By JOSE HERRERA
The Los Angeles City Council has postponed a vote on whether to allocate $1 million to fund nonprofit security services to protect Jewish places of worship, community centers and schools after the proposal was expanded to include other faiths, and the council is planning to revisit the motion after its summer recess.
Council members Katy Yaroslavsky and Bob Blumenfield, who originally co-sponsored the motion, changed their proposal to instead provide $2 million to the city’s Civil and Human Rights Department. The department would then allocate funding via a neighborhood security grants program that would be available to all faith-based organizations.
Yaroslavsky said the proposal has received support from Mayor Karen Bass, the City Attorney’s Office and interfaith leaders across the city.
“I believe that this is an appropriate and necessary change to ensure that all faith communities across Los Angeles are able to access these funds while also addressing the urgent need to increase security at Jewish institutions,” she said.
Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez called for the item — which is expected to return to the council on July 30 following the end of summer recess — to be considered by the council’s Budget, Finance and Innovation Committee, as well as the Civil rights, Equity, Immigration, Aging and Disability Committee. Her recommendation was initially approved in a 8-6 vote with council members Yaroslavsky, Blumenfield, Heather Hutt, Tim McOsker, Curren Price and Traci Park voting against it.
However, moments later, Councilman John Lee, who had voted to support Rodriguez’s request, then voted against it, with his vote ultimately denying the request.
“I’m trying to ascertain why duly referring to both the budget and civil human rights committee is slowing down the process,” Rodriguez said. “If we’re not voting on this item today, I don’t understand why we can’t send it to the appropriate committees. We have a lot of…
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