Senate Special Committee International Sporting Events Olympics Paralympics And World Cup Soccer

All right, let's go ahead and get started. We'll call this meeting officially to order. I want to thank our colleagues, invited witnesses, members of the public for joining us today. We can ask, I think Joey will probably start us off. We're talking about infrastructure and transportation and sustainability goals ahead of the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Los Angeles. They're just over a year away now. It's typical for most host cities and Olympic organizing committees to plan for the necessary infrastructural improvements that are necessary, transportation projects that are there to host the events and ensure that spectators and athletes can get to each venue. We're, of course, really excited about the new Wilshire Boulevard extension that just happened this last weekend down in L.A. So today's hearing is designed to provide an overview of the current planning and preparation efforts for L.A. 28 in the areas of infrastructure and transportation. We're going to hear from key partners, including representatives from the L.A. 28 organizing committee, the City of Los Angeles, Exposition Park, the Rose Bowl, LA Metro, and others on their plans. We're going to hear about their progress on the plans and their outstanding needs. Additionally, putting together large events like the Olympics presents a very valuable opportunity for us to think about how to reduce emissions and waste and improve energy efficiency and other environmental harms. in fact the 2024 games in Paris were known to be the most sustainable games in history they more than halved carbon emissions associated with hosting the games compared to Rio 2016 and London 2012 I will say probably wasn't the most sustainable game in history just because we're much more polluting now than we were 100 years ago but maybe in modern in the modern era but we're going to be hearing from our partners at LA28 and the LA clean tech incubator on sustainability goals and progress toward these goals. So let me just, you know, let me turn it to my colleagues if anyone wants to make any opening comments. Otherwise, we can just get started. Okay. Let's do that. Let's get started. Yeah, of course.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Great. All right. Well, let's—so the mayor is on—she's meeting with the governor, I think. So let's get started with Joey.

Sure. Open the center. Sure.

updates today the information and the continued work ahead. Great. All right thank you Senator. Without further ado we'll go ahead and start with our second panel and then we'll go back to the mayor. Let's ask Joey Freeman to come to the table. Joey's the, you may remember, we used to work here and now went off to work for the mayor. Now he's Vice President of State and Local Affairs at LA-28, and he's going to give us some general updates in planning with the committee, and I do expect other representatives from LA-28 to dive into the details on transportation sustainability on subsequent panels, but I know you're having, LA-28's doing an all-staff meeting today, so we appreciate you being here and being a part of this.

Well, thank you, Mr. Friedman. Really appreciate you being here. I'd love to just start with just asking a couple of questions about on low-cost tickets. You know, obviously there's been a lot of, you know, obviously a great deal of interest in the games, lots of people purchasing tickets. But people were pretty shocked, quite frankly, by what they were being asked to pay. we had a wonderful hearing some of us were at in the Adams neighborhood at the LA84 foundation just a month or two ago and there was all this discussion about what they'd done in 84 and how affordable the games were and I know that there's this promise of a million twenty dollar tickets but you know is the choice going to be between winning the lottery and getting one of those twenty dollar tickets or paying literally hundreds and hundreds of dollars for an event, or is there some middle ground here for people to be able to afford to enjoy the games? I think it's been kind of shocking, and I don't even need to get into the World Cup ticket prices, which, of course, you have no control over. So I'd love your thoughts on that issue.

So obviously I've heard the backstop argument made a lot, And certainly everybody here wants to make sure that this is going to be a Games that will, I think everyone hopes it will be like 84, where there's a lasting financial legacy. But when we speak to the leadership of LA28, there seems to be a lot of confidence about the progress being made on corporate sponsorships. how is the you know how do we make sure that we're not using the fear of the backstop problem to be used as an excuse to you know to to keep prices artificially high when we really want this to be something that people are going to enjoy and especially when we're making so much progress on the corporate sponsorship side.

What's the time frame on the rollout for the $28 tickets and the community ticketing?

Okay. Okay. All right, let's go to the vice chair.

Thank you, Senator. I don't have specifics on the community ticketing program, but I'm happy to circle back with your office on that.

Well, first on your points around community ticketing, thank you. I can assure you absolutely the intention of the program is to make sure they go to folks who need the tickets to participate in the games. But I will be in touch with your office to talk about the suggestions that you offered. On the study you just mentioned I not familiar with that I was proud to mention some of the stats around gender equality in sports that will be a historic first for these games in 2028 But again, can can be in touch about what you're mentioning. I haven't heard about that.

On safety?

Sure, sure. And I will, you know, and I'll say it at a high level that, you know, we are obviously committed to delivering a safe and secure Olympic and Paralympic Games. The Games have been designated a national special security event. And so, you know, as you may be familiar with other large events that have been designated as NSSEs, the federal government kind of manages an apparatus of law enforcement where there's coordination between every level of government, local, state, and federal. And planning is well underway to make sure that all of the safety precautions are put in place. I will also mention LA28 was really proud to help successfully advocate for a billion dollars in federal funding that will go to support planning and reimbursement for our state and local law enforcement that will be protecting folks at these venues and throughout the Games footprint.

So through the NSSE process and through that billion dollars that was secured alongside the ongoing daily work with law enforcement agencies at every level of government, we're planning for just that.

I don't. There will be a notice of funding opportunity that comes from the federal government. That's not yet out.

Before we go to Senator Richardson, I just want one follow-up question from our earlier dialogue. You mentioned 95% of the low-cost tickets have gone out. Does that mean that they're basically all gone?

Okay, but just what was – the 95% meant that – So 95% of that drop, so nearly all the tickets that were sold during that last drop were under $100?

Okay, great. All right. Let's go to Senator Richardson.

So, you know, I apologize, Senator. I don't have these specific statistics around tickets, but happy to circle back.

Thank you.

But I do appreciate your comments and would appreciate the opportunity to meet with you and working through your office, Chair Allen, maybe all the members to make sure that we can brief you on a lot of the work that we're doing in these areas from our Play LA youth sports programming to the aggressive targets we've set on making sure that contracts and economic opportunities go to small and local businesses and the engagement work we're doing. Definitely want an opportunity to share all that with you and answer your questions.

Thank you. Okay. Listen, I share your concerns, Senator. That's why I live right in on the tickets question. So we will absolutely work to ensure that there's a good conversation with the leadership about all the issues you raised. Let's go to you, Senator Ruby, and then we'll go to Senator Smollett.

Absolutely. Thank you, yes. And we do have a Celebrate 2A program. Currently, there is a form that I can make sure all of your offices have the link. If there is a local city, for example, in your district that is interested in hosting one of those live sites or fan fests, absolutely. We want to see that be a part of the footprint. More information will eventually roll out about what that looks like, but it would be a free opportunity for people to still participate in the spirit of the games, even if they're not actually at a ticketed competition event.

Thank you. A local city would be an example of a hosting entity, but there will be more information as the guidelines come out that show who can host, what the parameters are. So I'm not saying that it would have to be a city exclusively to host one of these live sites.

Yeah, I've heard live sites. I've heard fan fests. Our program will be called Celebrate Too Late.

Yeah, so what I can tell you is we've had a wonderful working relationship with the federal administration, just as we've had with the state government and local government. As I mentioned earlier, we were able to, along with our partners, successfully advocate for a billion dollars in federal funding that will be made available for state and local law enforcement. $94 million has been made available to begin transportation planning. I know colleagues from Metro are here and they can speak more to transportation funding, but we're actively involved. engaged in Washington, D.C. to make sure that we have the federal resources and support that we need to deliver these games. And we've seen really good progress in partnership so far.

let's talk about some of the diversity in procurement opportunities. communities ticketing I would like to see a comprehensive exit memo where we have all the information because in the future we would find ourselves probably having them in the future and I would like to know some of that information of that's at all possible I would appreciate it

Thank you, Senator, for the question, and thank you for your leadership on this issue. I know you are a passionate champion, and I was really proud to be able to go to your district to see the work you're doing in building your cultural district. I can happily share with you that we recently rolled out kind of the high-level contours of our Cultural Olympiad program. As we get closer to the Games, there will be more information and more partnerships that will be developed with cultural institutions and public agencies. But what we recently shared were a few things. We will be making available a cultural Olympiad mark that cultural institutions will be able to access and apply to their work and to their promotional materials. We will be creating an app that will be a mapping tool so folks will be able to see what are the various cultural opportunities that are available to me and nearby. We're very excited there will be the official Olympic and Paralympic posters that will be designed by local artists. And equally excited, there will be an underwriting opportunity where we will help underwrite ticket costs at cultural institutions to bring down or eliminate the cost of tickets to make sure that cultural opportunities are widely accessible for the public. Like the Cultural Olympiad is really rooted in the diversity of L and is you know will run the gamut of different areas of culture and communities to make sure that we lifting up all communities in Los Angeles Those are some of the initial pieces that have been discussed but more to come

So those are the programmatic details that are so far available. But I'm, as I have been, happy to keep talking with your office about additional details around the Cultural Olympiad.

