PDLA is grateful to team lead Max Clark, whose Substack article, "The Miracle in the Ashes of Los Angeles Last Saturday", formed the basis for this post. Background The Pacific Palisades fire of January 2025 was one of the most destructive in Los Angeles history. In its aftermath, the Palisades Recovery Coalition (PRC) began pursuing the establishment of a Disaster Recovery District (DRD) — a designation that, if approved by the LA City Council, would allow the community to u

Over the past four months, everyday Angelenos have done something unprecedented: shaped the language of the city's foundational governing document through civic assemblies organized by Rewrite LA, Healthy Democracy, and Public Democracy LA. It started last December, when 36 lottery-selected residents spent seven hours deliberating on land use and development — one of the city's most contentious policy areas — and delivered 10 recommendations to the Charter Reform Commission.

In a historic moment for participatory democracy, the Los Angeles Charter Reform Commission voted unanimously to approve a new Charter Preamble generated by its residents. The preamble language was developed directly from recommendations generated by 36 Angelenos at a January mini-assembly organized by Public Democracy Los Angeles. The delegates—randomly selected by public lottery to reflect the demographic diversity of Los Angeles—gathered at the Japanese American National M

On Thursday March 26, 2026, the Los Angeles Charter Reform Commission took a groundbreaking step: voting to make civic assemblies a permanent part of the charter reform process. Under Section 493, Commission Administration, Personnel and Budget part C, the approved language states: The Commission shall enact a parallel civic assembly process to be conducted by Commission staff or through a partnership with an advocacy group or organization approved by the Commission. This mi

The results of the Los Angeles civic assembly on the structure and election of city council were presented to the Los Angeles Charter Commission on March 10. The report was presented to the commission, including the recommendations at a public meeting, with a verbal presentation by Linn Davis of Healthy Democracy with the recommendation details presented by the participants of the assembly. Recommendations were: 1. Establish a permanent civic assembly, randomly selected to

On January 11, thirty-six residents gathered at the Democracy Center , in Little Tokyo, for seven hours to develop recommendations for a city bill of rights and a potential preamble to the city charter. This preamble would codify city values and help guide the resolution of ambiguities in the legal interpretation of the charter. As in the previous mini-assembly, participants were selected by lottery from hundreds of applicants to reflect Los Angeles’s demographic diversity. T