How Recent Political Scandals at L.A. City Hall Have Unfolded

It’s been about six months since leaked audio of Los Angeles City Council members making racist comments and griping about their colleagues exploded into public view, giving Angelenos a rare, unfiltered look at how their politicians jostle for power. And they did not like what they saw.

After the release of the secretly recorded tape, which was first reported by The Los Angeles Times in October, activists and politicians demanded the resignations of the council president, two council members and the labor leader heard on the recording, all of whom are Latino.

Two of them — the labor leader Ron Herrera and Nury Martinez, then the president of the City Council — complied. Of the other two council members on the tape, Gil Cedillo had already lost a re-election bid and Kevin de León held on to his seat in the face of raucous protests.

This week, that scandal reached a kind of uneasy denouement, unaccompanied by the kind of concrete changes that city officials pledged would spring from the turmoil.

An effort to recall de León failed to gather enough signatures to make it to the ballot. (He had returned to working largely as usual. His term ends next year.) And on Tuesday, a little over 9,000 voters cast ballots, out of more than 118,000 who were eligible, in the primary election to fill Martinez’s seat until her term ends next year. Her absence has left a large swath of the San Fernando Valley without representation.

From a field of seven candidates, several of whom had backing from current council members, Imelda Padilla, a community organizer, came out on top with about 26 percent of the vote. She will face the second-place candidate, Marisa Alcaraz — an adviser to the council member Curren Price, who represents a district in South Los Angeles — in a June runoff election.

The fracas surrounding the recording was, even then, just one of many rocking the city. There was also the October 2021 indictment of one of Los Angeles’s most prominent Black politicians and Eric Garcetti’s protracted stay in limbo between being mayor of the nation’s second-largest city and U.S. ambassador to India.

In recent months, those dramas have ended in similarly fraught ways.

Last month, Garcetti was confirmed to become the ambassador to India, almost two years after being nominated by President Biden, to whom he had been a crucial political ally. The appointment was stymied by concerns that Garcetti had mishandled sexual misconduct allegations against a top aide.

The drawn-out saga added an uncomfortable coda to an already divisive mayoral tenure, while policy experts lamented how long the United States had gone without an envoy fostering one of the nation’s most important diplomatic relationships.

Then, a week ago, a jury convicted Mark Ridley-Thomas, a longtime local lawmaker, of supporting millions of dollars in public contracts for the University of Southern California in exchange for graduate school admission and tuition for his son. Ridley-Thomas, who was suspended from the City Council in 2021, was permanently removed.

Although he was the third council member in less than five years to be convicted of corruption, his colleagues offered statements of tribute and sorrow, The Los Angeles Times reported, rather than urgent calls for reform.

His attorneys declined to comment. Ridley-Thomas has the option to appeal.

Jill Cowan is a reporter for the National desk and is based in Los Angeles.

Where we’re traveling

Today’s tip comes from Lisa Palmer, who recommends Goat Rock Beach in Sonoma County:

“My favorite place of peace and refuge, it’s just down the road, where I love to go on any random morning when I need a personal reboot.”

Tell us about your favorite places to visit in California. Email your suggestions to CAtoday@nytimes.com. We’ll be sharing more in upcoming editions of the newsletter.

Tell us

After a rainy winter, spring has arrived in California. Tell us your favorite part of the season, whether it’s the road trips, festivals, sunny afternoons or wildflower sightings.

And before you go, some good news

Del Norte and Humboldt counties in California’s northwest corner had a starring role in the 1983 film “Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.” Stormtroopers and ewoks roamed beneath their distinctive redwood trees, which were cast as the forest moon Endor.

Forty years later, the two counties are hosting an inaugural Forest Moon Festival in June to honor the film’s anniversary and the franchise’s history in the region.

“Star Wars fans, this is the summer event you are looking for,” wrote the Humboldt-Del Norte Film Commission.