So what I've shared is what we've rolled out about the Cultural Olympiad. I would have to go back to, excuse me, the press release. From each of the pieces I mentioned, there were some timelines around when the mark would be available, when the posters will be available. But I'll have to circle back with you. I don't want to give you inaccurate information.

Senator Gonzalez.

Thank you.

No, no, thank you for having me again. You know, Reynolds, Hoover wishes he could have been here. Happy to step in. Heard a lot of questions. Appreciate where you're coming from and genuinely, you know, enjoy partnering with each of you as we bring the games to California. You know, I hear you, whether it's ticketing or volunteer program or the Cultural Olympiad or small business opportunities. There are so many exciting ways that we can use these games to really help lift up our communities, help lift up the residents. That's what we're committed to doing and look forward to doing that with you. So thank you.

That is Mayor Bass and former Speaker of the Assembly. That's correct, yeah. Well, first of all, thank you so much for the opportunity to be here. It is interesting being on this side. But with great respect to the Chair and all the members, Really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. And I did get to hear what my former deputy mayor was talking about with LA28. And we have a very close and positive relationship with LA28. I do want you to know that our theme in the city, from the city's perspective, as the overall host for the games, is games for all. As I listen to many of your comments, I have been deeply concerned that these games have got to benefit all our neighborhoods. And so we actually started two years ago by having summits for small businesses so that we could get them contract ready at either time. summit, there have been over a thousand small businesses there. And so we are doggedly determined that prioritization be given to the city in terms of small business development, small business opportunities. And Senator, I listened to you talk about Paris. I came back wanting to emulate Paris in the way that the games impacted everybody. Probably 5% actually went to the games, but every neighborhood felt the benefit of the games. Now, the other thing that you talked about, Senator Smallwood Cuevas, was the Cultural Olympiad. And there is the Cultural Olympiad from LA-28, but then there's the Cultural Olympiad from Los Angeles City. And what we want to do is, first of all, we want the world to know that the world lives in Los Angeles. We have incredible cultural traditions. One of my favorite are murals. So we are planning the Cultural Olympiad from a more grassroots perspective from the angle of the city, and we view it as a way to promote all of our businesses. Now, we are fortunate with the World Cup. We have a little dress rehearsal. And so with the World Cup, we are having watch parties and fan fests actually in 100 different neighborhoods around the city. And it's an opportunity for all those small businesses, especially the businesses in the Latino community that were so heavily impacted by the ice raids last year. And many of those restaurants were on the verge of going out of business. They're going to get a big influx of business when we have the watch parties related to the World Cup. But some of that we are using as practice to see how it works. So I just wanted to follow up and to let you know kind of from the perspective of the city. And, Senator, much, much appreciation for working with you. You guys have been very supportive of our efforts and, you know, the state funding that we need now. And I appreciated what you were saying, Senator, in terms of where we are now, this being the last budget. But the support that we have gotten already, for example, in the Sepulveda Basin. And, you know, this Poveta Basin is going to be the site of major, major events, and it was an absolute disaster zone that needed to be cleared out and prepared. And so, you know, that is just an example of how you have assisted us. But after coming back from Paris and sitting next to the former assemblyman and the former city council member, Paul Krikorian, who was involved in the bid but also chaired our budget committee for 10 years, I asked him after Paris, even though he was leaving the city council, if he would stay on. and we created an office of major events to encompass all of the events coming our way. And he is the executive director of that, and I know he'll be speaking on one of the panels. But we are continuing, of course, to seek state support. And a couple of things, wanting the state's help in speeding up the approval process for some critical improvements on public lands that will support the games, And then also to ensure our law enforcement is able to get mutual aid from other law enforcement entities without a declaration of a state of emergency. And that would be two examples of what we really would need your assistance in. And obviously any additional support. What we started to do in the Sepulveda Basin is great. But you know we also have a lot of other things we need to do to prepare our city So we have invested the budget that I released last month which is now going through the city council process makes real investments in our infrastructure our sworn officers and our small businesses and transportation projects that Angelenos will continue to use beyond the game. So we are prioritizing the infrastructure related to the venues, but we also have a lot of other things in terms of the highways that are not in the jurisdiction of the city, but our highways, and those of you who are all one-way connected to LA or drive through LA, our highways in some locations are in bad shape, whether we're talking about the landscaping or the trash, and I'm actually not speaking of the encampments, I'm talking about outside of that, where we, of course, work in close partnership with the encampment grants. But we need to deal with that. And so a request that we made to the governor that he is supportive of did support us, and I'm hoping that we can expand on that. We weren't asking that the money come to the city for the highways. We want the money to go to the nonprofits that provide second-chance housing, Whether you are talking about chrysalis for people who were formerly homeless or the L.A. Conservation Corps with youth homelessness, youth justice involved, that's an opportunity for a category of our population to receive opportunities for jobs and potential careers while at the same time taking care of the highways and not getting bogged down in the city in terms of the hiring because our city workers are already overworked with them. So I would just like to wrap up with that. And then I would also like to extend an invitation for the ad hoc committee to have a meeting. I know you've had meetings in L.A., but we'd like to invite you to City Hall and have a meeting there and maybe some other activities that we could plan around it, like going to do a site visit on some of the major venues. That'd be great.

Just real quickly. Thank you, Mayor, for being here and sharing the information. And, you know, we talked about Paris and their infrastructure and how it worked well. You know, but then there's investment in, let's just say, the viewing stations, right, which were fabulous. And I got to witness that. But then there's also leaving something for communities. Yes. And L.A. is really massive, and I remember I visited a site where they did the Olympic pools, and they picked very strategically communities that were disappearing. They were dying out. They have very low unemployment, and what they did is they really looked at it through the lens of what communities can we elevate because once they were gone, in fact, again, one community was almost disappearing. That's where they chose to put housing for the athletes because at the end of the day, when they left, those housing structures were left there for affordable housing for those communities that need it. So that's just an example. And I want to hear your thoughts on how are we making sure that the investments just don't go to, let's just say, I know L.A., I grew up in L.A., in the areas that already have it. but it's looking at those opportunities where we can leave behind those legacies. I know the pool brought a lot of joy to some of the children that didn't have opportunities before, that the athlete homes were left for affordable housing that now they turned over to the city that they were able to house people Share with me how are we selecting these venues and opportunities

Well, thank you for that, and I just want to differentiate, right? There's aesthetics, the murals, but then there's tangible housing opportunities for those that need it, and the way they did their Olympic villages. It couldn't have been done in a much. It was just incredible to see all the housing that they left behind. That was very strategic. The swimming pool for the kids that didn't have a swimming pool, that was very strategic. So that's the tangibles that I'm looking to see happen. And I would love to see that, but a part of that in the earlier games agreement is not going to happen. However, you know, I'm up here meeting with the probes and meeting with other folks to talk about those issues as well. I would love for us to have housing that was left behind, but I do think that that's a couple of those decisions that were made. You know, they were made years ago, unfortunately. Thank you for being here and sharing.

And thank you all for your leadership. And I just wanted to say to you, Madam Mayor, thank you for your leadership. And Games for All gives us the right context and vision and intentionality in this space And I absolutely agree with you It is you know we talk about all these other old cities and how they are cities of neighborhoods Los Angeles is a city of neighborhoods. And we can rival any other great American city in terms of the individual stories that we tell. I want to say that I will support your efforts around the Cultural Olympiad and any questions and data and information support. I had a really in-depth conversation with our tourism industry yesterday, very excited about the individual stories that we tell and how important it is that we get it right. Right. So that we invite folks to L.A. for the games and they want to come to L.A. Right. And also, I think in Paris, you pointed out that more folks come after the Olympics to Paris than during the Olympics. That's right. And so our colleague was talking about the Bay Area and Los Angeles and sort of joking around about how the resources are distributed. And certainly we have the lion's share of the residents' responsibility in the games in L.A. and certainly the disruption. but I do think it's important to point out that the dollars that come back to Los Angeles during the games and the 5, 6, 8, 10 years after the games benefits the whole state. And so this is, you know, we're talking to appropriations. We want to make sure that the state is doing all that we can to make the game successful, but really this is about us ensuring that the revenues that we need come back to the state, especially at this time. So I just want to thank you for coming and sharing that.

Okay, now you have me. Uh-oh. Welcome, Mayor. Let's. Did you want to? No, no, I'm taking over. You go on. Oh, are you sure? Yeah. Okay.

Well, we need a museum. Yeah, all of it. Right across the street from City Hall, Mexican American art. I imagine you guys are aware of that with Costolo. I want to see that. Thank you.

