we are sticking by our local agreements, that we are thinking about Los Angeles County first.

And I think this is an opportunity Too many. For us to, at the state level, be able to stand with our local leaders and our local businesses in that effort. And I'm so excited that LA twenty eight is is honoring that and supporting that. The legacy is going to be stronger businesses. The legacy is going to be our arts and cultural districts being invested in.

Our legacy is going to be a stronger exposition park, and that is why the LA County delegation, has worked so hard to prioritize these things and to continue to prioritize them here in the state legislature.

So, I'm con I'm very interested in us continuing the dialogue, in us tracking on ensuring that we deliver on the legacy of these games, and that, California will be stronger and better forward. And I look forward to the updates today, the information, and the continued work ahead.

Great. Alright. Thank you, Senator. Without without further ado, we'll go ahead and and start with our second panel and then we'll go back to the mayor. Let's ask Joey Freeman to come to the table.

Joey is the, you may remember him. We we used to work here and now went on off to work for the mayor. Now he's vice president of state and local affairs at LA twenty eight, and he's gonna give us some general updates in planning with the committee. And I do expect other representatives from LA twenty eight to dive into the details on transportation sustainability on in subsequent panels. But I know you're having the LA twenty eight is doing a all staff meeting today. So we appreciate you being here and and being a part of this.

Well, thank you. Good afternoon, Chair Allen, Vice Chair Wahab, members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. I'd also like to thank mayor Bass for her continued leadership and partnership. It was a privilege to have previously served on her team as you noted and an honor to be with her today.

My name is Joey Freeman. I'm the vice president of state and local affairs for LA twenty eight. And I had the pleasure of being here about a month ago with our CEO, Reynolds Hoover, who unfortunately couldn't be here today, but I'm glad to be back in the capital on his behalf to provide an update on our progress as we prepare to host the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic games.

The energy and excitement for the games are palpable, not just here in California, but across the nation and around the world. And I'd like to share just a few key updates that highlight that momentum.

In February, we were thrilled to announce six additional venues across The United States that will host matches for the Olympic football or soccer tournaments. These stadiums span from coast to coast, bringing the Olympic spirit to communities across the country, including right here in California with matches in San Diego and San Jose. The tournament will then culminate in the gold medal matches at the iconic Rose Bowl Stadium in Pasadena.

In a historic first for the Olympic games, we will feature more women's football teams than men's, and LA twenty eight will be the first Olympic games in history where every team sport has at least as many women's teams as men's, setting a new standard for gender equality in sports. The enthusiasm for the games is also reflected in the incredible response to our initial ticketing sale.

Fans from 85 countries and all 50 states purchased more than 4,000,000 tickets in just the first drop. We are especially proud of the commitment to ensuring these games are accessible to our local communities. Through our unprecedented locals presale, we put roughly half $1,000,028 tickets directly into the hands of local area residents. In fact, 95% of all tickets priced under $100 were sold during this local presale phase. We want the people who live in the heart of these games to be able to participate in them.

For fans everywhere who want to join the next wave, registration is now underway for our next ticket draw with drop two opening this August. The spirit of community is at the core of the games, and we see the passion to get involved every day. In November, we launched our volunteer program eighteen months ahead of schedule, and the response has been extraordinary. Nearly 300,000 people from around the world have already expressed interest in volunteering.

That momentum continues to build every week, including more than 45,000 Californians ready to step up for their city right now.

Volunteers are already coming together across Los Angeles, showing up, building community, and bringing the values of the Olympic and Paralympic games to life. None of this happens alone. Our work is built on strong, trusted partnerships across every level of government. At the state level, the support from the governor and the legislature has been unwavering. Just last year, we drove and passed a package of meaningful state legislation.

The new laws that you all passed will implement the game's route network so that game stakeholders can seamlessly travel between villages and competition venues, allow us to build temporary infrastructure on time and within budget while continuing to protect our natural resources, ensure medical professionals traveling with their teams from abroad can care for their nation's athletes while in California and protect the capacity of local EMS resources by authorizing the deployment of out of state EMS providers.

Collectively, these new laws will help us at LA twenty eight deliver a more seamless games experience to athletes, stakeholders, and spectators at large. And while we are incredibly proud of what we accomplished together last year, our legislative work continues today. Athletes are at the core of what we do, which is why we need which is why, excuse me, we are proud to sponsor Assembly Bill twenty four thirty six.

Authored by Assemblymember Fong, AB 2436 would permanently extend eligibility for in state tuition at UC, CSU, and community college campuses for team USA student athletes training in California.

Putting athletes first on and off the field of play is a fundamental principle for us, and we respectfully ask for your support of this important bill to ensure our commitment to these athletes extends well into the future. Building on all this momentum and with just over two years to go until the Olympic opening ceremony, our partnership with government leaders like you is more important than ever.

I know the panel's following my remarks today, and you'll hear from my colleagues will dive deeply into the critical topics of transportation, infrastructure, and sustainability. These are areas where this body plays a vital role, and the success of LA twenty eight truly depends on the strength of our ongoing collaboration. Thank you again for your time and for your partnership in bringing this monumental event to life. Thank you.

Well, thank you, mister Freeman. Really appreciate you being here. I'd love to just start with, just asking a couple of questions about, on on low cost tickets. You know, obviously, there's been a lot of of, you know, obviously, great deal of interest in the games, lots of people purchasing tickets, but people were pretty shocked quite frankly by the by the by what they were being asked to pay.

We had a wonderful hearing that some of us were at in the Adams neighborhood of the LA eighty four Foundation just a a month or two ago, and there was all this discussion about what they've done in '84 and how affordable the games were.

And and I know that there's this promise of a million $20 tickets, But, you know, is the choice can be between winning the the lottery and getting one of those $20 tickets or paying literally hundreds and hundreds of dollars for an event? Or is there some middle ground here for people to to be able to afford it to enjoy the games?

I think, you know, that's been kind of shocking and and and and, you know, I don't even need to get into the World Cup ticket prices, which of course you have no control over. So I'd love your thoughts on on on that issue.

Sure. No. Thank you. Appreciate the question. And, you know, again, we'll just reiterate, we are we are really committed to making sure that as we bring the Olympics and Paralympics to Los Angeles, that the communities that live in these areas in and around venues get to participate in the games, be at competition events.

So as you mentioned, we are very proud that we've made $28 tickets available every sporting event. There is an entry point of $28, for folks to participate. And, of course, tickets range as well, because ticketing is one of the major revenue sources to make sure that we're raising the revenue we need in order to pay for the games and ensure that we don't trigger a financial backstop on taxpayers.

But one other piece that I that I wanna add that I didn't talk about already is our community ticketing program. So it's already been seeded, with a philanthropic contribution, and we we hope to see many more philanthropic contributions that will allow tickets to go directly to nonprofits.

These would be free tickets that can go into the hands of community members. So in addition to the tickets that are on sale, we'll also be seeing more of our community ticketing program to make sure that folks can really participate.

So I I obviously I've heard the backstop argument made a lot and certainly everybody here is wants to make sure that this is gonna be a games that will I think everyone hopes it'll be like '84 where there's a lasting financial legacy. But when when we speak to the leadership of LA twenty eight, there's a seems to be a lot of confidence about the progress being made on corporate sponsorships.

How is the you know, how do we make sure that we're not using the fear of the backstop problem to be used as an excuse to, you know, to to keep prices artificially high when, we really want this to be something that people are gonna enjoy, and especially when we're making so much progress on the corporate sponsorship side.

Yeah. Thank you for that. You know, we're, as you mentioned, making incredible progress on the corporate sponsorship front. Our, you know, CEO, when he was here, announced that we've reached 2 and a half billion dollars in corporate sponsorships. I think corporations are really excited to be a part of these games, in addition to the, you know, ticketing prices that I mentioned as another revenue source.

But, you know, again, happy, happy to kinda share these thoughts with leadership. I just wanna underscore for you our commitment to affordable tickets, the $28 tickets, and the community ticketing program, to make sure that really the, the, the joy that the Olympics and Paralympics that are is brought to the region will be widespread and wide felt.

How, when's—what's the time frame on the rollout for the $28 tickets and the community ticketing?

So, they've, they've been launched. The $28 tickets were part of the local presale. 90—95% of all tickets that were priced under $100 were sold during the local presale phase. And also, during the local presale phase, we put roughly half a million, 500,000 $28 tickets directly into the hands of area residents. So, those tickets have already been made accessible.

Okay. Okay. Alright. Let's go to the vice chair.

Thank you. You touched a little bit on this and I just wanted to understand. I am one—if not, I think there's only two Bay Area members here and so, I do appreciate you guys recognizing that the Bay Area is a part of this. And I, I wanted to highlight a couple of things. You mentioned that you're gonna have tickets given out to nonprofits.

Correct? The first question I wanna ask is how many tickets are gonna be split between the two areas? How many tickets total will be given to these nonprofits?

Thank you, Senator. I don't have specifics on the community ticketing program, but I'm happy to circle back with your office on that.

Okay. And then, I would suggest not necessarily giving it to nonprofits because we cannot necessarily control that they are not gonna be seen on the aftermarket and sold. Right? I would rather it be up for grabs where maybe there is a portal through, through nonprofits or work there, or, you know, however we can kind of coordinate that. But just giving tickets to different organizations does not secure that the community can actually be there.

Right? I would also recommend potentially even going through the school system. Right? Just to make sure that, there's some effort there and even an offering to more lower income individuals to get first dibs. Right?

Because what I have seen consistently is that when big tickets are given, it's usually the executives' friends that get first dibs, not necessarily the community they serve. Right? I, I do wanna highlight that. I also wanna highlight there has been some conversation—some LA members of the public have reached out to our office, kind of highlighting that they would like to see more documentation and data of women in sports, women that are part of the organization also setting this up.

There has been discussions of potentially a study and audit and, and so forth. I kinda wanted to understand if you guys have heard of this or have you guys had any data or any information on it?

Well, first, on on your points around community ticketing, thank you. I, you know, can assure you absolutely the intention of the program is to make sure they go to folks who need the tickets to, to participate in the games. But I will be in touch with your office to talk about the suggestions that you offered. On the study you just mentioned, I'm not familiar with that.

You know, I was proud to mention some of the stats around gender equality in sports that will be a historic first for these games in 2028. But again, can, can be in touch about what you're mentioning. I haven't heard about that.

Okay. I believe there's a local school somewhere in LA, and I apologize. You, you guys know how I, I just clump the entire Southern California there. So.

The big region.

I know. The Bay Area. I know. This is a whole—look, I'm, I'm one person in the Bay right now...

I really appreciate it.

Struck a nerve there. Right? So, the, the reality is this. I do believe that there is some effort and some interest in really trying to understand the gender parity there, but also in setting up these types of events.

Right? Seeing how many women are involved in the planning and the process and just overall. You know, I, I highlighted to this group, and I apologize, I forget the name, that, you know, I think it's a little bit short timing to do an in, you know, in-depth right now movement there. But, you know, an audit of what you guys are doing, how many women have you guys hired, things like that.

