Nearly eight months after its promised release, a long-anticipated report detailing the financial power of unincorporated East L.A. remains unpublished, frustrating residents who say they deserve an accurate look at the fiscal health of their community.
First introduced in an April 2024 motion by L.A. County Supervisor Hilda Solis, the study was supposed to assess the viability of East L.A. becoming a city or special district and provide a financial snapshot of the region, including the costs associated with incorporation, a summary of past incorporation attempts and a list of investments in the area over the last decade.
But according to a spokesperson for the L.A. County Chief Executive Office, the report has been delayed because of the complexity of the assessments, leaving residents questioning the county’s commitment to transparency and how it prioritizes an unincorporated community of 120,000 mostly-Latino residents.
To Kristie Hernandez, a third-generation East L.A. local, the report goes beyond assessing if cityhood is feasible for her community.
It’s about access to financial information, services and equitable representation.
In the ways a county or city’s annual budget is publicly accessible, East L.A.’s is not.
Hernandez wants that to change.
“They keep trying to make it about cityhood, and it’s not,” Hernandez said.
“[A budget] is something that you would need to know for any community that is a city, but why not East L.A.? Why can’t we also be privy to that same information?”
Solis confirmed in a statement provided to Boyle Heights Beat last week that the report is now expected to be released at the end of April – months past the original August 2024 deadline set by her motion.
The CEO’s office also said the report was in its final stages and will be published soon.
“Despite these challenges and delay in the report, my commitment to East Los Angeles remains unwavering, and I assure our community that this will not deter my ongoing efforts to improve services, enhance transparency, and drive meaningful progress for East Los Angeles,” Solis wrote in a statement to Boyle Heights Beat.
Becky Ormonde, whose family has lived in East L.A. for nearly a century, considers the county’s delay as a sign that the community’s needs are not being taken seriously.
“It’s very, very frustrating. We want answers,” said Ormonde, who serves on the board of the East L.A. Chamber of Commerce and is a member of the Maravilla Community Advisory Committee.
“We’re asking for transparency to see where our money is going.
If we have more transparency, it would better help the residents see [if] we have money to add more programs and services to help the people of East L.A.”
Business owners like Tony DeMarco, president of the Whittier Boulevard Merchants Association, argue that without local oversight, the unique needs of the community can’t be adequately addressed.
DeMarco, who has run a business on Whittier Boulevard for nearly 30 years, proposed appointing a local general manager to oversee services and advocate for the community’s needs.
“We’re being managed by folks outside of East Los Angeles.
We just want a say in what’s going on,” DeMarco said.
Solis’ push for a county-led report was in response to AB 2986, a state bill introduced by former California State Assemblywoman Wendy Carrillo in March 2024.
The bill, in its original form, called on Los Angeles’ Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) to form a task force that would produce a study on the feasibility of East L.A. becoming a city or a special district.
After pushback from Solis and an amendment to shift the study’s responsibility to the county, the bill did not receive a final vote from the California Senate before the legislative session concluded in August, leading state Senate Majority Leader Lena Gonzalez to move it to the inactive file at the request of Carrillo.
In an op-ed written for Boyle Heights Beat last year, Solis argued that the state’s involvement was an “unnecessary overreach of state authority” and put special interests over the East L.A. community.
Still, residents like Hernandez say that stance doesn’t reflect reality, pointing to Solis’ recent support of Measure G, a county-led measure aimed at expanding the Board of Supervisors and enhancing government transparency.
“Here we are asking for [transparency], and she has denied that from this community, her constituents, the residents of unincorporated East Los Angeles.
And I think, if you are going to go out and spread that message, then you should keep your word,” Hernandez said.
“And this is one of those opportunities for her to do.”
Efforts to incorporate East L.A. into a city have failed in the past, with one of the latest attempts failing in 2012 when LAFCO found that the unincorporated area would likely not be able to financially sustain cityhood.
State Assemblymember Jessica Caloza, who represents East L.A. in District 52 – the seat previously held by Carrillo – described “a renewed spirit of partnership and collaboration between local and state officials,” while also calling for the report to be released without further delay.
“Residents deserve to be heard and need answers so they can decide the future of East Los Angeles,” Caloza wrote in a statement to Boyle Heights Beat.
“The county’s study is essential to understanding what cityhood could mean for critical services, quality of life issues, and representation for the community.
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