Los Angeles City Councilman Marqueece Harris-Dawson comes off the president’s chair to be verbally voted in as the new president pro tempore on Tuesday, June 20, 2023 replacing Councilman Curren Price, who stepped down last week after being slapped with criminal charges for alleged embezzlement, perjury and conflict of interest. (Photo by Sarah Reingewirtz, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)
The Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday, June 20, elected Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson its new president pro tempore, replacing Councilmember Curren Price who stepped down from the leadership post last week and is facing corruption charges.
The 12-0 vote to name Harris-Dawson the new president pro tempore was taken with no discussion by the council. Price has not attended a council meeting since the news broke about the charges against him and was absent for the vote. Councilmember Monica Rodriguez was also absent.
The president pro tempore presides over council meetings if the president is absent or steps away.
Harris-Dawson told reporters after Tuesday’s meeting that while “the boat continues to rock” — a reference to the latest City Hall scandal — he is “confident” that under the guidance of Council President Paul Krekorian and others, the council “will navigate the situation and we will come out of it stronger.”
City Hall has been rattled by a series of scandals in recent years.
Harris-Dawson said Tuesday that he will visit Price’s Council District 9, which borders his own District 8, to seek input from residents about what they want to see happen. He noted that he worked for 25 years for an organization located in District 9.
“I will feel very at home, and we have lots of folks that we know there that we’ll be engaging in conversation,” Harris-Dawson said.
Meanwhile, Price remains a member of the City Council. Some residents of District 9 appeared at City Hall on Tuesday, urging elected officials to meet with them and consider their input as the council weighs whether to suspend Price and, should they do so, how to fill his seat.
District 9 resident Evelia Palmero joined other members of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) in asking for Krekorian and Harris-Dawson to meet with residents in Price’s district.
Palermo said that if anyone is chosen to replace Price, “We want someone from our community, that lives in our community, that feels for our community, that knows what we’re going through every single day.”
Last year, the City Council appointed Heather Hutt as an interim councilmember in the 10th District with voting rights, to replace suspended Councilmember Mark Ridley-Thomas after he was indicted in a federal corruption case. Months later, after Ridley-Thomas was convicted, the council appointed Hutt as a permanent councilmember.
Some District 10 residents who wanted a special election were outraged, saying they were denied an opportunity to elect their own representative. But Council President Krekorian said a special election would have cost taxpayers about $8 million, and the next primary election for the seat would take place next year anyway.
And in Council District 6, residents have been without a voting member on the council to represent them since October, when former Councilmember Nury Martinez resigned after she was caught making racist and demeaning comments in a secretly recorded 2021 conversation about ways to manipulate the city’s council redistricting process.
A non-voting caretaker has been overseeing District 6, and an election is underway now for voters to choose a new councilmember.
In Price’s case, he was charged by the county District Attorney’s Office last week with 10 counts of embezzlement, perjury and conflict of interest. Price has called the charges “unwarranted” and is expected to be arraigned July 13.
He’s accused of getting the city to pay for about $33,800 in medical premiums between 2013 and 2017 for his partner, Del Richardson, to whom he claimed to be married while he was still married to his first wife, Lynn Suzette Price.
Court records show Price filed for divorce from his first wife in 2011, but the matter was not finalized, potentially due to an error, until February 2018. The Los Angeles Times questioned the divorce in 2017 and a campaign spokesman at the time said Price believed his divorce had been completed.
Last week’s complaint from the D.A. additionally said that between 2019 and 2021, the consulting firm Del Richardson & Associates, which belongs to Price’s second wife, was paid more than $150,000 by developers. After the payments, Price voted on issues involving those developers, according to the complaint. Price also allegedly failed to report those connections, or the money paid to his wife’s company, on city disclosure forms.
Although Price said last week that he intends to “defend my name against unwarranted charges,” he voluntarily stepped down as president pro tempore, and from all of his council committee assignments, shortly after learning of the charges. He said he did not want to be “a distraction” on the council.
The council’s Rules, Elections, and Intergovernmental Relations Committee is expected to discuss on Friday whether to recommend that Price be suspended. Any recommendations the committee makes would be forwarded to the full council for consideration.
Harris-Dawson on Tuesday would not comment on whether he thinks Price should be suspended. He said he’s spoken to Price multiple times since last week’s charges were filed and described Price as being “in surprisingly good spirits” given the situation.
“I think this situation has left a lot of people, including myself, scratching their heads,” Harris-Dawson said.