Yeah, and that's one reason why I want to take advantage to lift our communities up. They were hit so hard economically, you know, and using this as an opportunity. But I think we all have to stay. One thing I was really proud of L.A. for was there was no part of L.A. that cracked, that divided. everybody was clear in denouncing the raids and the presence of ICE and the way that, and by the way I think it's very important and I say this all the time, it's really important that we not forget that it has not stopped. It's just not in the headlines the way it was before, but communities still feel under attack, people are still afraid, enrollment, all of that stuff is still going on and that we're there to support the families as they weather this crisis.

Senator Richardson.

Before I go on to a couple questions for the mayor, I wanted, Madam Chair, what we heard from the testimony of the mayor was that there was an original OIC early games agreement. I don know that we were ever privy to that and I think what Senator Rubio in part was talking about is traditionally Olympics the Olympic organizing committee would commit a certain amount of dollars to the communities where the games were happening, significant amount of dollars, millions of dollars that typically was put there for pools and all different types of things and what I was alluding to in the first panel was that I haven't seen that and I think that's what Senator Rubio was calling for so as a follow-up to our subsequent meeting that we discussed in panel one if we could make sure to make note that understanding what this early agreement said how much money was supposed to be allocated to the Los Angeles community and are we seeing any of that if anything It was a statement more to say if we could add that to the first panel, which is appropriate to handle that issue. Duly noted. Okay, thank you. All right, Madam Mayor, if I heard correctly, you asked for three things, at least for us to start with. One was assistance regarding the approval process of permitting of some locations. The second was potential approval ability to do mutual aid with law enforcement. And then the third had to do with some of the cleanup issues. If you're staff, if you could please provide to the committee specifics of where you're looking for the approval, potential CEQA exceptions and so on, please share that with us as soon as possible. Okay. So we can work on whether it's in budget language or whatever it is, that we can get that going. And if there's something we need to work with the governor's office regarding the mutual aid ability, we'd be happy to do that. I'd like to speak to the third point of what you talked about of the trash and some of the encampments. As you're aware, in my district on the 110 freeway just last week, we had that major fire on the 110 freeway. That's right. There was an encampment underneath the freeway. It literally shut down the freeway. That's right. And there was so much trash and everything that the firefighters couldn't even get to the point of where the fire was. And so I noticed on our agenda that we do have representatives from the Department of Transportation who will be participating. But I think it's important to note while she's here so we can bring it up in that next panel that it is critical that we set with Caltrans, with the Department of Transportation, not only the areas, of course, that will be impacted by the Olympics, of course, all areas, we would hope, but certainly the areas where this is going to be occurring of the Olympics. We have to make sure these freeways don't have encampments over the overramp, people laying on the side of the exits off the freeways. I can give you numerous locations in my district alone. I'm sure there throughout Los Angeles, but we need to make sure so that would be my next ask Madam Chairman that we would add to follow up and that is To determine how do we provide direction to Caltrans to look at these areas? And we have to start now because there's frankly so many And we also need to make sure that the Department of Transportation has the appropriate authority Authority to do what is allowed to deal with these Encampments trash and so on that's going on that Frankly what just happened in my district could prohibit athletes getting to try and use people getting to venues I mean it was unfortunately a perfect example of what it means if this is not done how it can impact a community I believe we were shut down for two days and then only opening up one lane going in one direction. So I wanted to echo that. The last thing I wanted to ask you about, you mentioned the business summits that you had. I know that the city of L.A. has created this database, and I commend the city for doing that. How are you interacting with the organizing committee to make sure that we're going to enable all this good work and the businesses that are interested that, in fact, can be engaged? So if you could just share with us a little bit what your thoughts are and what we can do to help, since you've already created an initial framework, no sense in reinventing the wheel, how can we work with that to make sure it happens?

And for the sake of time, I'll just give one example of congratulations to you, Mayor. Well, it's already been stated you're dealing with the ICE situation and people feeling positive about coming to L.A., but I want to point out the LAX airport. If people have not been there, the number of projects that are happening there, the transformation, the putting pictures of L.A. throughout, amazing work is being done, having the rental car situation being up and running in time for the Olympics. That's just one of many examples of projects that you have helped to spearhead to make sure that we're ready for the millions of people that are coming. So thank you and look forward to working with you.

Congratulations.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair and Senators. It's great to be with all of you again. I know we've run a little bit long already, so I'm going to try to be as expeditious as I can, but please feel free to interrupt me with any questions. I know that some of the questions that you've asked earlier I'll probably be touching upon.