You know, my colleagues and I also believe in just making sure that when we are talking about a successful event, it's more than sold out stadiums. Right? And, of course, we wanna create a culture, especially in California, especially in the Bay and LA, where there are larger and larger events, international games, and we are a, you know, international entity, if you will, California itself. So, making sure that we are creating local jobs, union jobs, making sure that it's safe.

So, I, I did want you to kind of tap into the safety, but I also just wanted to flag for you.

Again, I also appreciate just the effort in having more women participate.

Great. Thank you.

So, can you touch on the safety a little bit of what, what some efforts are?

Say on safety?

Security, when we have all these individuals coming, some with disabilities, language barriers, things like that. I just wanted to kind of see where you guys are at.

Sure. Sure. And I will, you know and I'll say it at a high level that, you know, we are obviously committed to delivering a safe and secure Olympic and Paralympic games. The games have been designated a National Special Security Event.

And so, you know, as you may be familiar with other large events that have been designated as NSSEs, the Federal Government kind of manages an apparatus of law enforcement where there's coordination between every level of government—local, state, and federal—and planning is well underway to make sure that all of the safety precautions are put in place.

I will also mention LA 28 was really proud to help successfully advocate for a billion dollars in federal funding that will go to support planning and reimbursement for our state and local law enforcement that will be protecting folks at these venues and throughout the game's footprint.

Okay. And has there been any concern? You know, I know at least in the Bay Area, we have some of our local jurisdictions that feel that they have not necessarily gotten enough funding, especially on the security side. I believe these are marked as a, what, a SEER 1 event or something like that just because we have foreign dignitaries, potentially the president of The United States, obviously the governor, individuals of, you know, note that may attend and so, that adds additional risk.

So, I just wanted to understand have, have there been more robust conversations in this space?

Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. And as you mentioned, a SEER is another type of federal designation. So, through the NSSE process and through that billion dollars that was secured alongside the ongoing daily work with law enforcement agencies at every level of government, we're, we're planning for just that.

Okay. And do you know the dollar amount that's gonna go to LA and Dubai?

I don't. We're—there will be a, a notice of funding opportunity that comes from the Federal Government that's not yet out.

Okay. Before we go to Senator Richardson, I just want one follow-up question from our earlier dialogue. You, you mentioned 95% of the low-cost tickets have gone out. Does that mean that they're basically all gone? Or, or what, what, what did you what did you mean by that 90%?

Yeah, so, what I mentioned was 95% of tickets priced under $100 were sold during the local presales phase, emphasizing the point that locals—we really wanted locals to benefit from accessible tickets, and so, we saw those results but in continued drops, tickets will, will, you know, across a range of prices. And the next drop will be in August.

Okay. But just, just what, what, what was, the, the 95% meant that, so, 95% of that drop—so, so, so nearly all the tickets that were sold during that last drop were under $100?

You know, I—that, that's what I have in front of me here, but I don't wanna give you inaccurate information. So, let, let me check with our ticketing folks on that and I can circle back on it.

Okay. Great. Alright. Let's go to Senator Richardson.

Well, I hate to beat up the messenger, but you are here and you're in the seat. I think what you're gonna hear is.

If we need security, we'll, we'll.

No. I, I don't use physical. Just my words. I think what you're gonna hear, three members in a row are gonna say the exact same thing to you. You have a ticket problem.

And in the mind of sports, what I would say is you ground it out in baseball. You hit the ball, you put them up, but you ground it out. So, let me go further. How many tickets did you guys issue in the first wave?

So, you know, I apologize, Senator. I don't have these specific statistics around tickets, but happy to circle back.

Okay. So, this is a problem because you're in an official state hearing. I think you know that there was a problem because it was well publicized in the news that this was a problem. And the fact that we came to this committee, and you don't know how many tickets were issued, you don't know how many of those were under a $100, you don't have the information that we need because this—these are questions that we're getting from our community.

Now, I have a person in my family who applied just like everybody else through the program.

And so, I'm not buying, when you said 95%—I'm sure 95% of the tickets under a $100 were sold, but how many of those were? Was that a thousand tickets? Was that 500 tickets? Was that 200 tickets out of 200,000 tickets?

That doesn't tell us anything. And the experience that my family member had was that there were no available tickets under $100. The individual signed on, you know, very quickly from receiving the email. Not only the tickets that were available were at astronomical prices. We're talking about multiple thousands of dollars to attend events.

And that's not what was presented to us that was gonna happen. We were told that a part of this Olympics, community people were gonna have access. Now, I personally, you know, your community ticketing program, whether it's through the schools, whether it's through nonprofits, whatever, but what we need for you to understand is there's a difference—in LA County alone, we have over 10,000,000 people.

And there's a difference between people who may be taking advantage of non-profit programs and then people who may be working, but it doesn't mean they can afford to spend $3,000, $5,000, whatever it is to go to the track and field events. So, I really think you need to go back to the drawing board and really look at what is your ticket disbursement plan. And what I'm gonna respectfully ask of the chair is that we have another meeting, if need be, we only talk about tickets, but we really need to get to the bottom of how many tickets are available are going to be available, what are going to be the price ranges. You should be able to answer that question.

I, I'm not, you know, if that's not your role, I'm okay with that, but whoever—someone needs to be here who can answer that question. And we need to make sure that people, average people in our district who may make anywhere between 20,000 and 100,000, frankly, isn't even hardly enough to rent a place in Los Angeles County.

So, to say, you know, proudly, oh, we're having a community ticket program and we're gonna help with a non prop—well, what about the other eight and a half million people in Los Angeles? So, that doesn't get at where I think people are hoping and what you all as an organization have talked about would be the experience.

So, Mr. Chair, when it's appropriate, I'd like to actually respectfully request—I don't know if we can move items, you know, in this committee, but I really, given your interest, my interest, the vice chair's interest, I really think we need to have a more in-depth discussion about your ticket program and how you intend upon engaging the Los Angeles and beyond community. Because currently, again, in my opinion, you ground it out. You hit the ball. You sold some tickets.

But what the intent was and why we were even told you were having that program. Frankly, it was advertised that the whole purpose of having this lottery program was to give people who lived in LA the opportunity to have access to the tickets.

And in fact, that was completely not what occurred for the average person living in Los Angeles. So, if that was the goal of how we were going to sell to people, you know, in the community, it did not make its mark. And I'm, I'm trying to be as, you know, toned as I can but I think it's important to be accurate.

So, I will look for the direction from the chair but I think we, in very short order, need to have a meeting with the appropriate individuals who can answer the—answer the questions of what is the ticket program, what's the future goal, how do we intend upon actually really reaching the community, and saying we're reaching the community and offering, you know 3 and $5,000 tickets is, is not the goal.

The second thing I wanted to bring to your attention, I tried out for the Olympics in 1980.

I'm dating my age a little bit. And one of the things I remember of the various Olympic venues that we've had is that we heard people talk about legacy, that there were programs and facilities throughout the communities. Now, I'm not just talking about Los Angeles. I'm talking about internationally that I thought the IOC helped to make sure that there were legacy facilities that would be left so that future youth and adults would have an opportunity to learn these skills and eventually, potentially, be future Olympians. Right?

Now, my district, I represent more than six of the venues and I haven't heard of locations that are being opened or built or anything for the youth or anyone in my community. So, I'd also like to have us get further information. If you're not prepared, I get it. But that was always my understanding of one of the roles of the IOC and the organizing committee.

So, if we could also get more information about what's going to happen in these communities. You know, I, I represent Intuit, SoFi, Dignity, you know, San Pedro now has sailing.

I mean, I can go on and on with you. But I can't go on and on with you about what are the programs that you're setting up in these communities, the legacy programs that I've always heard that the IOC supported and did. So, I'd like an update on that. And then, the third one is I understand the city of Los Angeles has done a very good job of having a database where small businesses who might have the opportunity to participate in this process.

But what I've also heard from I don't see the connection with the organizing committee of how you're fulfilling to make sure that local businesses are going to participate, either from a contract perspective or a subcontract perspective.

And so, we need, we need details. We need to know how many contracts are you gonna have, what categories are you gonna have them, who are you reaching out to, and what are the results. Now, I was told in a previous meeting that, well, we, we actually don't bring on these people until the last six months and, you know, and I get that, but I'm sure you gotta be planning.

And now, we're getting within the window that you should know what contracts are available, what are the services that are available, who's being considered? Has an RFP gone out?

I mean, we need the details because our community, again, was told through this whole wonderful experience of having the Olympics that it would be an experience of games, but it would also be an experience of the community. And that meant attending events and that meant participating in the business aspect of it. And so, for example, SoFi, for people who tell us often, oh, we don't know if we can find the businesses. Oh, we don't know, we can't find the workers.

SoFi Stadium was built in my district. They had a very aggressive local community hire program, and I'd like to see yours. And from what I'm being told, it's not reflective, full of the community to the numbers that we would hope. So, again, I don't mean to beat up the messenger. I'm giving you the message to take back, but this is serious.

And I know you guys are working hard. I'm gonna end on a positive note here. I know you're working hard. I know you want it to be successful but know we want it to be successful too. And in order for it to be successful, we need the information and the ability to engage our communities and to engage our businesses.

And thus far, I have not seen that success. So, I'm willing to punt for the next quarter, not literally quarter of days but punt to give us the opportunity for those individuals to be present at our next most available time, so we can really get into the details, so that the people of Los Angeles and the surrounding area of Los Angeles have the wonderful time that you want us to have. And I, I know you're a diligent person. I've seen you at every meeting we've had.

I know you wanna make it right and that's why I'm sharing this and not waiting or doing it publicly standing on a street corner but giving us the opportunity to work with you.

Thank you.

Thank you. I, I don't wanna jump ahead of the chair. I won't answer all of those points because I know we have three panels ahead of us.

But I would—I do appreciate your comments and would appreciate the opportunity to meet with you and working through your office, Chair Allen, maybe all the members, to make sure that we can brief you on a lot of the work that we're doing in these areas from our Play LA youth sports programming to the aggressive targets we've set on making sure that contracts and economic opportunities go to small and local businesses and the engagement work we're doing.

Definitely want an opportunity to share all that with you and answer your questions.

You will. Just be prepared is all I ask. Have the details.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay. I'm, listen, I, I share your concerns, Senator. That's why I live right in on the ticket's question. So, we will, we will absolutely work to ensure that there's a good conversation with the leadership about all the issues you raised. Let's go to you, Senator Rubio, and then we'll go to Senator Smallwood.

Thank you. Thank you so much for being here. You know, we needed to have something to know rather than later. As we already see, there's some, questions that are not answered. So, we definitely want multiple opportunities.

I wanna just ask a couple of questions. I know that we're dealing with the ticket issue and I couldn't belabor that even further, so, I'm not. So, you already know what the issue is, is making sure that our low-income communities, disadvantaged communities have the opportunity to participate. And, and I also want the same questions answered.

