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CITY BLUES — As Los Angeles voters prepare to weigh in on the city’s future, the race for City Controller has entered a telling new phase. Lately, the airwaves have been saturated with aggressive attack ads. But for those who value data over marketing, the most vital information isn't found in a 30-second commercial, it's found in the candidates' own fiscal records.
The City Controller is the only office in Los Angeles designed to serve as a completely independent watchdog. To function as intended, the person in that seat must be unencumbered by the very interests they are tasked with overseeing.
The Conflict of Interest in Oversight
A critical, though often overlooked, responsibility of the Controller is conducting performance audits on the departments that act as gatekeepers for private industry, specifically the Department of City Planning and Building & Safety.
Challenger Zach Sokoloff comes directly from the executive tier of the private real estate world, having served as a Senior VP for the firm behind the massive Television City project. This development faced significant opposition from local residential associations and even fellow developer Rick Caruso, who voiced concerns over its impact on community infrastructure and neighborhood character.
This raises a fundamental question of independent oversight: Can a candidate who has spent years navigating the entitlement machine of City Hall truly be an objective auditor of the very departments that process and approve their industry's billion-dollar projects? In professional auditing, the appearance of a conflict is often just as damaging as the conflict itself.
Campaign Finance and Accountability
The integrity of a watchdog is also revealed by the rules they choose to follow on the campaign trail. Kenneth Mejia has opted into the City’s Public Matching Funds program. This is more than a financial strategy; it is a commitment to the highest level of campaign oversight. By participating, he subjects his campaign to strict spending limits and a mandatory pre-spending audit by the City Ethics Commission.
Conversely, his opponent has opted out. By bypassing the matching funds program, a candidate avoids the rigorous verification process and the spending caps designed to keep the playing field level. The consequences of this choice are now vividly apparent: while one candidate operates within legal spending limits, the other is benefiting from a $2.5 million influx into an independent expenditure committee.
The primary contributor behind the flood of ads for Zach Sokoloff is his mother, Sheryl Sokoloff. In a race for the city’s top auditor, the choice between adhering to an audited standard of public funding or relying on a multi-million-dollar private family endowment represents a fundamental test of transparency.
Tracking Taxpayer Dollars isn’t a Partisan Issue
The Controller’s office is a non-partisan role for a reason. The job is to measure the reality of city operations against established standards of efficiency.
This professional focus is gaining traction across the political spectrum. Recently, the L.A. Daily News editorial board endorsed the incumbent, noting that Mejia has provided a level of transparency and accountability that Los Angeles has long lacked. This is a notable shift for a board that previously endorsed establishment candidate Paul Koretz in 2022, suggesting that Mejia's focus on objective data is winning over even the skeptics. It underscores a vital point: we aren't voting for a political agenda; we are hiring a professional to ensure the city’s machinery works as promised, and to expose it when it doesn't.
The Metric of Success
City Hall veterans, insiders, and political stakeholders have recently criticized incumbent Kenneth Mejia’s office for the number of audits performed. However, for a taxpayer, the quantity of audits matters far less than the substance of the findings. Identifying $80 million in idle funds and nearly $500 million in unspent homelessness money represents a level of forensic accounting that directly benefits the public purse.
As ballots land in mailboxes this week, Los Angeles must decide: Do we want a Controller who is a partner to the system, or a professional who answers only to the taxpayers? The choice between an insider and an independent watchdog will determine how our city’s money is managed, and protected, for years to come.
(Ziggy Kruse Blue and Bob Blue are frequent contributors to CityWatchLA. They can be reached at [email protected])
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