I just want to start by reminding us that we have 793 days left until the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games, which will continue, of course, through the Paralympic Games in 2028. We're now less than a month away from the opening of the World Cup. And so we've got a lot on our plate. The mayor, when she spoke, alluded to her Games for All vision, which I know all of you have seen and are familiar with. We're talking about three of nine main pillars of that vision today, streets and transit and infrastructure, sustainability and accessibility. But you've already touched upon many of the other things that are very, very important to Mayor Bass. The arts and culture, which will not be limited to the Cultural Olympiad produced by LA28, but will very much be supplemented by LA's own arts and culture festival. Community engagement and celebrations, which will address the impact. accessibility and unaffordability of tickets that we we discussed earlier with uh... community engagements in all fifteen of our council districts that will be free and open to the public uh... community business opportunity with the mayor touched on some of the emphasis we put on procurement opportunities for small businesses uh... there's much more to be said about that but it's not on our agenda today and so i'll touch upon that a little bit in passing as we go just to level set a little bit because every decision we make every decision you make here that has a cost associated to it uh... uh... it has to also be seen in the context of what we stand to gain from these games as well uh... the games will produce eighteen billion dollars in economic output much much more than that seven point one billion dollar budget that l eight twenty eight has so all of the multiplier effect the ancillary events The other things that will happen related to the games, supporting 90,000 jobs and importantly producing $700 million at least in state and local tax new revenues. Oh, sorry. There we go. So just as a reminder, and this addresses a little bit the questions that Senator Rubio and Senator Richardson raised about impacts of venues on communities, this game is different than every other Olympic and Paralympic Games that have happened in history in that it is both a no-build Games and a transit-first Games. That has never happened. And so in Paris, for example, they built an Olympic village and it was a massive undertaking. And yes, that's going to benefit that community afterwards. But the conscious decision was made for sustainability and cost containment purposes for these games that we would not build permanent new venues. Now, there will be temporary venues that will be built, and many of those will afford us the opportunity to benefit the communities by perhaps obtaining those temporary venues and making them permanent. And that's another policy question we'll need to talk to you about to permit that under the CEQA exemption so that if a temporary swimming pool goes up in a neighborhood, for example, that doesn't have very many swimming pools, it would be a shame if we asked LA28 to move that temporary swimming pool out when we could, in fact, save them money, save environmental impact, and benefit a community by making that swimming pool permanent. And we have plans to do that, which we can address, but it may require some additional policy change that we can follow up with you about. So we're talking today about infrastructure. And most of – I'm going to talk both on infrastructure and then later on transportation. I'll focus a little bit now on the non-transportation infrastructure, which most of the asks that we've already presented to you involve improvement to the public rights of way, particularly in venue approaches, sidewalk improvements, street maintenance, and so forth, but also in changing the way Angelenos get around and the opportunities that they see by enhanced active transportation projects improvements to our local and metro bus service and so forth So just a few of the categories that we been discussing with all of you as our partners in this is the asks relating to infrastructure that I just described, street improvements, accessibility improvements, energy upgrades, which will be necessary, especially for the temporary venues, but they'll also be necessary for charging infrastructure and otherwise. And again, we would like those to become legacies by keeping them permanently afterwards as well. There's a small ask for safety, security, and technology. That's not exactly on point for today, but we do very much need an interagency joint operations center to be built to coordinate all of the public safety services, and we will look for your participation and support of that as well. Many of you asked about the arts and cultural programming to LA28, and again, I want to emphasize that the cultural Olympiad that's the responsibility of LA28 is only one part of this equation. The city is very much committed to investing its own funds and enhancing that effort through philanthropic support and ideally your support as well of our comprehensive arts and cultural programming that will celebrate all the neighborhoods of Los Angeles, as the mayor described, and allow full participation from our communities as well. And then we touched earlier on the active transportation projects, especially in the Sepulveda Basin, completion of the L.A. Riverway bike path. which the big missing piece of that happens to be right in the Sepulveda Basin adjacent to a critical venue. So this is the perfect opportunity to once and for all finally get that job done. Another component of this is this will be the first time LA is hosting the Paralympics. And so it is even more important than it otherwise would be to ensure that all of these upgrades enhance accessibility for all Angelenos and our visitors. And we're very much committed to doing that. That is something, again, that we'll be able to do much more holistically, more comprehensively with support of our state partners. The mayor mentioned the Clean Corridors Program. This is primarily Caltrans rights of way that need illegal dumping, that have illegal dumping challenges, graffiti challenges, landscaping challenges. with investments by the state in those areas, we can have a real impact on surrounding neighborhoods and put the best foot forward for our visitors. Okay, so again, I can go into detail on all of those issues to the extent that you like, but I just want to also remind us before I turn this over to my other panelists, you hear, like we hear, lots of negativity. We live in an era of political negativity. And so you hear, well, the tickets are too expensive. There not going to be enough opportunities It going to be a big disruption There going to be a lot of traffic The city just went through these horrible fires How are we going to pull this off How are we going to be hosts of the world's biggest event? And so I just want to remind all of us, as I try always to do, that L.A. knows how to do this. We've done this. We've proven it in the past. In 1932, everybody thinks about the 1932 games. It was a pivotal moment in the history of Los Angeles of bringing California into the eyes of the world and really establishing our place in the eyes of the world. People forget often that the 1932 games happened in the middle of the Great Depression. So while there were parades welcoming the games, there were also bread lines on Broadway. And yet we pulled off a successful games that was financially successful, turned a profit, and transformed Los Angeles into truly an international city. Fast forward to 1984. And again, everybody who's like me, old enough to remember the 84 games, remembers that very fondly now. But we forget that at this point in the planning for the 84 games, we had just come out of the 1980 boycott of the Moscow games. We were facing the deepest recession that this country had experienced since World War II. And the Olympic movement was teetering on the edge of collapse after the boycott in 1980. And Los Angeles raised its hand and said, we'll come to the rescue. And we produced the 1984 Games, which became the most successful Olympic Games in history. Games so successful that, as the mayor mentioned earlier, we are still spending the profits of that Games today to fund youth sports programming and youth development programming throughout Southern California from the profits from 1984. So in our parks right now, today, you have young people benefiting from the 1984 games that happened over 40 years ago and the 2028 games that haven't yet happened, but they're already funding youth sports programs. So I have great confidence that for whatever obstacles and difficulties we face, we are primed to be able to produce another extraordinarily successful games with your continuing partnership and support.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and former Madam Chair as well and other senators. From Exposition Park, a state property down in Los Angeles, we're really appreciative of your time and attention, the many visits that you've taken down to the park and the many conversations that we've had with all of your staff. So thank you so much for your consideration of not only how to support Exposition Park, the state property, but also how to support the surrounding communities and also the visitors that come. Annually, we have about 8 million visitors to Exposition Park, which actually puts us on par with Universal Studios. As a state property, it's one of the most visited. And I'd like to share a little history about the park. If we were a state park, we would be the oldest state park in the state. We were actually an agricultural district association. And in 1923 that when our coliseum was completed So even before the 1932 Games we were already vying to be the first In 1927 we developed our Rose Garden And in 1932, that is when we held the first Olympic Games in Los Angeles. So exactly as Mr. Krikorian just mentioned, we have the experience in hosting these really historic moments in games at Exposition Park within our Coliseum. And we also built the swimming pool that was used for the 32 Olympics. So we have multiple venues that have been used over time. Fast forward also to the 84 games. That held about 100,000 visitors. We are expecting a bit less in this upcoming Olympic season. But those games did not necessarily provide any infrastructure improvements for the park and the state property itself. They really invested in the Coliseum that was the host venue then. So as we are exploring this new moment in time where we will host the 1928 Games, we are really interested to understand how the impact will be on the entirety of the property. I'm going to forward over to a bit about Exposition Park in detail. I mentioned our 8 million annual visitors. We have four museums, including two state museums under your purview. That would be the California African American Museum and the California Science Center, the Natural History Museum of L.A. County, and the new Lucas Museum of Narrative Art that we're excited to open in the short future. We also have four sport and recreation venues. At this point, all of which will be used for the 28 games in different uses and capacities. but as you're familiar, the LA Memorial Coliseum and the BMO Stadium, which is a soccer stadium, will be used for different sport venue engagements. We also have two schools on campus, and of course we have multiple green spaces. But I want to emphasize that Exposition Park is going to be the only site, especially the only state property in history, to host three active Olympic ceremonies. That makes us very distinct, and it makes us very unique as a state property. If other private institutions or local municipalities are using their spaces, the state property of Exposition Park is the site for the Olympic Games for the state's consideration. While we are also gearing up for the 28 Games, we're also excited that just as was mentioned, we're less than 30 days away from the World Cup Fan Festival that we will host. So that is intended to be our training wheels. We are still exploring some of the lessons to be learned in the planning and the process up to this moment. And certainly post-mortem we will be reflecting on how we can improve some of our operations to learn and grow toward the 28 games. And we're the only multi-venue site in California that has both museums, sports, and entertainment venues on site. Again, makes us a very unique state property. So to understand a bit more about all of our jurisdictional opportunities and responsibilities, I wanted to outline the different spaces that we have. It's a 160-acre state property. In addition to all those venues I just mentioned, we manage the lawn areas, we manage all the parking facilities, and all of these spaces are being considered for the 28 games. And how they will be activated is yet to be determined, but we do anticipate the entirety of the park and the entirety of the space to play a role, certainly in both either venues or preparation areas for the games. I mentioned a bit about the World Cup that we're hosting. Certainly lessons learned already that I can share are around our need to be imagine and plan for public safety concerns and public safety issues, thinking about our infrastructure needs. And for the 28 Games, we will host two different venues that will be used for games. We will host not only the opening celebration for the LA 28 Games, but also the closing ceremony for the LA 28 Games. We will also host the Paralympics. In our Exposition Park Stadium, we will host the flag football and lacrosse games. We'll also host the track and field games. We'll also have medal ceremonies. I mean, you name it, we're going to have it here at the state property. So not only are we thinking about how to prepare for the Olympics, but certainly the Paralympics. It will be a monumental opportunity for us to host the first Paralympics. And in doing so, we want to ensure that we have accessibility needs and we have all of the infrastructure needed to accommodate all of our additional athletes that are coming to visit. But regarding the milestones, I want to share that not only are we planning for this World Cup moment, we're planning for the LA20 games, but in the middle of that, we have a world-class museum that's going to be open, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art. This incredible over $1 billion investment into Exposition Park onto state property that's intended to bring about a million and a half more visitors to the park and to the local community. So as we're planning for the infrastructure needs, we have to accommodate and take into account this major additional milestone right in the middle of it. That's important for us to think about our timelines for any construction, for any updates, for any impacts that we might have around the surrounding community as well. And certainly post-28, we're still exploring how to maximize the approved funding that you all support us with to build a new green park at Exposition Park and reimagine an asphalt-covered parking lot into a new green space. So to detail a bit more about our infrastructure needs, for your consideration, the governor's proposed budget does include $96.5 million for utility replacement and site improvement requests for Exposition Park. Specifically, that's around improvements on sidewalks and roadways and ramps, all focused toward accessibility and really the improved safety of the state property and the grounds. We also have a request for some funding toward traffic system upgrades and public safety improvements like barricades and bollards. We are a site that has multiple pedestrians and vehicles simultaneously in the exact same place. So we know we need to be really intentional about the improvements we have to those roadways and to the pedestrian walkways. So this would support that. We also have some support or a request for support toward public safety and legal support of $1.698 million. All of this is to really improve the existing condition of the state property. And I do want to address perhaps some of the comments that were made in the previous presentations. While we are thinking about the LA28 games, and we certainly are moving with expediency and urgency to meet this moment, The state property has been there for over 100 years. It will be there for another 100 years if we do it right. And this moment that we have to invest into the state property is going to be a legacy improvement for years to come, for generations to come. So the children that are playing there now will hopefully bring the children that they have in the future to play on those same grounds to play on the same lawns to play on those same roads So these improvements are in fact legacy improvements toward the park toward the community So for the state to consider how to support and see long impacts and investments, we do think that Exposition Park is worthy of your consideration. For us to move forward on these infrastructure improvements, the time is now. We have a short window to produce all of these improvements. Just to summarize for you, construction should begin in the top of 2027 and be done the first quarter of 2028. That means now we are already actively considering how to identify qualified firms if we were able to receive the funding and approval. We're already thinking about how to implement a progressive design build model to fast track some of this work, and we're thinking about how to ensure, of course, local workforce hire and community benefits in this effort. So with that, I just want to close again with appreciating all of your consideration, appreciating the visits, but really say that this investment toward Exposition Park will yield a long-term commitment from, I think, the state into the state property. and for those that haven't yet been to Exposition Park, very much welcome you all, certainly for the World Cup Fan Fest because you will be able to see the complexity of the space and all of the different visitors that will come. So thank you very much again for your consideration and, of course, happy to answer questions later.