You know, how many? What does that look like? It could be five. It could be a million. We don't know and that's not good enough.

We want to make sure that our communities have the opportunity. Now, that's—those tickets that we pay for. I met with the, the Paris Olympic Commission, and they talked about the successes and some of the shortfalls, and they gave us a little bit of insight as to what we need to look out for.

But one of the things that I found they did well, again, based on what they shared with us, is that they wanted to create opportunities and they created these viewing villages in different regions of, of Paris because they wanted to make sure that people that couldn't afford it were able to attend and they were free from my understanding. Basically, they encapsulated big parks and regions and then, they had games for children.

They had big, big screens for adults, music to keep them engaged, and all that again from my understanding was free to the public that couldn't afford to buy tickets. And I think that that's an important piece of this. We cannot just have those that could afford it be able to attend. This should be available to everyone. So, my question is, so, based on what I just shared, is there a long term plan?

Is there a plan in place? What does that look like, if any?

Absolutely. Thank you. Yes, and we, we do have a celebrate two-way program. Currently, there is a, a form that I can make sure all of your offices have the link.

If there is a local city, for example, in your district that is interested in hosting one of those live sites or fan fests, absolutely. We want to see that be a part of the footprint. More information will eventually roll out about what that looks like, but it would be a free opportunity for people to still participate in the spirit of the games, even if they're not actually at a, a ticketed competition event. So, absolutely.

So, just really strongly wanna just stress that we definitely want them, but then, there's also having them in areas that already could afford it. I know that we're having some games in Pomona, which I represent. And, and around that area, we have so many low-income, small communities, and I think I heard you say that the city would need to be a host. Right? And so, hopefully, that doesn't pose challenges because our city is already struggling financially.

So, we don't want them to be basically in charge of setting this up when they can't afford it either. Can you tell me how that's gonna work?

Thank you. Yeah. A city—a local city would be an example of, of a hosting entity, but there will be more information as the guidelines come out that show, you know, who can host, what the parameters are. So, I'm not saying that it would have to be a city exclusively to host one of these live sites.

And just to clarify, you said a fan fest. Is that the same thing that they were calling them? Viewing stations or viewing?

Yeah. I've heard live sites. I've heard fan fests. Our program will be called "Celebrate too late."

Okay. Thank you. And one more thing I wanted to share because it's important. I, I did meet early on with the commission and the headquarters. I think it was Los Angeles, Downtown Los Angeles.

And at the time, we were talking about the funding just in general, everything that that we need to put in place before the Olympics come around. And I had a concern at the time because we know that the Federal Government, the president in particular, has not seen himself as a partner to us and that he's very vocal about the attacks and what he says about not only California but Los Angeles in particular. And I know we rely a lot on the federal funding.

Can you assure me that we're not gonna be left in the middle of the planning carrying the bag. In other words, you know, we wanna make sure that all the funding is in place.

And I think this was done a few years back where it solidified. But is there areas where we, somehow in the middle, he becomes upset and takes our funding away? Tell me what that looks like.

Yeah. So, what I can tell you is we've had a wonderful working relationship with the federal administration, just as we've had with the state government and local government. As I mentioned earlier, we were able to, along with our partners, successfully advocate for a billion dollars in federal funding that will be made available for state and local law enforcement. 94,000,000 has been made available to begin transportation planning. I know colleagues from Metro are here, and they can speak transportation funding.

But we're, you know, actively engaged in Washington DC to make sure that we have the federal resources and support that we need to deliver these games, and we've seen, we've seen really good progress in partnership so far.

Yeah. Thank you. You know, as you can appreciate, right, the relationship is a little bit volatile and, you know, it changes from day to day. I just want to make sure that as a state, you know, our funding is also stretched and that at the end of the day, we don't have to step in to, to save the Olympics because there's and, and house fighting, let's call it.

But lastly, I just wanna say really quickly, and I know that it was already talked about the ticket, the procurement process for small businesses, that we wanna make sure that we they have opportunities as well.

For me, after everything is said and done, I don't think we could do it in the front end. But if there is some kind of exit memo that you can provide to the legislature on the back end, you know, what went right, what went wrong. Let's talk about some of the diversity in procurement opportunities and communities ticketing.

I would like to see a comprehensive exit memo where we have all the information because in the future, we would find ourselves probably having them in the future, and I would like to know some of that information if that's at all possible. I would appreciate it.

Senator Smallwood.

Thank you, and I, I wanna just align my comments with, with our good colleagues around the ticketing question and look forward to, to more ticketing question and look forward to, to more response from LA 28 on that. I appreciate the framing where you started just talking about people who live in the heart of these games should have the ability to participate in them. And I think that is, is really important. And I, I think that's the spirit where we're coming from, especially we know, when 15,000,000 people show up in your front yard, it, it will disrupt your life for, for months to come.

And, and we certainly want everyone to show up.

And so, we wanna make sure, again, that there's a return on investment for our residents to be able to enjoy the games, to be able to have their businesses funded and supported and resourced through the games. And, and also, to tell the story of our communities. I think the other way that we ensure participation is through the ways in which, you know, we are able to tell LA story, our cultural stare story, our art story.

We have seen what happened in Paris and the role that arts and culture played in that Olympics, even the 1984 Olympics. I mean, the culture of Los Angeles was on full display and inspired the nation.

And, certainly, in this moment, as my good colleague talked about, the national implications and the kind of stories that are being told about our state and our city, and also, the stories that are being erased at the national level. I think the role that we're gonna play in Los Angeles is gonna be critically important. We had over 400 or 500 travel association members that we addressed yesterday from across the state. Maybe six—no, I think it was 700.

The largest association gathering, who were all riveted by what is happening with the Olympics and what is the way that we can tell a California story one neighborhood at a time, one community at a time. How do we tell that collective story in a way that will keep travelers coming to California, investing in California for years to come? And that brings me to my question about the cultural Olympiads because the cultural Olympiads is really the foundation.

And in past, Olympics, it's been deeply invested in and planned. And I know there have been articles in the LA Times where many of our cultural leaders are raising concerns about the timing of the rollout and the investment in the Cultural Olympiad.

Mainly because the time that it takes, We know also in some instances many of our institutions have been defunded by forces that we've talked about earlier and others just will need help to be ready, to be prepared, to tell the story that needs to be told. And so as you're, you know, thinking about, you know, the ticket sales and all of and we're going to talk about transportation and infrastructure, could you talk a little bit about what is the plan around the Cultural Olympiad?

In what ways will we be able to have the time and a road map to prepare our Cultural Districts? I'm so proud that California designated South Central Los Angeles as its first Black Historic Cultural District in the State. Certainly, we've seen travel magazines talking about that, as they're promoting California.

But our district is not ready mainly because we don't necessarily have a road map about how our cultural assets will be, participate and what kind of platform there will be for them. And the clock is ticking, and we know these are some of the most under resourced, small businesses in our community. So say a little bit about, you know, how can we ensure we're supporting local artists and local minority cultural institutions?

How do we ensure black, brown, and immigrant and indigenous working class communities that hold this authentic cultural story that certainly communities that are coming from around the world will want to understand and participate in? You know, what is the way that we we really center, anchor, and resource this, as part of our Olympic planning and the Olympic experience?

Thank you, Senator, for the question, and thank you for your leadership on this issue. I know you are a a passionate champion, and I was really proud to be able to go to your district to see the work you're doing in building your Cultural District. Can happily share with you that we recently rolled out kind of the the high level contours of our Cultural Olympiad Program as we get closer to the games.

There will be more information and more partnerships that will be developed with cultural institutions and public agencies. But what we recently shared were a few things.

We will be making available a Cultural Olympiad mark that cultural institutions will be able to access and apply to their work and to their promotional materials. We will be creating an app, that will be a mapping tool so folks will be able to see, you know, what are the various cultural opportunities that are available to me and nearby. We're very excited. There will be the Official Olympic and Paralympic posters that will be designed by local artists.

And equally excited, there will be an underwriting opportunity where we will help underwrite, excuse me, ticket costs, at cultural institutions to bring down or eliminate the cost of tickets to make sure that cultural opportunities are widely accessible for the public.

The Cultural Olympiad is really rooted in the diversity of LA and is, you know, will run the gamut of different areas of culture and communities to make sure that we're lifting up all communities in Los Angeles. Those are some of the initial pieces that have been discussed, but more to come.

And I wanna just go back to timeline and timing. Even when we think about budget time and budget years where this is the last budget that you can actually get money out at the from the state to invest in in this Olympiads in terms of anything that has to be built and be ready. So our smaller institutions are already sort of behind the curve in terms of what it takes to meet the deadlines of folks being ready 2028 for this.

Is there a timeline, timetable? Because those contours feel very 6,000 foot.

And it also feels like it's very on the outside of the Olympics, not actually inside of the Olympics. Can you say more about the timeline and what we can expect in terms of the details of what's gonna happen inside of the Olympics and the underwriting of that process?

So those are the programmatic details that are so far available, but I'm, as I have been, happy to keep talking with your office about additional details around the Cultural Olympiad.

We look forward to it, and I wanna say this is a this process is partnership, and what you're hearing from us is what we hear. We have direct connections with, I have 1,000,000 constituents in the 28th District, which will be the front and backyard of these Olympics.

And so what's being shared are questions that we are getting on a fairly regular basis as folks are anxiously trying to figure out ways to make decisions that help us ensure success and that can close some of the gaps because we know we only have one chance to make a good impression here. And these communities will only have one chance. These businesses will only have one chance to really use this as an opportunity to scale.

If we don't come out with a road map and guidelines in time, unfortunately, a lot of them recovering from COVID will not b e able to keep up with the pace and the acceleration.

You know, they're not the multinational billion dollar corporations. They're mom and pop cultural assets, cultural markers that are significant and that people will want to see, but they can't do it without real support, and they definitely can't do it without a timeline. So I think the assistance, financial assistance, the technical assistance, the plan, timing. I know as soon as we say, but is it summer? I thought we had some firm times about when we think these details will be

So what I've shared is what we've rolled out about the Cultural Olympiad. I would have to go back to, excuse me, the press release. From each of the pieces I mentioned, there were some timelines around when the mark would be available, when the posters will be available. But I'll have to circle back with you. I don't wanna give you inaccurate information.

I look forward to that and continuing to work with you. And we still have time and that's a good thing, but not a lot of it.

Thank you.

I think it's awesome.

Thank you. And I know we've got Mayor Bass here, so I wanna make sure we keep this really quick. But, just a quick couple comments, and thank you so much, Joey, for being here. I've spent, a lot of good time with you on the Olympics, Paralympics representing Long Beach, Southeast LA, and Catalina Island. We've got 11 games.

And I have to say Catalina Island because I wanna make sure that they don't exist on an island when it comes to the LA '28 Games. And I know that you all are, connecting with them. I was just out on the island last week, and they have a lot of good ideas. I I don't think they wanna just think of themselves as just a fan zone, but what more can they contribute, to the games that is really meaningful.

