A run-of-the-mill update from the Los Angeles city administrator late last month contained a passage that sent a shiver of anxiety through this city’s leadership. 

Describing an upgrade of the LA’s convention center, Matthew Szabo delivered a warning to the city council: “The work remaining, considering on-going recovery efforts related to the wildfire emergency, cannot be completed in the time available to ensure completion … before the 2028 Games.” 

Translation: The Convention Center won’t be ready for the Summer Olympics because the city does not have the capacity to rebuild from the wildfires at the same time that it prepares for the games.

That’s not the end of the world. The Olympics don’t require the convention center, and trade-offs are part of managing any operation, certainly one as far-flung and important as the government of the nation’s second-largest city. But it signals Los Angeles is entering a period of grave uncertainty that will test both its ingenuity and its finances.

Over the next several years, the city is committed to radically reducing its staggering homeless population, while at the same time rebuilding one of the city’s wealthiest enclaves from the worst natural disaster in the history of California — and, to boot, preparing to host the Olympics, with all the attendant stresses that entails from transportation to security. 

And, just to add to the degree of difficulty, it’s expected to accomplish all of that with a president who shows no sign of compassion for those in trouble and instead responds only to threats and flattery. Whatever LA’s challenges look like, it can’t count on the White House for help.

Will Los Angeles get all its work done? Or will it go broke trying?

Those are not idle questions among this city’s leaders, who suddenly are staring down the barrel of a fiscal challenge on an epic scale. 

Much of the responsibility for sorting this out will fall on Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky, the newly appointed chair of the council’s budget committee. The city is lucky for that, as Yaroslavsky brings common sense, pragmatism and principled commitment to her public service. She is well-suited to help direct the city’s spending.

In an interview last week, she acknowledged that the next few months will be exceptionally difficult, but she was clear on where the city was headed.

“The city,” she emphasized, “is going to have a balanced budget.”

That will take work, she added. Even as the city faces exceptional challenges, it also confronts the regular business of providing protection and services to 4 million people. That means handling liability for police misconduct and broken sidewalks, building bike lanes, picking up trash and countless other duties, large and small. 

As she eyes ways to patch the city’s finances, Yaroslavsky noted some of the options that may be at its disposal. Large amounts of city land, for instance, are unused, perhaps offering opportunities for lease or sale or for civic purposes such as housing the homeless. Savings also may be available, she added, noting that many of the city’s homeless also are victims of domestic violence and finding those people shelter and housing through the domestic violence networks may save the city large chunks of money since “domestic violence beds cost us an order of magnitude less.”

Moreover, the city’s various priorities draw from an array of funding streams. County voters recently approved raising taxes to pay for homeless services, and Los Angeles is well-represented in Sacramento, where officials recognize that they cannot afford to let the state’s flagship city founder.

One source of help that once was reliable, however, may not be anymore. During COVID, the city was able to turn to Washington for help grappling with its problems, and President Joe Biden was a reliable ally for the city and its mayor, Karen Bass, over the past four years. Now that President Donald Trump occupies the Oval Office, that may no longer be the case, and any attempt to secure federal aid may be fraught with difficulty or offered only with strings attached.

That could affect all three of the city’s major challenges in various ways, threatening homeless services, fire recovery and Olympic planning, all of which rely on some level of federal assistance.

On the topic of appealing for federal aid while also drawing their own philosophical lines, Yaroslavsky and other city leaders grow noticeably cautious. This city has a long history of welcoming and protecting immigrants — and of recognizing that the broader public safety is best safeguarded by ensuring immigrants, even those here illegally, that local authorities are not here to enforce federal immigration law. That principle has been honored by conservative police chiefs and liberal ones, by Republican and Democratic mayors.

What now, then, if Trump insists on LAPD assistance in rounding up illegal immigrants as a condition for continued federal support for other city services?

“Our job is to keep Angelenos safe and to uphold the rule of law,” Yaroslavsky said, guardedly. “We want people to feel safe in reporting crime and engaging with government.” 

That’s the principle that undergirds LA’s historic refusal to act as immigrant enforcer: Assuring immigrants that they do not risk deportation if they cooperate with LAPD and encourage witnesses to come forward. It allows parents to safely vaccinate their children. It persuades crime victims to identify their perpetrators. 

All of that protects not just immigrants but the city generally. 

But Trump already has harrumphed about “sanctuary cities” and may demand that the city drop policies that have long worked here in exchange for federal support for other priorities, including homelessness. Pressed, Yaroslavsky insisted that Los Angeles respects the work of the federal government but would not abandon its core values.

“ICE has its job to do, and we have our job to do,” she insisted. 

The ask for federal aid on the Olympics is another matter. There, Trump’s ego may align with the city’s interests. He wants to be the president who shares in the limelight of the 2028 Olympics, so it is in his interests as well as those of local leaders to see that the Games come off well.

And the cost of rebuilding in the Palisades still raises other questions: How much of that price tag will be borne by private insurance companies? Will the Federal Emergency Management Agency, assuming that Trump does not kill it, be able to meet other needs? 

The city will unquestionably have its own fire-related costs, but the size of that bill will be driven largely by how much is left over once others have kicked in their share.

Yaroslavsky rejects, however, the argument that Los Angeles will either capitulate to Washington or go broke.

“It is,” she said, “a false choice.”