It's welcoming visitors. It's hosting events. because this community, this state has really cherished these buildings. We really feel that they're important, not just because they're old, but because they're important to our history, and they're going to be important to our future. We are not at a point where we want to discard these buildings and say that we used to host events there. I'm so proud. We're a founding member of the National Historic Stadium Caucus, which has over 25 members, which are buildings throughout the country that are historic buildings. The Coliseum is one, the Rose Bowl, but you have buildings in Florida. You have buildings in Wisconsin that are just like us. They're very similar. They were built close to 100 years ago. They have a lot of competition moving in from new venues and new areas. And what we've said is the new buildings are wonderful, and they play a perfect part in the games. Without SoFi Stadium, we likely couldn't put on the games. We need all the venues that we have. But how do we invest in the infrastructure in these buildings to make sure that they stay? because them being part of our history and not just the history, but the future is so important. And so as we talk about infrastructure and investing, this is a photo of the Rose Bowl with 90,000 people at a soccer match. So this will be our reality in 2028. We are ready to host these games. Unlike some other venues that have to build out to host something that's a little bit different, soccer is really in our wheelhouse, and we're so excited about that. But how do we take – investment in our building to elevate that experience, but elevate that experience that has a legacy. We want to make sure that when the games move on, that our community, our buildings, our community meeting grounds are improved and are better. And I think that we have an ask through Senator Perez and Assemblymember Herabedian around safety and security, and we really think that it's appropriate because what it does is it enables us to be better at what we do, and what we do is welcome people to Southern California. We're an advertisement for the lifestyle. We are a meeting place for all. We know the world will come here in 2028. But as has been said earlier in this panel, how do we make sure they keep coming back here? How do we make sure that they know this is a place that values these institutions, these beautiful places, and make sure that the games really have a legacy impact? Thank you. All right.

I'm happy to provide what we can. I will say that there's not as much that's typical as you might expect. And in a sense, we're comparing apples to oranges when we're comparing one games to the next because even with Paris, for example, there were substantial legacy investments, and much of it was paid by the federal government or the municipal government of France and Paris. They had a smaller budget than LA28 has for larger games that we'll be having. So it's not a one-to-one kind of comparison from games to games. The $160 million was something that was, I think, unprecedented that we received, an advance payment against future broadcast revenues that the IOC would be receiving and that LA-20 would have as part of their budget. We were able to secure that to fund youth programming, And much of it is already we've already had over a million subscriptions in Play LA of young people who are participating in sports who might not otherwise have been able to. But for that Play LA funding.

Yeah, we're very proud. But, you know, as a building, as I mentioned, you know, we do 25 events a year, and a building that was built for one event a year has seven football games, six UCLA and one Rose Bowl. But we're so busy with everything else. And I think that's, to me, what's really neat about the Olympics coming to town is that all these venues are going to be highlighted maybe to Angelinos for the first time because they're going to have a sport or an event that they haven't participated in or watched. They're going to go to a new venue to see that. So I think, yes, that's a very important part of it. And I think as we look at these investments in our buildings, that's a legacy in and to itself.

Thank you Mr Chair And sorry I between hearings today so apologies But I wanted to just say we went on an amazing tour of venues And what is spectacular about our historic venues is that communities have grown up around them And so unlike newer stadiums that are in places that don't have sort of a built-out, beautiful community, the Coliseum is one of those. You can see from, you know, the Hollywood Hills to downtown, and it is a spectacular view of all the city around it. And in Pasadena, just to see the hillsides and around the stadium, it is definitely going to be not just a place to watch boarding events, but it will be an amazing experience to be in open space inside of one of our historic stadiums. So I really appreciate you all being here. And, you know, one of the things that I'm so glad we're talking about, the infrastructure improvements and the needs, and I want to echo Senator Richardson's points that we don't have a lot of time and there are very few opportunities now to really think critically about what's needed. I want to thank the Senate. I want to thank the governor and others who've helped us get to our initial investment in Expo Park, where we have had decades of deferred maintenance and where we know in this very litigious society, it's very important for us to do everything that we can to make sure that we are compliant on every single point and that everyone will have access to the park. But I wanted to just double back on what's still left to be done and to understand, you know, from the investment that was received from the state. can you talk a little bit about you know how the deferred maintenance you know how did you identify the deferred maintenance needs and a little bit about you know how the park can maintain consistent maintenance following the overdue investment and and if you could also add a little bit about to your response that the governor's budget that we have requests that we've put forward for the park, will it support all of the deferred maintenance in terms of this $95.6 million that has been received? What else is left to be done? And how do we maintain this moving forward?

Yeah, if I could just add on the liability front, it's very real, I think, for venues in this state and across the country. Liability is real. You know, we put on events to make money to invest capital back in the buildings. That's really the model, especially in a municipally-owned stadium. And what we're finding is that we really rarely host an event where there's not liability challenges or people following up on an issue with whether it's accessibility or a trip fall or visibility. And these are our buildings. We own these buildings. So as the owners of these buildings, we should be thoughtful of what kind of capital investments can we make so that we prevent these things from happening. We don't want to go through all the work of putting on an Olympic final or a concert or a UCLA Bruins football game just to have those profits go away because of a liability issue that arises from someone coming to that event. So as we look long-term, it's one of our biggest priorities is focusing on that. I can also say as a building operator, it's also incumbent upon us to make sure that we look long-term. We know at the stadium that we have about $200 million in capital needs for the stadium over the next 20 years. We don't call it deferred maintenance because we don't see it as deferred maintenance. It's just us looking forward to see what the challenges that are going to arise. We also have a very robust preventative maintenance budget of over $2 million a year just on keeping the status quo. And I say that because I think it's important that as you ask for assistance and help, you want to make sure that the people that are giving you that assistance don't feel like you're sort of throwing it into this black hole of you're going to come back again and you're going to come back again. I think what we're saying is that we have a plan. And the improvements that we want, we're going to make those improvements at some point. but why not make those improvements before the game so that way the world comes and they see these improvements and they see how wonderful it is and use that as a trampoline to even better because if we make those investments now we think it's going to pay off tenfold with whether it's event interest, tourism, jobs, all the things that come from this. We're at a very, very critical point and so investing in this infrastructure especially on the liability front and that's really what we're talking about at the Rose Bowl is visibility with cameras. Our buildings were built over 100 years ago. Cameras didn't exist 100 years ago. You talk about lighting. We have a 300-acre park that people park during the day and then maybe leave at night and they're going to try and find their vehicle next to a tree out in the middle of our parking lots. So being able to light the golf course in a way that's appropriate, those are things that are going to pay off not just event by event but from a liability standpoint. So we think it's very important.

Do you want to go take that poll?

I'd like to add Exposition Park will host the World Cup Fan Festival from June 11th through the 14th. Some lessons learned that we've already taken into account are around safety and public safety needs at the park, as well as the need for us to address some urgent maintenance needs. I'll detail those. On the safety front, we've already identified some significant vulnerabilities on the state property with the expectation of about 40,000 people per day. We know, and with an entire day, we will have multiple games shown throughout the day. We do know that traffic will be pretty difficult in those major corridors that we have around Figaro and MLK down in Los Angeles, right off of the 110 freeway. We also know that we have very limited roadways at the park. So we've already taken a look to understand what are those major intersections and what are the major kind of crush points that we have to invest in. Some of the lessons learned are that we don't have the sufficient funding to deliver on some of those needs and to meet some of those security vulnerabilities with the right equipment. So we're pivoting very quickly to understand what we can do within our own budget by the end of this fiscal year. That does include putting in perhaps some temporary cameras that we're working on, putting in some more fencing, putting in some more bollards. Those are really tangible things that need to get done. As Mr. Krikorian was mentioning, time is of the essence because procurement and construction and delivery all have to be done in a very short window. I mentioned the urgency of timing. We're running to a moment where we are planning to host these major events, but we don't know the expected number of guests. While we anticipate 40 and we will prepare for the maximum, we can't always anticipate the exact number at that exact moment. So we need to make sure that we have the full coverage. And what we're learning is more information earlier on is very valuable, so we can all address the operational impacts. We can plan for it accordingly. We can account for it within our budgets. That is something to LA28's kind of ongoing working relationship with us that's been very helpful. They've been helpfully identifying the number of guests that we would expect, and that's really important for the state property to consider given all of the closures. So the safety and urgency concerns I think are coming to bear post Cup we certainly will take a lot of those lessons learned and apply it directly into our LA planning We've already been working with our colleagues at Cal OES as well as our other federal colleagues to re-examine some of our own protocols on site. as was mentioned, you know, extreme heat on those certain days, which is very possible. And that urban heat island around South L.A. is likely. So we have to prepare for that. Also for other emergency natural disasters. So we're working pretty closely with our colleagues to try to understand the scope. We have a short window to get ready. But I think post World Cup Fan Festival, we will be able to apply some of those lessons learned to L.A. 28. And then just real quick, I think perspective is important. A lot of locales and states have people that come and say, if we build it, they will come. And that's not really what we're talking about here. So the great news for our venues are they're as busy as they've ever been. And so if you look later this month on the 30th, we're going to have a sold-out event with Team Mexico versus Australia as they get ready to go into the World Cup. So we're already welcoming tens of thousands of people to our building. So we get a lot of these learnings as we go along. I go back to, I think, the lens of the Olympics allowing us to make sure that we shine a light on what these buildings are doing and what investments we can make to make sure that continues. We're running a business that's doing well right now, and we're coming to you all saying we're doing okay. But what we don't want to do is turn into a business that's not doing well. That's a much different conversation. Then we come back and say we need funds just to get people to come back or to host events with us. And I think that's what's important about the Olympics is to frame it as how do we make investments in our buildings to keep people coming to events at our buildings? because we know that tourism is such a huge driver for everything that we do. And so I think that's important. So a lot of these learnings are not we need to wait until we have this Mexico match on the 30th of this month. We know the challenges we're going to have, and we know that if we had additional funds, these are the things that we would go and attack. And I think it's a very unique and positive position for California to be in in that we're investing to try and keep our cities and our venues as the A1s, the number one examples of how you treat a municipal building and how you keep it busy.