So more to come on that, but I just wanted to make sure I was plugging for them on that.

In terms of the the tickets, just to comment on additional feedback loops and surveys, I'd love to see any additional opportunities where LA '28 is present at events or online, where there are feedback loops. You're hearing from us as elected officials, but I want you to really hear as well from the community members, you know, at various touch points so there isn't so much pain when it comes to the second dump, which will be coming later this year. So we look forward to that.

And then lastly, I just I know you know this but I have to just say, you know, when it comes to additional legislation, I know Assemblymember Fong is creating a bill for the student athletes, which is great, or he's already have has that moving through the legislature. I know you know that you can call on us for additional legislation you will need from now until then, especially as it pertains to the ticket sales.

So unofficial, like mitigating as much as we can these unofficial resale sites and supporting you in any way on that front. So I just wanted to put that out there. Thank you.

Thank you.

Well, thank you, Joey. I really appreciate your presence here and, you know, let me just say for the members, there was a LA '28 was is actually having, I think, an all staff meeting today. This is the one date that we were able to work out with, you know, space and schedules. So Joey, you know kindly stepped in to be here.

But we are working on a meeting for members with the CEO and opportunities for us to get all these questions answered.

But we do appreciate your being here and we'll certainly be following up with you on a number of the issues that have been raised. Thank you for. Yeah. Sorry.

No. No. Thank you for having me again. You know, Reynold Hoover wishes he could have been here. Happy to step in.

Heard a lot of questions. Appreciate where you're coming from and genuinely, you know enjoy partnering with each of you as we bring the Games to California. You know, I hear you, whether it's ticketing or a volunteer program or the Cultural Olympiad or small business opportunities. There are so many exciting ways that we can use these games to really help lift up our communities, help lift up the residents. That's what we're committed to doing and look forward to doing that with you.

So thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Mister Freeman. Appreciate you very much. Okay. We'll next go to Mayor Bass who's here.

And Mayor Bass, you can come up to the table. Welcome back to the capital. And I'd love to give you the chance to to give us your perspective.

That is Mayor Bass and former speaker of the assembly.

That's correct. Yeah.

Well, first of all, thank you so much for the opportunity to be here. It is interesting being on this side, but with great respect to the Chair and all the members, really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. And I did get to hear what, my Former Deputy Mayor was talking about with LA '28, and we have a very close and positive relationship with LA '28.

I do want you to know that our theme in the city, from the city's perspective, as the overall host for the games is games for all. As I listen to many of your comments, I have been deeply concerned that these games have got to benefit all our neighborhoods.

And so we actually started two years ago by having summits for small businesses so that we could get them contract ready. At each summit, there have been over a thousand small businesses there. And so we are doggedly determined that prioritization be given to the city in terms of small business development, small business opportunities.

And Senator, I listened to you talk about Paris, I came back when wanting to emulate Paris in the way that the Games impacting everybody probably 5% actually went to the games but every neighborhood felt the benefit of the games. Now the other thing that you talked about, Senator Smallwood Cuevas, was the Cultural Olympiad.

And there is the Cultural Olympiad from LA '28, but then there's the Cultural Olympiad from Los Angeles City. And what we want to do is, first of all, we want the world to know that the world lives in Los Angeles. We have incredible cultural traditions. One of my favorite are murals. So we are planning the Cultural Olympiad from a more grassroot perspective from the angle of the city, and we view it as a way to promote all of our businesses.

Now we are fortunate with the World Cup. We have a little, dress rehearsal. And so with the World Cup, we are having watch parties and fan fest actually in a 100 different neighborhoods around the city.

And it's an opportunity for all those small businesses, especially the businesses in the Latino community that were so heavily impacted by the ICE Raids last year and many of those restaurants were on the verge of going out of business, they're gonna get a big influx of business when we have the watch parties related to the World Cup. But some of that, we are, you know, using as practice to see how it works.

So I just wanted to follow-up and to let you know kind of from the perspective, of the city. And, Senator, much, much appreciation for working with you. You guys have been very supportive of our efforts and you know, the state funding that we need now, and I appreciated what you were saying, Senator, in terms of where we are now, this being the last budget. But the support that we have gotten already, for example, in the Sepulveda Basin.

And, you know, the Sepulveda Basin is gonna be, the site of major events and it was an absolute disaster zone that needed to be cleared out and prepared.

And so, you know, that is just an example of how you have assisted us. But after coming back, from Paris and sitting next to the former Assemblyman and the former City Council member Paul Krekorian who was involved in the bid, but also chaired our budget committee for ten years. I asked him after Paris even though he was leaving, the City Council, if he would stay on. And we created an Office of Major Events to encompass all of the events coming our way.

And he is the Executive Director of that, and I know he'll be speaking on one of the panels.

But we are continuing, of course to seek state support and a couple of things. One, the state's help in speeding up the approval process for some critical improvements on public lands that will support the games. And then also to ensure our law enforcement is able to get mutual aid from other law enforcement entities without a declaration of a State of Emergency. And that would be, two examples of what we, really would need your assistance in. And obviously, any additional, support.

What we started to do in the Sepulveda Basin is great. But, you know, we also have a lot of other things we'd need to do, to prepare our city. So we have invested the budget that I released last month, which is now going through the City Council process, makes real investments in our infrastructure, our sworn officers and our small businesses and transportation projects that Angelenos will continue to use beyond the game.

So we are prioritizing the infrastructure related to the venues, but we also have a lot of other, things in terms of the highways that are not in the jurisdiction of the city, but our highways and those of you who are all one way connected to LA or drive through LA, our highways in some, in some locations are in bad shape, whether we're talking about the landscaping or the trash, and I'm actually not speaking of the encampments.

I'm talking about outside of that where we, of course, work in close partnership with the encampment grants.

But we need to deal with that. And so a request that we made to the Governor that, he is supportive of did support us, and I'm hoping that we can expand on that. We weren't asking that the money come to the city for the highways.

We want the money to go to the nonprofits that provide second chance housing, Whether you are talking about chrysalis for people who were formerly homeless or the LA conservation core with youth, homelessness youth, justice involved, that's an opportunity for a category of our population to receive opportunities for jobs and potential careers while at the same time taking care of the highways and not getting bogged down in the city, in terms of the hiring because our city workers are already overworked with infrastructure.

So I would just like to wrap up, with that.

And then I would also like to extend an invitation for the Ad Hoc Committee to have a meeting. I know you've had meetings in LA, but we'd like to invite you to City Hall and have a meeting there and maybe some other activities that we could plan around it like going to do a site visit on some of the major venues.

That'd be great.

So thank you.

That'd be great. Alright. Thank you, Madam mayor.

Welcome.

Do you wanna-

I'll come back.

Add to the excitement? Okay. Right. Because we are on the next panel on Infrastructure.

Wait. Okay.

Thank you.

Senator Rubio. Yeah.

Oh, I'm sorry. Did you?

Thank you. Yes. Just real quickly. Thank you, Mayor for being here and sharing the information. And, you know, we talked about Paris and their infrastructure and how it worked well.

You know, but then there's investment in, let's just say the viewing stations, right, which were fabulous. And I got to witness that. But then there's also leaving something for communities.

Yes.

And LA is really massive and I remember I visited a site where they did the Olympic pools. And they picked very strategically communities that were disappearing.

They were dying out. They were they have very low, you know, unemployment. And what they did is they really looked at it through the lens of what communities can we elevate. Because once they were gone, in fact, again one community was almost disappearing. That's where they chose to put housing for the athletes.

Because at the end of the day, when they left, those housing structures were left there For affordable housing for those communities that that need it. So that's just an example.

And I want I wanna hear your thoughts on how are we making sure that the investments just don't go to let's just say, I know LA. I grew up in LA. In the areas that already have it, but it's looking at those opportunities where we can leave behind those legacies.

I know the pool brought a lot of joy to some of the children that didn't have opportunities before, that the athlete homes were left for affordable housing that now they turned over to the city that they were able to house people. Share with me how are we selecting these venues and opportunities.

Sure. Well, let me just say, you know, I as you were asking that, I was thinking about one of the things I admired so much about Paris, but we didn't do it here in the original games agreement. So you know the Olympic Village is gonna be at UCLA. In Paris, they built an Olympic Village

In an inner city area, and that was going to be housing, you know, that was left. So, you know, obviously, the games agreement happened years before I got to City Hall, but we view the cultural Olympiad as an opportunity to do that. Let me just be a little more specific. One of the gifts that I love of cultural traditions in LA are murals.

They did.

And so, we have one of our best world famous muralist, the man that did the Fernando Valenzuela mural, the Shohani the Shohei Ohtani mural, is interested in doing 26 murals around and he always does the community.

He always does murals with the community. They help decide on what it's gonna be. We have beautiful murals in San Fernando Valley that just need to be basically refreshed. But what I wanna do my dream is is that you arrive at LAX and while you're waiting for your baggage, there's a kiosk and you can plug into all of our neighborhoods. And you know you can go over here and see this.

Because, you know, the nature of the Olympics is that you go to a game. There might be two or three days in between before another game that you're interested in. So people have times on their hand. And I don't want it to be that they go to Beverly Hills, they go to three places, they then they say they've been in LA.

I want them to know about East LA and South LA and the San Fernando Valley and Pico Union and all of the areas around our city.

And when I think about, Pomona and the neighborhoods around it that you mentioned, you know how do we use this as an opportunity to uplift our community? I just wanted you to know that I am doggedly determined in that area, which is why games for all is our theme. Because, you know I will tell you personally, I feel the pressure of a legacy of Mayor Bradley where where 42 years later, we're still benefiting from the games.

And so I think, you know, my vision, if anything after the games, I want it to be known that when you come to Los Angeles, all of this exists. Los Angeles is not yes.

As much as I promote Hollywood, and I'll always do that, but our city is about far more.

Well, thank you for that. And I just wanna differentiate. Right? There is aesthetics, the murals, but then there's tangible housing opportunities for those that need it. And the way they did their Olympic Villages, it couldn't have been done in a much.

It was just incredible to see all the housing that they left behind. That was very strategic. The swimming pool for the kids that didn't have a swimming pool, that was very strategic. So that's the tangibles that I'm looking to see happen.

And I would love to see that, but a part of that in the earlier games agreement is not gonna happen. However, you know, I'm up here meeting with the probes and meeting with other folks to talk about those issues as well.

I would love for us to have housing that was left behind, but I do think that that's a couple of those decisions that were made. You know, they were made years ago, unfortunately.

Thank you for being here and sharing. Always good to see you.

Absolutely. Same here. And thank you all for your leadership.

Absolutely.

And I just wanted to say to you, Madam Mayor, thank you for your leadership. And games for all gives us the right context and vision and intentionality in this in this space. And I absolutely agree with you. It is you know, we talk about all these other old cities and how they are cities of neighborhoods. Los Angeles is a city

Neighborhoods. And we have we can rival any other great American city in terms of the individual stories that that we tell.

