LA City Council’s bizarre $177 million ‘mansion tax’ boondoggle

The LA City Council just sent an engraved invitation to Vice President JD Vance, practically begging him to investigate fraud in the city.

That’s the upshot of Tuesday’s 12-1 vote authorizing $177 million in funding to lawyers who sue the city, and to left-wing activists.

The money comes from the so-called “mansion tax,” or Measure ULA. The tax was approved by voters in 2022, who were misinformed about what was being taxed and spent.

The tax was supposed to use money from wealthy homeowners to fund affordable housing — Bernie Sanders-style socialism.

The LA City Council just sent an invitation to Vice President JD Vance, begging him to investigate fraud in the city. Jonathan Alcorn For CA Post

In reality, Measure ULA doesn’t just apply to “mansions,” but apartment buildings, commercial buildings and medical clinics.

That means fewer apartments are being built than might be otherwise. And it also means fewer homes are being sold, raising less revenue than advertised.

The money that did come in was supposed to be spent on affordable housing. Instead, it is largely being spent on legal aid for tenants to fight evictions, and a network of radical groups.

Some of these groups routinely sue the city. Others oppose moving homeless people off the street. And some even call for defunding the police.

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In other words, the city is now subsidizing lawyers who will sue it for even more money, and activists who will stop the city from cleaning our homeless encampments and restoring law and order.

We don’t even know how many people these legal aid foundations and non-governmental organizations actually help — and how much money goes into overhead costs and slush funds. 

Moreover, there is an alarming and recent history of financial mismanagement in homeless services in LA.

One former director of a homelessness charity has already been charged by federal prosecutors with diverting $23 million of public funds for personal use.

And an audit last year of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) found that billions of dollars were unaccounted for, even as the CEO awarded a multi-million dollar contract to another organization that employed her husband.

So how could 12 members of the City Council vote to spend $177 million on similar efforts?

LA is taking money out of the productive real estate economy — money that could have been used to build new homes, or maintain existing ones — and wasting it on groups that might, perhaps, help some deserving low-income tenant or homeless family once in a while.

Vice President Vance has been appointed to lead an investigation into fraud in California.

He and the rest of the Trump administration are taking a close look at the cozy relationships between Democrat-run governments and the left-wing organizations they fund with tax dollars — which then support Democrats’ political ambitions as they move the party further to the left.

This week, as The California Post reported, Florida Senator Rick Scott wrote to Vance, asking him to look into the way in which federal funds for wildfire were used — or misused.

The LA City Council’s vote makes the case for Vance to take a closer look at housing funds as well.