Thank you, Mr. Turner. All right. Thank you, guys. Well, without further ado, let's go on to the transportation. So if you want to hear some of it, you're welcome. But I know you've got to go.

All right. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. All right. We're going to bring up Bill. So I guess we've got – is Bill coming on? Okay. Bill Panos is coming in on Zoom. He's the Senior Vice President of Transportation for LA28. Paul is staying, which is fantastic. And then Salita Reynolds from Metro and Tasha Higgins from from Caltrans. So let's start with you, Mr. Panos, if we're able to get you. There we go.

We meet on a regular basis weekly, sometimes daily around the games mobility executive process. And each of these great partners has a area that they're focusing on. I'm going to talk a little bit later about games route network and games enhanced transit services. But these are all critical to delivering the transportation system for the Olympics and Fair Olympics. By the way, and the partners and the host city have been excellent delivery partners for us. We wanted to talk a little bit about priority work streams as well and some of the roles that our partners and ourselves have as we develop this transportation system. LA-28 focuses on not just the entire system, but also the bus and car fleets around what we call stakeholder transport system. This is the Olympic family, making sure that the athletes safely get to their destinations. The Olympic family, the IOC, the International Olympic Committee members, the National Olympic Committee members get to the places that they need to get to. And that includes, by the way, ensuring that we have enough what we call GETS buses. And I know my partner from Metro will talk about this a little bit later. But the buses that we need for moving spectators and for moving our workforce. And then emergency vehicles and first responders. All of these systems are operated on something called a Games Route Network, which is a system that we have used for a number of years in the Olympics to be able to move these important and critical sort of participants in the Games around and around these great cities that we have the Olympics in. And so this, like I said, this includes guest buses and others and emergency responders moving through the Games Route Network. And I know that the state legislature has been supportive of this in the past and continues to be supportive of this. And I want to thank you for it. Our great delivery partner, Metro, is leading the design and delivery of the Get System, which is really a supplemental bus system that helps transported tickets, ticketed spectators and workforce to the games. And they are already receiving support from all over the country to be able to do that. And I'm sure they'll talk about a little bit about that. The GME is engaging in coordinated advocacy efforts. This cannot be done just by us alone We have to have the support of the various the federal government We have to have the support of local government We have to have support of the communities and others in providing reliable and safe transit during the games. And we've been fortunate to have great partnerships and relationships to move those things forward. And so the GME has been a key part of that. And we're very, very, very, very happy with the way that that's going in our relationships. I want to spend a little bit of time and then I'll finish talking about when we when we focus on stakeholder transport, what we're what we're talking about. When we get done at the at the well before before the games in 2028, we'll have the fourth largest transit agency in the United States. That will be some 2,000 buses, a little bit less than that, and some 4,000 cars that we will be using to move the Olympic family and athletes around the Los Angeles basin. An incredible thing. Again, Los Angeles, I think Mr. Kikori had said it best earlier. L.A. knows how to do this. And we're building the program so that we're building the architecture, the transport architecture, so it achieves what Los Angeles and all the communities here need in terms of mobility, not just for the athletes, but for the citizens that live here and the businesses that are here each and every day. Let me finish with this. Here are the numbers. 793 days until the opening ceremonies. 825 days until the great Paralympic opening ceremonies. I know we and again, I don't mean to steal his line, but he said it so well. L.A. knows how to do this and we know how to do this. We're not only bringing on experts from all over Los Angeles, but experts from all over the world to help us work with our delivery partners, work with the city, work with the state to be able to deliver the games. And we are fully confident that this will go well. And we're fully confident that it'll be the greatest games ever in Olympic history. And so with that, I'll stop and turn it over to my fellow panelists, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don't want to go through things that I have already covered, but if I can just advance this forward to one slide that kind of shows. There we go. Okay. I already kind of gave the overview of the infrastructure needs, but to just narrow it down with a little bit greater specificity, given that we have seven quarters left to go. The principal city need for infrastructure is around street improvements, especially in venue approaches, accessibility upgrades that will be a part of those projects, and energy upgrades. That, after much analysis by all of our city stakeholders, comes to $580 million that is not funded from any source that we have available to us yet. When it comes to safety security and technology that was the interagency joint operational center that I mentioned earlier that will allow all of our public safety and first responder agencies across jurisdictions to work collaboratively in one command post that will have ongoing public safety benefits in the future as well because much of that we'll be able to continue to use. The arts, cultural programming, community celebrations, this is all of the investments that we're making in the community activations that we talked about, the cultural program in the city's portion of the arts, and cultural festivals. And then active transportation, separate from the infrastructure total, is really around, that's around the Sepulveda Basin. So it's completion of that unfunded portion, that gap that still needs to be completed of the bike path through the Sepulveda Basin, which is $9.6 million, and then another $20 million that'll be necessary for other active transportation capital projects within the basin. And then, yeah, so that covers that. So in the interest of time, Mr. Chairman, I just really wanted to give you that level of specificity. This has all been part of the planning process that's been ongoing for several years now. Not one penny of those amounts that I told you are things that we shouldn't do but for the Games. They're all things that we should be doing. The Games gives us the incentive and the urgency to get it done for the longer-term benefit for people of Los Angeles and California, not only during the Games but after as well. Thank you.

Thank you so much. I especially want to appreciate and recognize the opportunity that we have for these are actually, I think, Tasha's slides. I'm happy to talk about the Games Route Network. But just want to appreciate the opportunity to come before you today and also want to give a special shout out to the state and particularly to our partners at Caltrans and the CTC for coming to the table with funding for some of our mobility hubs. We are extremely appreciative of that. You know, you've heard some of these numbers already, but I just want to put a fine point on the following. We are responsible for the movement of spectators and workforce during the games. LA-28 has not one dollar for that in their budget. And that is not unusual. The federal government came to the table for all other games hosted on American soil to cover that cost. in 2000, you know, the games in Salt Lake in 2002 in the shadow of 9-11, they had over a billion dollars of federal money in the bank four years before the games had even begun. We are not in that situation. But I do want to just underline that we know that 40 percent of the spectators are going to come from California. What we do here in these games, they're for us and they're for the people that live here. And the other 40% are coming from around the rest of the United States. And then there's about 20% of the spectators that will be coming from international destinations. So when we talk about the games and how we're hosting the world, we are, but we are also hosting Californians and Americans. And we have been at this, planning for this enormous transportation challenge since we won the bid in 2018. We've done detailed modeling. We have a detailed understanding of what is needed and how we need to attack this extremely sprawling challenge that we had The Paris games are fabulous We are not Paris We are more like 10 Parises spread all around not just LA County, but Southern California. And so that requires us to come together in a way to pool our resources towards collective action in a way that is extremely positive. But it also requires us to think creatively. And I want to point out that Metro already connects to many of the major venues. These venues will not have parking allowed at them because of the blast zones that the national law enforcement will establish. You will not be able to drive to these venues. So you must take public transit. And California in particular, and Southern California, have come to the table with over $12 billion of rail extensions that really enabled Los Angeles is to win the games in the first place. We've opened the Metro to the airport. We opened the A-Line to Pomona. We opened the extension of the D-Line, and we will finish that to UCLA before the opening ceremony. But it will not be enough, because even on our heaviest day, we carry about a million passengers, and we will need to double that. And I just want to underpin that what our plan is, is to extend the reach of our system. Some of these venues we don't get to, and we need a bus system that can carry spectators safely to and from those locations. And the very best security plan that we could come up with is a good transportation plan. And so that has been our focus. And we have drawn from transit agencies across this country to get commitments to loan us the additional buses that we need to extend our fleet. These are America's games, and America's transit agencies are showing up and committing. and not just in America, but also in California, in the Southwest, and Southern California in particular. These fleets that we have accessed are the cleanest ones we could get. They are all CNG and battery electric vehicles so that these games can leave that legacy of clean air for the region when we are moving folks around to these games. And just wanted to focus in on the buses that are coming from the California districts. We are so grateful for their partnerships and their contributions. And just want to give a shout out in particular to all of the representatives from these districts that have come to the table in partnership. We are extremely grateful. I just want to close on a couple of things. I know that a lot of times, you know, there's a lot of conversation about transit's fiscal cliff. Metro is no different. We've heard a lot of, sometimes we hear feedback that we might be able to absorb the costs of running this system, and that is absolutely not the case. We are facing the same kind of dire fiscal future as many transit agencies across this state. And our commitment is that we are not going to host these games on the backs of our existing riders. This is a federal responsibility to come to the table and to contribute as the host nation. And we wouldn't be able to afford the service even if we wanted to. So the ask to the state in particular, we have been very clear for several years now of what we need. and Metro has been investing its dollars and applying for every single discretionary grant we can to both fund the full design of these projects and in some cases fund the construction of them. But we will reach a point where they will be shovel ready. And many of almost all of these projects are projects we would need to do anyway. And we are hoping that we can get a boost from the state to finish these projects in time for the games. And I think the important thing here is just to remember that regardless of what happens with the federal dollars and the federal contribution, our core system will be the backbone of service delivery. And so investing in that service delivery and our core system is not only a legacy investment that benefits equity-focused communities across L.A. County, but it is also an investment in the