I wanna say that, I will support your efforts around the Cultural Olympiad and any questions and data and information support. I had a really in-depth conversation with our Tourism Industry yesterday. Very excited about the individual stories that we individual stories that we tell and how important it is that we get it right.

So that we invite folks to, LA for the games and they want to come to LA. And also, I think in Paris, you pointed out that more folks come after the Olympics to Paris than during the Olympics.

Right.

That's right.

And so our colleague was talking about the Bay Area and Los Angeles and sort of joking around about how the resources are distributed. And certainly, we have the lion's share of the residents' responsibility in the games in LA and certainly the disruption. But I do think it's important to point out that the dollars that come back to Los Angeles during the games and the five, six, eight, ten years after the games benefits the whole state.

And so this is you know, we're talking to appropriations.

We wanna make sure that the state is doing all that we can to make the game successful. But really, this is about us ensuring that the revenues that we need come back to the state especially at this time. So I just wanna thank you for coming and sharing that.

Let me mention one other thing that maybe I wasn't clear about. The idea of people stopping at the baggage claim and seeing that kiosk, I want LA to be known years from now as all of these neighborhoods, not just three, that people come. I want people to understand that those murals that exist in East LA and South LA and all become tourist sites. One thing that you mentioned, Senator, was Union Station. So, you know we have El Pueblo across the street.

And El Pueblo really needs to be brought up to speed and so does China's Town. Little Tokyo is pristine. I want it to be that when you come to LA, must go places are places like Olvera Street, like it used to be. And but those areas have deteriorated and they needed to and they need to be lifted up. And frankly, the Olympics is a perfect excuse to get that done.

But the point is that they would be tourist sites in the future, not just for the games, but LA would be known as this patchwork of basically the world. Thank you.

Okay. Now you have me.

Uh-oh.

Welcome, Mayor. Let's, Did you wanna?

No. I'm taking over. You go on.

Are you sure?

Okay. Madam chair. I love it.

Yeah.

And I also too wanna say thank you so much, Mayor Bass, for being here. Really appreciate your just continued advocacy for the city and, of course, just being up here. You know this process really well, but I appreciate that you still don't take it for granted and that you're here.

No. Never.

Appreciate you very much for that. We got together as I was the Chair of the, I'm still the Chair of the Latino Caucus. What was this? Almost two years ago in Senator Durazo's district. She and I are working together on a bill, SB 537, that you may know with Senator Becker from the Bay Area to uplift the Mexican repatriation.

And similar to what you're saying here about, you know, ensuring that, you know, LA has monuments and places even far beyond LA '28. That we continue to commit to that.

So I can tell you now we are absolutely committed to seeing some sort of monument for that you know, just sort of symbolizes the Mexican repatriation, which is at El Pueblo, right across the street from Union Station, where American citizens of Mexican descent and Mexican Americans and Mexicans were unfairly deported, you know, many, many years ago.

And so I thank you for being just a such a strong supporter for our Latino community and just ensuring that we're symbolizing these moments, when the when we're on the global stage.

Well. We need a museum.

Yeah. All of it.

Right across the street from City Hall, Mexican American art. I imagine you guys are aware of that with Costello.

Yep. I mean

I wanna see that.

Thank you.

I look at the righteous museum because it's across the street from City Hall, the symbolism of that. But also, you know, it is heartbreaking to look at El Pueblo right now. In any state, we any support we can get from the state, I am very determined that be lifted back to where I used to take my kids years ago and it's fallen into disrepair and it needs to come back. Now, I'm very excited that we have the support of the Mexican Council.

Yes. And we'll continue to work with you. I know you were at the press conference a couple years back to be able to start the motions for that symbolic gesture. We've got donors. We're ready to go with you in unison with you.

On top of that, obviously, immigration still front and center. You've been again, you know, just looking in the eyes of this evil that is the administration that has been really, really threatening our communities as you know, probably better than any of us.

How do you see us and what can we do to you and support Los Angeles, Long Beach in these efforts, so we don't, continue to face, you know more threats, especially as we come up to the the games and people are feeling even, you know, more worried, that they'll continue to be deported and kidnapped.

Yeah. And that's one reason why I wanna take advantage to lift our communities up that were hit so hard economically, you know, and using this as an opportunity. But I think we all have to stay. One thing I was really proud of LA for was there was no part of LA that cracked, that divided.

Everybody was clear in denouncing the raids and the presence, you know, of ICE in the way that and by the way, I think it's very important and I say this all the time.

It's really important that we not forget that it has not stopped. It's just not in the headlines the way it was before. But communities still feel under attack. People are still afraid. Enrollment, all of that stuff is still going on.

And that we're there to support the families as they weather this crisis.

Thank you. Well, we've got lots of legislation in the mix to be able to support, but if there's anything else you need, we're for it. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Senator Richardson?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Before I go on to a couple questions for the Mayor, I wanted Madam Chair, what we heard from the testimony of the Mayor was that there was an original OIC early games agreement. I don't know that we were ever privy to that and I think what Senator Rubio in part was talking about is traditionally Olympics, the Olympic organizing committee would commit a certain amount of dollars to the communities where the games were happening.

Significant amount of dollars, millions of dollars that typically was put there for pools and all different types of things. And what I was alluding to in the first panel was that I haven't seen that and I think that's what Senator Rubio was calling for.

So as a follow-up to our subsequent meeting that we discussed in panel one, if we could make sure to make note that understanding what this early agreement said, how much money was supposed to be allocated to the Los Angeles community, and are we seeing any of that if anything?

It was a statement more to say if we could add that to the first panel which is appropriate to handle that issue.

Doubly noted.

Okay. Thank you. Alright. Madam Mayor, if I heard correctly, you asked for three things, at least for us to start with. One was assistance regarding the approval process of permitting of some locations.

The second was a potential approval ability to do mutual aid with law enforcement. And then the third had to do with some of the cleanup issues. If your staff, if you could please provide to the committee specifics of where you're looking for, the approval of potential CEQA, accept exceptions and so on.

Please share that with us as soon as possible so we can work on, whether it's in budget language or whatever it is, that we can get that going and if there's something we need to work with the governor's office regarding the mutual aid ability, we'd be happy to do that. I'd like to speak to the third point of what you talked about of the trash and some of the encampments.

As you're aware, in my district on the 110 Freeway just last week, we had that major fire on the 110 Freeway.

That's right.

There was an encampment underneath the freeway. It literally shut down the freeway.

That's right.

And there was so much trash and everything that the firefighters couldn't even get to, the point of where the fire was. And so, I noticed on our agenda that we do have representatives from the Department of Transportation who will be participating. But I think it's important to note while she's here, so we can bring it up in that next panel that it is critical that we set with Caltrans, with the Department of Transportation, not only the areas, of course, that will be impacted by the Olympics.

Of course, all areas we would hope. But certainly, the areas where this is gonna be occurring of the Olympics, we have to make sure these freeways don't have encampments over the over ramp, people laying on the side of the exits off the freeways.

I can give you numerous locations in my district alone. I'm sure they're throughout Los Angeles, so that would be my next ask, Madam Chairman, that we would add to follow-up and that is, to determine how do we provide direction to Caltrans to look at these areas and we have to start now because there's frankly so many.

And we also need to make sure that the Department of Transportation has the appropriate authority to do what is allowed to deal with these encampments, trash, and so on that's going on. That frankly, what just happened in my district could prohibit athletes getting to Right. Venues, people getting to venues.

I mean, it was unfortunately a perfect example of what it means if this is not done. How it can impact a community. I believe we were shut down for two days and then only opening up one lane going in one direction. So I wanted to echo that. The last thing I wanted to ask you about, you mentioned the business summits that you had.

I know that the city of LA has created this database and I commend the city from doing that. How are you interacting with the organizing committee to make sure that we're going to enable all this good work and the businesses that are interested that in fact can be engaged. So if you could just share with us a little bit.

What your thoughts are and what we can do to help since you've already created an initial framework. No sense in reinventing the wheel. How can we work with that to make sure it happens?

Sure.

Well and thank you for that question. Yes. That again is critically important which is why games for all means so much. Let me mention though because and and I think, mister Freeman made reference to this. We did receive a significant amount of resources in the form of PlayLA, which is like a $160,000,000 that has gone to youth sports.

And we've gotten that, you know, in advance. So that form of help, you know, and assistance and support from LA 28, has been there. But in terms of the business side of it, we have to make very clear that we are aligned and that the city of Los Angeles, which is the general host of the games, our businesses have to be prioritized. And that it can't be so general that it's half of Southern California is part of the definition of local.

Local means the city of Los Angeles.

We spent two years, and this is our third year, of getting our businesses prepared. The last thing in the world we wanna say is that now they have to compete with half of Southern California. Understanding that there's other cities that are playing host as well, like Long Beach, like Pomona, but we do have to have an emphasis on our businesses or we will be lost.

And so that is a discussion that has been ongoing, but I'm very optimistic that we will align with LA 28 and that those economic benefits is a way. Because we have the opportunity to move our mom and pops up a notch Right.

Where they actually are more successful and can compete for better contracts. I did wanna mention though the fire because that was very illuminating to us. And right away, it reminded me of the fire under the 10 Freeway, where what we found there and what Caltrans found, and I don't think any of us had thought about this, but they had contracts with people and lease arrangements.

And some of the people, some of the businesses, basically, were irresponsible by putting up, by creating a fire hazard. And then all you need is somebody to ignite it and it shut down the 10 Freeway.

Right. We were worried it was gonna be shut down for months.

Right.

And our city and our region is in a really tough spot if we can't move on our freeways. So, Caltrans did go back and reviewed all their leases, and I'm sure they went after whatever bad actors was there. But this situation, nobody knew that tunnel existed.

Right.

And so what we need from Caltrans now, are there other tunnels like that? Are there other situations like that? So that we can deal with the encampments. The encampments on the freeway, though, we will be coming back to you with an encampment resolution proposal so that we can deal with those on the freeway. But, again, just to be clear, the trash and all that I was talking about is not related to encampments.

And it is on state property that we do not have the resources nor are we able to clear out trash on state property.

Exactly. And for the sake of time, I'll just give one example of congratulations to you, Merritt. Well, it's already been stated you're dealing with, the ICE situation and, people feeling positive about coming to LA, but I want to point out, the LAX Airport. If people have not been there, the number of projects that are happening there, The transformation. The putting pictures of LA throughout.

Amazing work is being done. Having the rental car situation being up and running in time for the Olympics. That's just one of many examples of projects that you have helped to spearhead to make sure that we're ready for the millions of people that are coming. So thank you and look forward to working with you.

Well, and I do have to mention that because that's a perfect example. LAX is where we took mom and pops who were subs, who are now primes, and they have moved up because it's not about keeping our mom and pops always mom and pops. It's about moving them up a trajectory, and LAX has been used for that. And if that doesn't happen consciously, it's just not gonna happen. And we need the games to be a part of that contribution to our neighborhoods.

Congratulations.

Thank you all. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much, mayor. Appreciate your time coming all the way up here.

It's an honor to speak with you.