Good afternoon, Senator Allen and senators on the committee. In the interest of time, I'll skip and start with the slides. But my name is Tasha Higgins, principal engineer. I've been leading the transportation efforts for Caltrans, bringing greetings from District 7, Los Angeles. First slide, sorry. All right. Start with a very short story. Imagine working your entire life for an Olympic Games that only comes every four years. You finally get there, you get to your Olympic Games, and you miss your competition due to traffic or transit delays. That's what happened in 1996. And since 2012, the game in London was the first host city that had an obligation to provide what we call the Games Route Network. I'll call it also the GRN. The Games Route Network is a network of highway and arterial routes that are approximately 3,000 square miles across three counties. You can see there Los Angeles County at the top, Orange County in the middle, and the little green at the bottom is San Diego County. It goes as far north as the Sepulveda Basin where BMX and Skateboarding will be, as far south as Trestles Beach in San Diego, as far east as the Pomona in Pomona at the Fairplex, the county fairgrounds where Cricket will be. The primary network is comprised of 80% on the state highway system and about 20%, totaling nearly 400 centerline miles, double that both ways. And we have contingency routes for emergency purposes. The Games Route Network was created as an important framework for collaboration among all of the transportation agencies, local jurisdictions, public safety partners, venue operators, state leaders, helping to align our operational planning and infrastructure investments. You can see here we've had meetings between the transportation, the transit, and the security. The coordination is very critical to delivering safe, reliable, and efficient transportation. Over the last three years, Caltrans has led coordination efforts with the three counties, 12 venue cities, a number of neighboring cities bringing all of the GME partners, transit, transportation, and law enforcement to the table, from the local PD, county sheriff, our partners at Highway Patrol, as well as Secret Service. With your help, this legislature, last year, Caltrans has made significant progress in the development of the Games Route Network. Last May, we received $17.5 million to help get started in the planning and design and purchasing of our long-lead items. It also allows us to accelerate some of the work and implement improvements and enhanced maintenance for FIFA World Cup next month It our biggest test event At the same time we were able to move forward with updates to our California vehicle code to allow the Games Road Network to operate on the state highway system And our Federal Highway Administration also approved an experiment for special colors so our signs will be visible. And last year, we programmed two infrastructure projects that will be kicking off very soon. Leaving a legacy. We talked a little bit about that today. Equally important is ensuring that this investment leaves a legacy. The transportation improvements advanced ahead of the games should continue delivering long-term benefits for residents, businesses, and communities through improved connectivity, reliability, and access through the region. Our goal is to reduce vehicle trips by 20 percent through our GME partners at the SCAG, which is the Southern California Association of Governments, and deployment of the Demand Management Strategy. Over the next two years, continued coordination, discipline, project delivery, and operational preparedness will be essential to ensure California is ready to host those games at this scale. We're well underway, and we appreciate the legislature's leadership and continued partnership, and we look forward to answering any of your questions.

I'm here. Awesome. Thank you. Great.

There we go. Sorry. So LA28 released our Impact and Sustainability Plan in August of 2025. This plan outlines our commitments to expand access to the benefits of the games across three key areas. Youth sports, economic empowerment, and a healthy environment. This plan was co-developed with a set of community working groups, including one focused on sustainability. And we view this plan really as the starting point, not the finish line for our impact and sustainability program. We plan to continue to release updates as we get closer to the games. I'm here today to talk about our commitment to expand access to a healthy environment, which is where all of our sustainability initiatives sit. Within that focus area, we have three strategic commitments. The first is radical reuse, which is about embedding reuse and circular economy principles across the game's footprint. Resilience, which is focused on how do we minimize carbon emissions across our operations while also contributing to a more resilient region. And then natural resource stewardship, which is about how we preserve key natural resources through responsible use of resources like water and biodiversity. So diving a bit deeper on each of these, radical reuse. This is really anchored in our games plan. We will be the first modern games to build no new permanent venues. This is a milestone for the Olympic movement and it really based around the fact that LA is built to host the Games We making use of what already here And the avoided impact of not building is very significant and is really our foundational sustainability commitment. That said, we know that's not enough. And so we are also working to embed circularity across the Games footprint. Where we do build temporary infrastructure, think things like the temporary track that will go in the Coliseum to get it ready for its third Olympics hosting track and field, or a temporary beach volleyball stadium down in Long Beach. For those temporary infrastructure and temporary venues, we've committed to make sure that at least 90% of those materials get reused or recycled post-games. you'll have a post-games community donation program that ensures that the benefits of those materials hit local communities and can go to kind of their highest possible use, post-games. Additionally, we're focused on the games times operational waste. And a lot of this comes down to our food and beverage programs. That's where a lot of our waste comes from during games time. It's also how visitors and spectators will experience sustainability at the games most viscerally. So all of our venues will offer free hydration stations and we will encourage spectators to bring their own water bottles that are reusable in order to reduce our reliance on single use plastics and also keep people safe in the heat. All of our venues, you know, aligned with state law, we will have food donation programs. We will have composting programs. We're also quite focused on the procurement side of the equation. So ensuring that we're procuring the right materials up front, that being reusable, recyclable or compostable beverage containers, as well as serviceware to ensure that everything has an appropriate end of life destination. and that we do the work on the back end to ensure that those materials are making it to the materials recovery facility for recycling or the composting site. In terms of resilience, like I said, we're quite focused on how we can minimize the carbon emissions associated with the games, with clean energy and transportation being two of the key levers that get us there. So we have an overarching commitment to reduce the carbon footprint for the games for operations and construction by 10 percent relative to Paris 2024, which on its own was a historically low carbon games. How do we get there? One lever is that we will purchase 100 percent renewable electricity for our venues. And then, as my colleague Bill spoke about earlier, we are very focused on hosting a transit-first games, and sustainability is built into our overall transportation strategy, including through the use of zero-emission vehicles. Our last commitment area is focused around natural resource stewardship. we think about this in terms of kind of what are the mechanisms that we're using at the enterprise level to promote sustainability and resource conservation, and then what are we doing at the venue level as well. At the enterprise level, we will achieve ISO 2012-1 certification, which is the leading global standard for sustainable event management. The Paris Games pursued this as well. And then we will also embed sustainability into our procurement process. We have a responsible sourcing code that outlines minimum environmental criteria that our suppliers must meet and all RFPs are screened against that We also beyond minimum requirements we encourage suppliers to put forward their sustainability strategies and RFPs are reviewed and weighted based on their sustainability performance. When we look at the venue level, we see significant opportunities with both our existing permanent venues that we're working with to host the games, as well as the temporary venue sites. For the existing venues, all venues will be trained in sustainability guidelines focused on reducing the impact of venue operations. We're also acting now to bring these venues together and to encourage the adoption of more best practices around sustainability. Last September, we hosted our first venue sustainability summit at LA28, which brought these venues together for a day of sharing best practices around sustainability, highlighting case studies of success across the venues that are doing it well and connecting them with local experts from nonprofits or utilities and other agencies to get them connected to rebates and audits and the best practices that, again, they can adopt now to improve their sustainability before 2028, but practices that will last long beyond the games and leave a legacy impact. At our temporary sites, we're also focused on biodiversity, assessing what's there, and then informing our construction delivery practices in order to minimize impacts on any areas of sensitivity. And the last thing I want to talk about, tying back to our focus on resilience, is the LA28 Resilience Champions Initiative. This is what we consider our sustainability legacy initiative that is focused on driving investment in a more resilient Los Angeles and supporting community resilience as a part of our long-term legacy. This initiative has three primary focus areas where we're working to drive investment, wildfire resilience and nature restoration, ocean protection, and cooling solutions. We have multiple activation areas. The backbone of this program is our Resilience Champions Fund, which we are just wrapping up the first round of now. We will announce our first round of grantees next week. So this fund gives grants to nonprofits completing local resilience projects across these three focus areas. in our first round, we'll give away multiple grants of $100,000. But beyond the fund, which we do plan to complete multiple rounds of before 2028, we will also integrate resilience champions and sustainability throughout our volunteer program. Just last month during Earth Month, we were out in Sepulveda Basin with Friends of the LA River, removing invasive species, and that will continue to be a part of our volunteer program going forward. We will also seize the global platform and the billions of eyes on LA28 to educate and engage our fans and our community members about sustainability and to engage athletes who are passionate about this topic to bring global attention to this work. So I spoke a bit about the fund before. LA28 provided the seed funding to get this fund off the ground, but we are working to build a coalition of partners in order to scale the impact. We will do multiple rounds before 2028, and we are not doing this alone. We have partnered with community partners, a very experienced local grantmaker to help us design and administer the fund. And we've also put together an advisory group of local experts, including heads of sustainability from L.A. County and the City of Los Angeles nonprofits. and academia to advise on the program design and help us select the grantees again so that we're bringing community in to the process and maximizing the impact. And so with that, that's my presentation. Thank you for the time, and I will hand it over to my fellow panelists.

My name is Maitha Sanchez, and I am the acting head for LACI. In my role, I oversee our 2028 – sorry?

Yeah. But in my role to that point, I oversee all of our 2028-focused work, including our public-private transportation and clean energy partnerships that we started back in 2018 to accelerate progress by the time the world arrives in L.A. before 2020. With just a little over two years to go, the excitement and global spotlight of the Games presents a chance for us to accelerate progress on EVs, charging infrastructure, and DERs that will benefit our communities for decades to come, improve our air quality, and help us meet our state and regional climate goals. That is why LACI launched our Road to 2028 initiative to showcase leadership and inspire commitments to action to increase investment in our region. Over the next six months, LACI is focusing efforts to mobilize the final push. We are working with our partners to accelerate the interconnection, permitting, and energization of EV chargers, as well as the deployment of EVs, prioritizing school bus fleets, TNC hubs, and freight corridors to have the most impact. As part of one of our commitments to action, LACI partnered with LADWP and the City of LA to create an EV charger interconnection tiger team that supports accelerating EV charging interconnection timelines. We have been meeting regular with private sector partners to identify obstacles that can be removed and get infrastructure online sooner. Over the last 18 months, we've also been advocating for funding prioritization for LA ahead of the games for charging, DERs, and EV incentives. More recently, we have had a series of meetings with the administration and state agencies to identify opportunities. This proposal was actually echoed in a recent letter to the governor by the LA County Legislative Delegation. We also hope that this committee could consider supporting that recommendation. Additionally, we're piloting EV solutions that will be active and available to the public in L.A. this summer, including an electric on-demand microtransit in the San Fernando Valley, as well as a mobile battery with charging in North Hollywood. For the mobile battery pilot, LACI is actively working with Metro to pilot the technology, as well as include innovative cooling and shading solutions at a park and ride location during the FIFA World Cup. With this pilot, we're aiming to promote and support transit use while also allowing drivers to access EV charging at locations where additional stations are temporarily needed and identify opportunities to potentially scale these solutions during the 2028 Games at similar locations. More broadly, LACI has also been working with our startups and other partners to recommend supporting the Governor proposal for million for ZEV light duty incentives along with including HVIP to ensure coordinated opportunities for medium and heavy trucks We also been working to create more certainty in the marketplace with available tools that are not vulnerable to federal challenges, such as supporting legislation enabling the creation of a statewide indirect source rule to continue reducing emissions and improving air quality, given LA and the Central Valley still have some of the dirtiest air in the nation every year. Third, we've been recommending that allowing Angelenos to help power and enhance the grid during the games with as much clean energy as possible. This is especially critical, given we'll be in the middle of our summer period. For this, we urge the legislature and governor to extend and fund the demand side grid support program through the end of 2028. Doing so will support residents to contribute through Vita-G, as well as their solar and batteries. Lastly, enabling flexible interconnection with grid optimization and DERs to ensure that transportation and building electrification projects are online sooner. Last, and I'll be wrapping up, in addition, here are some other considerations. There, the state could consider coordinating a multi-agency fleet procurement to support municipal and public fleets that still need to comply with the advanced clean fleet rule. By the state leading and increasing procurement, they can serve as a demand aggregator and potentially secure a lower cost to local state agencies or local agencies, I should say. Second, temporarily removing the 20 voucher cap in CARB's HFIP program for fleets. While this cap was responsibly designed to ensure equitable distribution of limited funds, in the current market environment, it is limiting fleets with the capacity to continue electrifying and generate the most GHG impact reductions. Lastly, funding for the installation of battery storage at electric fleet depots for flexibility and resilience, as well as at key community school and college sites for backup power and affordability. LACI remains committed to advancing these key opportunities in the remaining time before the games. Removing obstacles, as I noted earlier, along with forward funding and or prioritizing resources with existing budget over the next six months will be critical to our success. To amplify and encourage the acceleration of these types of bold commitments from public and private sector leaders, we encourage companies and community groups to join us by making a Road to 2028 commitment to action. At our first Road to 2028 Summit in December, we had $125 million in investments announced and aim to have more announcements at our upcoming July summit at the Intuit Dome. We encourage those interested in making a commitment to action to reach out so that we can support you in any way we can. Thank you for your time.

Just very exciting, and thank you for your presentation. and I understand Lacey received $125 million investment to support this work, which is very exciting. And I wanted to know if you could talk a little bit about the scale and manpower of that investment. What does it look like on the ground? And how do you incubate? I'm just curious. How do you incubate, innovate, and also train the workforce of the future on these technologies in real time as they're being developed?

Wonderful. I am appreciating that. As Labor Chair, thinking about the workforce of the future is incredibly important to me, and we've done a phenomenal job of really mapping out our climate-resilient goals and what kind of an environment we want for the future of California. I don't think we've done the same sort of roadmap for the workforce, and what are those new skills? What is a DER? How does it work? How is it going to be relevant to the local economy and particularly the workforce that gets generated? So I really appreciate that. And my last question, because I know you all have have done this and really I'm looking forward to coming and visiting and seeing what you all do. And that is creating platforms that really showcase the innovation and the entrepreneurs. And so I'm just curious, how are you recommending that we ensure that California creates a platform for folks to really see what kind of climate innovations we're doing, what are kind of the new technologies, the new workforce? I don't know. I mean, we talk about Cultural Olympiad. We talk about all of these important communities, neighborhoods. But it's also about sort of our innovation in this space. Do you have recommendations for us as a leader in this climate innovation space?

Yeah, great, great question.

I appreciate that, and I think we have a great visit California, travel California, and we talked about the different stories that need to be told. I think how do we look at our state infrastructure for helping to do that and hope that we can work together to sort of think about what that kind of intersectionality can be in terms of not just amplifying California's beauty, but also what are the things that we are building that will help serve the world. And I just came back from a trip to South Korea, and I want to say, competition's on, right? I mean, we saw all of the solar farming that they're doing. We saw all of the innovation that they're doing. Nuclear power plants, I mean, they're building five nuclear power plants in the next four years. and they want to show, you know, this sort of new technology that they've developed. So I just feel like if, as we are a leader in this space and the world is coming to us, you know, especially in Los Angeles to show that we are a hub for that innovation and who are those partners that we want to make sure we're putting countries in touch with so that we build those partnerships as a part of this temporary, you know, global unity event. So thank you for your presentation and for the work that you're doing and looking forward to learning more and working with you on that.

Well, thank you, Maite. Thank you, Becky, as well. Thank you for your excellent presentation and all the work you're doing. I hope you had a productive day today at LA28. I really appreciate you, Maite, coming in and all the work you do at Lacey and all the great team that's there. Do you guys want to make public comment?

Yeah, you do? I didn't know you were there yet. Okay, yeah. Come on up and we'll hear some public comment and then we'll add a close.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Jeremy. All right, thank you so much, everyone. This hearing is adjourned. Thank you.