Thank you. We have, just to remind everyone our agenda, we have three panels, left. We have the next panel on infrastructure. We have the following panel after that on transportation. And the last panel is on sustainability.

So for the next panel, we'd like to invite, mister Krikorian, miss Ambris, and mister Wyden. Good afternoon, mister Kricorian. Thank you

Thank you very much, madam chair and senators. It's great to be with all of you again. I know we've run a little bit long already, so I'm gonna try to be as expeditious as I can. But please feel free to interrupt me with any questions. I know that some of the questions that you've asked earlier, I'll probably be touching upon.

Well, I'm gonna save the questions when the three of you are done, and then we'll have questions.

I just wanna start by reminding us that we have seven 793 days left until the opening ceremonies of the Olympic games, which will continue, of course, through the Paralympic games in 2028. We're now less than a month away from the opening of the World Cup. And so we've got a lot on our plate. The mayor, when she spoke, alluded to her games for all vision, which I know all of you have seen and and are familiar with.

We're talking about three of nine main pillars of that vision today.

Streets and transit and infrastructure, sustainability and accessibility. But you've already touched upon many of the other things that are very very important to mayor Bass. The arts and culture, which will not be limited to the cultural Olympiad produced by LA 28, but will very much be supplemented by LA's own arts and culture festival.

Community engagement and celebrations, which will address the inaccessibility and unaffordability of tickets that we discussed earlier with, community engagements in all 15 of our council districts that will be free and open to the public. Community business opportunity, the mayor touched upon some of the emphasis we've put on procurement opportunities for small businesses.

There's much more to be said about that, but it's not on our agenda today. So I'll touch upon that a little bit in passing as we go. Just to level set a little bit because every decision we make, every decision you make here that has a cost associated to it has to also be seen in the context of what we stand to gain from these games as well. The games will produce $18,000,000,000 in economic output.

That's much, much more than the $7,100,000,000 budget that LA 28 has.

So all of the multiplier effects, the ancillary events, the other things that will happen related to the games, you know, supporting 90,000 jobs and importantly producing 700,000,000 at least in state and local tax new revenues. So just as a reminder, and this addresses a little bit the questions that Senator Rubio and Senator Richardson raised about impacts of venues on communities.

This game is different than every other, Olympic and Paralympic games that have happened in history, and that it is both a no build games and a transit first games.

That has never happened. And so in Paris, for example, they built an Olympic village, and it was a massive undertaking. And yes, that's going to benefit that community afterwards. But the conscious decision was made for sustainability and cost containment purposes for these games that, we would not build permanent new venues. Now, there will be temporary venues that will be built, and many of those will afford us the opportunity to benefit the communities by perhaps obtaining those temporary venues and making them permanent.

And that's another policy question we'll need to talk to you about, to permit that under the CEQA exemption so that if a temporary swimming pool goes up in a neighborhood, for example, that doesn't have very many swimming pools, it would be a shame if we asked LA 28 to move that temporary swimming pool out when we could, in fact, save them money, save environmental impact, and benefit a community by making that swimming pool permanent.

And we have plans to do that, which we can address, but it may require some additional policy change that, we can follow-up with you about. So we're talking today about, infrastructure. And, I'm gonna talk both on infrastructure and then later on transportation.

I'll focus a little bit now on the non transportation infrastructure, which most of the asks that we've already presented to you involve improvement to the public rights of way, particularly in venue approaches, sidewalk improvements, street maintenance, and so forth, but also in changing the way Angelinos get around and the opportunities that they see by enhanced active transportation projects, improvements to our local and metro bus service and so forth.

So just a few of the categories that, we've been discussing with all of you, as our partners in this is, the asks relating to infrastructure that I just described, street improvements, accessibility improvements, energy upgrades, which will be necessary especially for the temporary venues, but they'll also be, necessary for charging infrastructure and otherwise. And again, we would like those to become legacies by keeping them permanently afterwards as well.

There's a small ask for safety, security, and technology that's not exactly on point for today, but we do very much need an interagency joint operation center to be built to coordinate all of the public safety services and we will look for your participation and support of that as well. Many of you asked about the arts and cultural programming to LA 28.

And again, I wanna emphasize that the cultural Olympiad, that's the responsibility of LA 28, is only one part of this equation.

The city is very much committed to investing its own funds and enhancing that effort through philanthropic support and ideally your support as well of our comprehensive arts and cultural programming that will celebrate all the neighborhoods of Los Angeles as the mayor described and allow full participation from our communities as well.

And then we touched earlier on the active transportation projects, especially in the Sepulveda Basin completion of the LA Riverway bike path, which the big missing piece of that happens to be right in the basin adjacent to a critical venue. So this is the perfect opportunity to once and for all finally get that job done. Another component of this is, this will be the first time LA is hosting the Paralympics.

And so it is even more important than it otherwise would be to ensure that all of these upgrades enhance accessibility for all Angelenos and our visitors.

And we're very much committed to doing that. That is something again that we'll be able to do much more holistically, more comprehensively, with support of our state partners. The mayor mentioned the clean corridors program, this is primarily Caltrans rights of way that, need illegal dumping, that have illegal dumping challenges, Graffiti challenges, landscaping challenges with investments by the state in those areas. We can have a real impact on surrounding neighborhoods and put the best foot forward for our visitors. Okay.

So I can go into detail on all of those issues to the extent that you like, but I just want to also remind us before I turn this over to my other panelists. You hear, like we hear, lots of negativity. We live in an era of political negativity. And so you hear, well, the tickets are too expensive. You know, there's not gonna be enough opportunities.

It's gonna be a big disruption. There's gonna be a lot of traffic. The city just went through these horrible fires. How are we gonna pull this off? How are we gonna be host of the world's biggest event?

So I just want to remind all of us as I try always to do that, LA knows how to do this. We've done this. We've proven it in the past. In 1932, everybody thinks about the 1932 games. It was a pivotal moment in the history of Los Angeles of bringing California into the eyes of the world and really establishing our place in the eyes of the world.

People forget often that the 1932 games happened in the middle of the Great Depression. So while there were parades, welcoming the games, there were also bread lines on Broadway. And yet, we pulled off, a successful games that was financially successful, turned a profit, and transformed Los Angeles into truly an international city. Fast forward to 1984, and again, everybody who's like me old enough to remember the '84 games remembers that very fondly now.

But we forget that at this point in the planning for the eighty four games, we had just come out of the 1980 boycott of the Moscow games.

We were facing the deepest recession that this country had experienced since WW2. And, the Olympic movement was teetering on the edge of collapse after the boycott in 1980. And Los Angeles raised its hand and said, we'll come to the rescue. And we produced the 1984 games, which became the most successful Olympic games in history.

A games so successful that as the mayor mentioned earlier, we are still spending the profits of that games today to fund youth sports programming and youth development programming, throughout Southern California from the profits from 1984.

So in our parks, right now, today, you have young people benefiting from the 1984 games that happened over 40 years ago and the 2028 games that haven't yet happened, but they're already funding youth sports programs. So, I have great confidence that for whatever obstacles and difficulties we face, we are primed to be able to produce another extraordinarily successful games with your continuing partnership and support.

Thank you. Thank you, mister Pecorin. Let's now go to, Tondre Ambriz from Exposition Park.

Thank you, mister chair and former madam chair as well and other senators. From Exposition Park, a state property down in Los Angeles, we're really appreciative of your time and attention, the many visits that you've taken down to the park, and the many conversations that we've had with all of your staff. So thank you so much for your consideration of not only how to support, Exposition Park, the state property, but also how to support the surrounding communities and also the visitors that come.

Annually, we have about 8,000,000 visitors to Exposition Park, which actually puts us on par with Universal Studios. As a state property, it's one of the most visited. And I'd like to share a little history about the park.

If we were a state park, we would be the oldest state park in the state. We are actually an agricultural district association. And in 1923, that's when our coliseum was completed. So even before the 1932 games, we were already vying to be the first. In 1927, we developed our rose garden.

And in 1932, that is when we held the first Olympic games in Los Angeles. So exactly as mister Krikorian just mentioned, we have the experience in hosting these really historic moments in games at Exposition Park within our coliseum, and we also built the swimming pool that was used for the '32 Olympics. So we have multiple venues that have been used over time. Fast forward also to the '84 games, that held about, a 100,000 visitors.

We are expecting a bit less in this, upcoming Olympic season, but, those games did not necessarily provide any infrastructure improvements for the park and the state property itself.

They really invested in the Coliseum, that was the host venue then. So as we are exploring this new moment in time where we will host the 1928 games, we are really interested to understand how the impact will be on the entirety of the property. I'm gonna forward over to a bit about Exposition Park in detail. I mentioned our 8,000,000 annual visitors. We have four museums, including two state museums under your purview.

That would be the California African American Museum and the California Science Center, the Natural History Museum of LA County, and the new Lucas Museum of Narrative Art that we're excited to open, in the short future. We also have four sport and recreation venues. At this point, all of which will be used for the 28 games in different, uses and capacities. But as you're familiar, the LA Memorial Coliseum and the BMO Stadium, which is a soccer stadium, will be used for different sport venue, engagements.

We also have two schools on campus and, of course, we have multiple green spaces.

But I wanna emphasize that Exposition Park is going to be the only site, especially the only state property in history, to host three active Olympic ceremonies. That makes us very distinct, and it makes us very unique as a state property. If other private institutions or local municipalities are using their spaces, the state property of Exposition Park is the site for the Olympic games for, the state's consideration.

While we are also gearing up for the '28 games, we're also excited that just as was mentioned, we're less than 30 days away from the World Cup fan festival that we will host. So that is intended to be our training wheels.

We are still exploring some of the lessons to be learned in the planning and the process up to this moment, and certainly, postmortem, we will be reflecting on how we can improve some of our operations to learn and and grow toward the '28 games. And we're the only multi venue site in California that has both museums, sports, and entertainment venues on-site. Again, makes us a very unique state property.

So, to understand a bit more about all of our jurisdictional opportunities and responsibilities, I wanted to outline the different spaces that we have. It's a 160 acre state property.

In addition to all those venues I just mentioned, we manage the lawn areas. We manage all the parking facilities, and all of these spaces are being considered for the '28 games. And how they will be activated is yet to be determined, but we do anticipate the entirety of the park, and the entirety of the space to play a role certainly in both either venues or preparation areas for the games. I mentioned a bit about the World Cup that we're hosting.

Certainly, lessons learned already that I can share are around our need to, imagine and plan for public safety concerns and public safety issues, thinking about our infrastructure needs.

And for the '28 games, we will host two different venues that will be used for games. We will host not only the opening celebration for the LA '28 games, but also the closing ceremony for the LA '28 games. We'll also host the Paralympics. In our Exposition Park Stadium, we will host the, flag football and lacrosse games. We'll also host the track and field games.

We'll also have medal ceremonies. I mean, you name it. We're gonna have it here at the state property. So not only are we thinking about how to prepare for the Olympics, but certainly the Paralympics. It will be a monumental opportunity for us to host the first Paralympics.

And in doing so, we wanna ensure that we have accessibility needs, and we have all of the infrastructure needed to accommodate all of our additional athletes that are coming to visit. Regarding the milestones, I want to share that not only are we planning for this World Cup moment, we're planning for the LA '28 games, but in the middle of that, we have a world class museum that's going to be open, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art.

This incredible over $1,000,000,000 investment into Exposition Park onto state property that's intended to bring about a million and a half more visitors to the park and to the local community. So as we're planning for the infrastructure needs, we have to accommodate and take into account this major additional milestone right in the middle of it. That's important for us to think about our timelines for any construction, for any updates, for any impacts that we might have around the surrounding community as well.

And certainly post '28, we're still exploring how to maximize the approved funding that you all supported us with to build a new green park at Exposition Park and, reimagine, an asphalt covered parking lot into a new green space.

So to detail a bit more about our infrastructure needs, for your consideration, the governor's proposed budget does include $96,500,000 for utility replacement and site improvement request for Exposition Park, specifically that's around improvements on sidewalks and roadways and ramps, all focused toward accessibility and really the improved safety of the state property and the grounds. We also have a request for some funding toward traffic system upgrades and public safety improvements like barricades and bollards.

We are a site that has multiple pedestrians and vehicles simultaneously on in the exact same place, so we know we need to be really intentional about the improvements we have to those roadways and to the pedestrian walkways. So this would support that.

We also have some support, or a request for support toward public safety and legal support, of 1,698,000. All of this is to really improve the existing condition of the state property. And I do wanna, address, perhaps, some of the comments that were made in the previous presentations. While we are thinking about the LA '28 games, we and we certainly are, moving with expediency and urgency to meet this moment. The state property has been there for over a hundred years.

It will be there for another hundred years if we do it right. And this moment that we have to invest into the state property is going to be a legacy improvement for years to come, for generations to come. So the children that are playing there now will hopefully bring the children, that they have in the future to play on those same grounds, to play on the same lawns, to play on those same roads.

So these improvements are, in fact, legacy improvements toward the park, toward the community. So for the, state to consider how to support, and see long term impacts and investments.

We do think that Exposition Park, is worthy of your consideration. For us to move forward on these infrastructure improvements, the time is now. We have a short window to produce all of these improvements. Just to summarize for you, construction should begin in the top of 2027 and be done the 2028. That means now we are already actively considering how to identify qualified firms if we were able to receive the funding and approval.

We're already thinking about how to implement a progressive design build model to, fast track some of this work, and we're thinking about how to ensure, of course, local workforce hire and, community benefits in this, effort. So with that, just wanna close again with appreciating all of your consideration, appreciating the visits, but really say that this investment toward Exposition Park will yield a long term, commitment from, I think, the state into the state property.

And for those that haven't yet been, to Exposition Park, very much welcome you all. Certainly for the World Cup Fan Fest because you will be able to see the complexity of the space and all of the different visitors that will come. So thank you very much again for your consideration and, of course, happy to answer questions later.

Mister chair, members, thank you for having me. Good to see you as well. To steal Senator Richardson's one of her, sports analogies on batting third, but I think it's a little bit more like batting cleanup because I think you'll see a lot of the themes are very similar, amongst our properties. California is very lucky. After the 2028 games, it will be the, the only state that has two venues that have hosted three games along with Exposition Park and the Coliseum.

The Rose Bowl will be hosting its third games. It's very important to us in that, the games have a really important, piece in our history. It's probably why we're still relevant and still there. If you look at in 1932, we were actually the home of Olympic track cycling. Before that, the Rose Bowl had been built for one event a year which is the Rose Bowl game, which is actually the one SEER one event annually that the state has every year.

And really, if you look at it, the first commercial for the state of California, you know, is the parade and the game were put on because everyone in California and LA wanted to show their friends throughout the country that our roses were in bloom in January, and they did a pretty good job of that. And I think as we talk about the Olympic games, I hear a lot of how is this going to bring people to our state either to visit, to live here.

You know, that aspirational nature of Southern California lifestyle, I think, is really going to play out in the games. But if you look at the '32 games, the the Rose Bowl was actually the host of Olympic track cycling. So, it was the actually the first time that we did something other than American football.

Why that's important to us is that showed us it's so important to diversify the events that you do and the things that you bring people to your municipally owned stadium for. You know, if you're not a football fan, you might be a fan of cycling. Our grounds are actually one of the busiest grounds. We're the second busiest recreation site outside of the beach.

We actually have close to 3,000,000 people a year that recreate around our 300 acres of parkland that surround the Rose Bowl Stadium.

There we go. So this does a pretty good job of showing our grounds. While most people think of the Rose Bowl itself, we actually operate close to 300 acres of five star parkland in LA County.

As I mentioned, it's one of the busiest recreation areas, around with 3,000,000 or so people that recreate. We have another million that come to events inside the stadium.

So really as we look at our venue, we look at it as a story of a venue that has diversified its events. We now do 25 events a year, everything from concerts to soccer matches to music festivals, and and that diversification has really allowed us to be this community

meeting place where people come and gather. One of the challenges we have though as a large site like that is that we own the experience for a long distance.

You know, if you go to an event at a stadium inside the city, you walk across the street, you're no longer a you don't belong to that event anymore. You're on the street corner across from the event.

For us, we have people that park and are part of our event that are a mile up to the north on our golf course. So as we look at improvements, things that can have a legacy for us we look at the interplay there of of security cameras and lighting

and all the things that we know when we host the games we're gonna we're gonna need. Why not have a legacy of those things that that live past the games?

It's so important that for us that when we do events, we really look at how we can make investments in this building because that's really why this building is still relevant. If you look at the Rose Bowl Stadium, it's in this massive arroyo of 300 acres.

It's circled there in the center. But if you look to the left, I think it's an important story. On the far left of this is the Rose Bowl Aquatic Center. That's actually a site that was built with funds from the eighty four games.

So as you talk about access and the ability to engage people in the games, that's a site that was built because of the proceeds from the 'eighty four games, and is now actually gonna be the site of Olympic diving during the Olympics.

So as we talk about legacy, how are we as venues, as cities looking at how these buildings have a legacy beyond just the games themselves. Right? Because we wanna make sure that it's wonderful. It's a no build games.

There's gonna be no buildings that will sit there unused, and we'll wonder why we built them. But even better if we have buildings in areas that are used even more because of those games.

And I think that to me, is why it's so important that Rose Bowl actually is a wonderful story to tell of a building that was used in '34 for Olympic track cycling. It was used in or or '32 for Olympic track cycling. '84, it was used for soccer.

And now, we're gonna be the home for men's and women's finals, the the semifinals, and one, quarterfinal match.

So we've been able to sort of change the identity of our building because of the games and because of the other things that go in there, but that doesn't just happen. You need to invest.

And I think the reason that LA has buildings that are hosting some of the biggest events around, if you look at there are other buildings in the world that have hosted three games. Those buildings maybe hosted the opening ceremonies back in the nineteen hundreds.

They're now hosting maybe smaller events, things that aren't of consequence.

If you look here, you have two partners here that represent buildings that are that were part of the games in '32 that are now hosting some of the most important games of '28. Why is that? That's because we've invested in them.

You know, people have have an expectation of what an experience is going to be. They don't just come to the finals for men's soccer because it's at a historic Rose Bowl. They come because it's at the historic Rose Bowl, but because the building has been invested in.

There's amenities. There's expectation of the experience being elevated, and we're very proud of the fact that we've invested hundreds of millions of dollars just in the past 15 years into our building, and it's really returned for us.

We found that people come and they wanna be at our building. It's why the games chose to come back and do the finals for soccer, but it's important that we continue to do that. So we do it in our day to day. We have a foundation that raises money for our stadium.

We've worked really closely with state and national partners to raise funds. SB 98 was a bill that was, pushed, that came through the Senate that is a tax incentive.

So, the taxes that are raised from food and beverage sales and merchandise sales, a portion of that comes back to us for our preventative maintenance and our capital projects.

And what that's enabled us to do is be is not only invest in the building to keep the status quo but to maintain it. As you look on the left, we have a lot of infrastructure projects that are super important to us to make sure that our infrastructure, which, by the way, is the same age as a lot of the infrastructure in the state, is aging.

And how do we replace that and how do we use that as a story that it's important that we invest in our infrastructure? On the right, you have a a new club that we're building that we're very proud of that's gonna in that's gonna, be an area that the teams run out through.

All these investments in infrastructure have been things that not only make our building better, but they enable us to attract events and employ thousands of people on on event day that then goes back into the economy and that goes back into that system that brings more and more events, to our region.

Sorry, that double skipped. I think another really important factor in investing in these municipally owned buildings and sites is that you're able to, these investments also make these sites that can be used by the community. You know, that we talked a little bit about the fire earlier, you know, we were ground zero for the Eaton Fire. Within an hour of the Eaton Fire starting, we became the home to the response for to the Eaton fire.

Within 48 hours, we had 3,000 first responders that were living on our site. They lived on our site for a month.

They every morning would be, in our Court of Champions, and they'd get their briefings, and they'd be able to meet folks that they had to go out and fight those fires with, and then they would leave from our space. It was one of the more compelling things I've ever seen.

You know, you had mutual aid coming from the Bay Area that was five hours away coming to our place five and a half hours after the fire started, meaning they got in their trucks and they came down, and they lived on our site.

These are the benefits of investment in our in our infrastructure around the games and in general. The games, we've have it's been a discussion of how do the games help lift this community, how does it make us better.

Our buildings and our infrastructure are a great example of that. Our it's, I personally am so proud that the Rose Bowl is as busy as it's ever been. It's welcoming visitors. It's it's hosting events because this community, this state has has really cherished these buildings.

You know, we really feel that they're important, not just because they're old, but because they're important to our history and they're going to be important to our future.

You know, we never want we are not at a point where we want to discard these buildings and say that we used to host events there. You know, I'm so proud.

You know, we we're a founding member of the National Historic Stadium Caucus, which has over 25 members, which are buildings throughout the country that are historic buildings.

The Coliseum is one, the Rose Bowl, but you have buildings in Florida. You have buildings in Wisconsin that are just like us. They're very similar. They were built close to a hundred years ago.

They have a lot of competition moving in from new venues and new areas. And what we've said is the new buildings are wonderful and they play a perfect part in the games.

Without SoFi Stadium, we likely couldn't put on the games. We need all the venues that we have. But how do we invest in the infrastructure in these buildings to make sure that they stay?

Because them being part of our history and not just the history, but the future is so important. And so as we talk about infrastructure and investing, you know, this is a photo of the Rose Bowl with 90,000 people at a soccer match.

So this is this will be our reality in 2028. We are ready to host these games. Unlike some other venues that have to build out to host something that's a little bit different, soccer is really in our wheelhouse, and we're so excited about that.

But how do we take investment in our building to elevate that experience, but elevate that experience that has a legacy.

We want to make sure that when the games move on, that our community, our buildings, our community meeting grounds are improved and are better.

And I think that we have a you know, we have an ask through Senator Perez and Assemblymember Harabedian, around safety and security, and we really think that it's appropriate because what it does is it enables us to be better at what we do, and what we do is welcome people to to Southern California.

We're an advertisement for the lifestyle. We are a meeting place for all. We know the world will come here in 2028, but as has been said earlier in this panel, how do we make sure they keep coming back here?

How do we make sure that they know this is a place that values these institutions, these beautiful places, and make sure that the games really have a legacy impact?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a couple questions. Former Assembly Member and Executive Director Krekorian. In your slides in particular, you had a couple pages about the two and a half years, outstanding we have left to complete projects and initiatives.

Could you please, and I guess also, for the Rose Bowl as well and, and Exposition Park, If you could make sure to provide to the committee what has been funded and what hasn't so we know what's remaining because we are aware of what's initially listed for the governor.

But from that list, I don't know where all of those things have they been? I know different funding has come at different times from different entities. So if you could just help us to identify what's if there's anything remaining that you're needing our assistance to fulfill.

We need to know that, like, this week sooner rather than later. So we know what's remaining to ask for. Because I haven't seen a updated list beyond the one that's already been submitted with up Exposition Park.

I haven't seen another one. So I know other funding has happened on the infrastructure side, but I don't know if all those that were listed have been taken care of.

So if you could just let us know and the same exposition excuse me, the Rose Bowl you noted a couple projects. So if you could just let us know.

The second thing is the mayor mentioned Play LA and then one of the slides you had talked about in '84, I believe 87,000,000 was available for new and improved facilities and community use.

And what I recall part of the discussion of this Olympics was the fact that we weren't building new venues. Because we weren't building new venues that was helping us to stay within a budget that was affordable, that we weren't gonna be coming to the voters

and taxpayers to say, hey, we need, you know, x amount of billions of dollars to help put on the Olympics.

My concern though is and if you notice I've asked it in the last couple panels and that is have by the fact that we've been a no build location has that impacted funding typically that the OIC normally provides for facilities and for community improvements.

So I don't know if you have those details today but I think it's important and that's what I was getting at in the first panel.

It's important for us to understand what we know typically the OIC does and then what are we doing now?

So are we saying that the 128 or 126,000,000 for play LA is what's intended for what happened maybe in '84 of the 87,000,000 listed or is it something different or what?

Because I really think we need to get to the bottom to what typically happens with the Olympics and what typically are some of the benefits to those communities and are those translating to what we're seeing in our communities today.

So if you could help us with that information, if not now, refer us to who we speak to to get that information.

I'm happy to provide what we can. I will say that there's not as much that's typical as you might expect. And in a sense, we're comparing apples to oranges when we're comparing one games to the next because even even with Paris, for example, there were

substantial legacy of investments and much of it was paid by the Federal Government or the municipal government of France and Paris. They had a smaller budget than LA 28 has for a much for a larger games that that we'll be having.

So it's not a a one to one kind of comparison from games to games.

The $160,000,000 was something that was, I think, unprecedented that we received an advance payment against future broadcast revenues that the IOC would be receiving that LA 28 would have as part of their budget.

We were able to secure that to fund youth programming and much of it is already we've already had over a million subscriptions in PlayLA of young people who are participating in sports who might not otherwise been able to but for that PlayLA funding.

Okay. So then if we could get further information in the PlayLA program, Where is it happened? Who's benefited? Is there still opportunities? Yes, no.

And if there was a role in the past, and I get that with Paris Forum, the Federal Government or local government or whatever, If you could share that with us because that helps us to then know if we should be asking the Federal Government, hey, this is what happened here.

This is what they received. This is what we've received. Can we get assistance in the following area? So I'm really hoping to get additional information to make sure that whatever possible that we could benefit for our communities that in fact happens.

Thank you. And, sir, you didn't mention the UCLA football games.

UCLA football games as well. Yeah. No. We we're very proud, you know. We're as a building, as I mentioned, you know, we do 25 events a year in a in a building that was built for one event a year has seven football games, six UCLA, and and one Rose Bowl.

But, we're so busy with everything else. And I think that's, to me, what's really neat about the Olympics coming to town is that all these venues are gonna be highlighted maybe to Angelenos for the first time because they're gonna have a sport or an event that they haven't participated in or watched.

They're gonna go to a new venue to to see that. So I think, yes, that's a very important part of it and I think as we look at these investments in our buildings, that's that's a leg legacy in and to itself.

And I agree. I applaud you for your diversification. But you have a couple Bruins here so.

Yeah. Go Bruins.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And, sorry, I'm between, hearings today, so apologies. But I wanted to just say we went on an amazing tour of venues. And what is spectacular about our historic venues is that communities have grown up around them.

And so unlike newer stadiums that are in places that don't have sort of a built out beautiful community, the Coliseum is one of those you can see from, you know, the Hollywood Hills to downtown, and it is a spectacular view of all the city around.

And in Pasadena, just to see the hillsides and around the stadium, it is definitely going to be not just a place to watch sporting events, but it will be an amazing experience to be an open space inside of one of our, historic, stadium. So I really appreciate you all, being here.

And one of the things that I'm so glad we're talking about the infrastructure improvements and the needs, and I wanna echo, Senator Richardson's points that we don't have a lot of time and there are very few opportunities now to really think critically about what's needed. I wanna thank, the Senate.

I wanna thank the governor and others who've helped us get to our initial investment in, in Expo Park, where we have had decades of deferred maintenance, and where we know in this very litigious society, it's very important for us to do everything that we can,

to make sure that we are compliant, on on every, single point and and that everyone will have access, to the park.

But I wanted to just double to double back on what's still left to be done and to understand from the investment that was received from the state.

Can you talk a little bit about how the deferred maintenance you know, how did you identify the deferred maintenance needs and a little bit about how the park can maintain consistent maintenance following the overdue, investment.

And if you could also add a little bit about, to your to respond to your response that, the governor's budget that we have, request that we've put forward for the park, will it support all of the deferred maintenance in terms of this 95,600,000 that has been received?

What else is left to be done, and how do we maintain this moving forward?

Thank you for the question and always for your leadership as our hometown Senator, Senator Smallwood-Cuevas. Some time ago, we, recognized that there would be significant growth at the park.

Again, the museums that were opening and the, many different visitors that we have. So we did conduct a study, through our colleagues at DGS, to work with engineers to identify some of the deferred maintenance needs at Exposition Park.

The last time that the park really had some significant improvement was around the 1984 Olympics. So we, in addition to others, are experiencing, kind of the life cycle of the infrastructure that's in existence currently.

So with that study, we were able to identify some critical improvements and needs that are both surface level as well as below ground. The governors but proposed budget includes funding that would support the surface level improvements.

So the roadways, the sidewalks, the ramps, I was mentioning a bit earlier, and that's at around a $96,000,000 request. That would support the priority projects that we've identified with that funding.

At this point, if there were additional funds and opportunities, we would likely be able to cover additional projects throughout the park, perhaps do some underground work.

With the timeline that we have, and we've mentioned it already, I always count in quarters. We have seven quarters left before we hit these games, which is a very short window for all of us.

So we know that any projects that we choose now need to be complete and in full delivered motion at the end of that 2028 before, the 2028 teams do decide to move in and and begin their load in.

So all of those, projects associated with the $96,000,000, would be covered within the scope, would be complete.

The additional work beyond, the the $96,000,000 worth of of projects would support an expanded set of projects, and we can provide that to you and to your team to, kind of really detail out what those, would be including.

You mentioned the, kind of many, the litigious nature of some of our work. And as we all oversee public sites and facilities, we are very mindful of the liabilities that we accept and incur.

This is a state property and we are very mindful of state public dollars being used most cost effectively and wisely, particularly in this open space. So the improvements that we have here would help us address those liabilities, and also save us on the back end.

But with seven quarters left, we have a very small window. This is the time for us to move forward on some of these projects. And I was mentioning earlier to your, great point earlier, we are going to, yes, be the front yard of the world, but we are the backyard of the world.

And these improvements do, in fact, serve as a legacy investment into the park and the state property as well. Yeah. If I could just add, on the liability front, it's very real, I think, for venues in the state and across the country. Liability is real.

You know, we put on events to make money to invest capital back in the buildings. That's really the model, especially in municipally owned stadium, and what we're finding is that we really rarely host an event where there's not liability challenges or people fall following up on an issue with whether it's accessibility or a trip fall or visibility.

And these are our buildings. We own these buildings. So as owners of these buildings, we should be thoughtful of what kind of capital investments can we make so that we prevent these things from happening.

We don't wanna go through all the work of putting on an Olympic final or a concert or a UCLA Bruins football game just to have those profits go away because of a liability issue that arise from someone coming to that event.

So as we look long term, it's one of our biggest priorities is focusing on that. I can also say as a building operator, it's also important incumbent upon us to make sure that we look long term.

We know at the stadium that we have about $200,000,000 in capital needs for the stadium over the next twenty years. We don't call it deferred maintenance because we don't see it as deferred maintenance.

It's just us looking forward to see what the challenges that are going to that are going to arise.

We also have a very robust preventative maintenance budget of over $2,000,000 a year just on keeping the status quo, and I say that because I think it's important that as you ask for assistance and help, you wanna make sure that the people that are giving you

that assistance don't feel like it's you're sort of throwing it into this black hole of you're gonna come back again and you're gonna come back again.

I think what we're saying is that we have a plan, and the the improvements that we want, we're gonna make those improvements at some point, but why not make those improvements before the game?

So that way, the world comes and they see these improvements and they see how wonderful it is and use that as a trampoline to get even better.

Because if we make those investments now, we think it's gonna pay off tenfold with whether it's event interest, tourism, jobs, all the things that come from this.

We're at a very, very critical point, and so investing in this infrastructure, especially in the liability front, and that's really what we're talking about at the Rose Bowl is, you know, is visibility with cameras. You know, our buildings were built over a 100 years ago.

Cameras didn't exist a 100 years ago. You know, you talk about lighting. We have a 300 acre park that people park during the day and then maybe leave at night, and they're going to try and find their vehicle next to a tree out in the middle of our parking lots.

So being able to light the golf course in a way that's appropriate, those are things that are gonna pay off not just event by event, but from a liability standpoint. So we think it's very important.

No. I really appreciate that and and and and understand what it takes to tend to a historic building. It's definitely different from from the new new infrastructure that we have. My other question is just in terms of timing because the seven quarters just kinda blew my mind when you said that. I was like, oh, anxiety.

But is just in we have the World Cup next month. Is there time to understand lessons learned in terms of planning, the transportation, safety, the workforce development?

Is there time to lesson learn and quickly pivot into the Olympic games sort of as process and and, yeah, what capacity do you have to really sort of go through that process so that we can quickly pivot, take those lessons learned, and hopefully have the resources to be able to implement things that we need to change.

I'd like to hear how you all are thinking about that process and what it looks like.