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I'm David Nasar.

Los Angeles is dealing with a lot of issues.

These days.

There's the fallout over immigration LA versus President Trump.

There is a homeless situation that many residents here in L.A.

say is getting worse and worse.

There is still Los Angeles 2025 wildfire recovery and rebuild, where now many Palisades residents are telling us that there's just too much red tape and bureaucracy, and they need this city to help speed the process.

And small business owners are telling us that it's just too tough to have a business here in LA.

Too many rules, too many regulations.

They need things they used a bit.

So that's what a lot of folks are telling us.

With all that said, there are some great city leaders that are trying to get Los Angeles back on track.

L.A.

City Council President Marquis Harris Dawson is one of those leaders.

Councilman Harris Dawson represents district eight, which encompasses parts of South Los Angeles spanning an area from Baldwin Hills to the border of Watts.

We're going to talk about his ten years on the city council and some of his accomplishments later in the broadcast.

First, though, to some of the issues.

And joining me now is Los Angeles City Council President Marquis Harris.

Dawson, thank you so much for being here.

It's good to be here.

It's been about, what, 15, 20 years since we last talked.

I don't even want to count, but definitely more than 15.

We were young guns back in the day.

I've age poorly in these last years.

There are a lot of things to talk about.

I want to say at least 5 to 7 minutes towards you in the interview.

Your proud son of this great neighborhood of South L.A., we're going to talk all about that.

So much of what you've accomplished.

Let's begin, though, with four topics, not necessarily in any order per se, that are really sort of hot button issues in Los Angeles today and not just in LA, really across the nation.

Obviously, this year, 2025 spring summer ice enforcement, National Guard, military on the streets.

LA has been fighting back.

Pushing back.

Give me your take on it and we'll talk about it.

And, your opinion of what's been going on.

Well, you know, the Ice raids have just been a siege on this city for the past 45 days or so.

It's, you know, drove a wrecking ball through our economy.

The receipts are even back yet for that.

I'm hearing numbers as high as half $1 billion of impact.

Thousands of jobs impacted.

You know, dozens of businesses impacted.

You know, I come in contact with small businesses every day who say, one, my workers are scared to come to work.

But more important than that, my customers are scared to come and shop.

So effectively, we're closed.

It's, you know, the I keep hearing.

Oh, this is just like the pandemic, except there's no disease, right?

It's just the disease of the federal government.

And so, you know, the city, I think, has done a good job pushing back as much as the law allows us to do.

And we'll continue to do that.

You know, the city joined in a lawsuit with ACLU to to get an injunction on the raids.

And so we've had some relative calm.

And I only say relative calm for the past, you know, 3 or 4 weekends that that, we'll see how that comes out in court.

But I think it's going to be a long slog.

Most Americans, if you read the news, we know what's going on with the city council folks, with the county folks, with Governor Gavin Newsom and the push back.

What's it like on the street?

What are Angelenos and just everyday people telling you about this immigration policy?

Every day people are saying to me, why can't you do more?

You know, I was at a at a community event, and I was standing next to an LAPD officer, and a girl couldn't have been more than 9 or 10.

Looks at the offense.

Why won't you help us?

Why won't you help us when they come after us?

We're just trying to have a food cart to sell food to the neighborhood like we've been.

And we're not trying to hurt anyone.

Why won't you help us?

And the officer, to his credit, did a good job explaining.

But it was an unsatisfying answer for him, for her and for me and for everybody involved.

And so that's what's really, really tough.

I think people are in the United States.

You never, contemplate a rogue federal government, right?

And because it's just not something that's been a part of our history.

And so now we're coming face to face with that and seeing what it means.

And speaking of the government, I'm going to offer two sort of versions of this, because we talked to so many people, liberals and conservatives in Los Angeles.

Yes.

While L.A.

is a is a blue city there, there are quite a few people, as you know, these days, with more of a conservative viewpoint.

And as we're talking to them, I try to just find sort of a common sense approach to everything on our program here.

And I think that's why people sort of appreciate that.

You know, it's fair to say if you listen to, let's say, the liberal news media, which is much of the news media, all immigrants that are possibly here illegally, they're the greatest people in the world, and they've done everything to the economy.

However, consequently, if you listen to more of the conservative media, let's say Newsmax or Fox News, everyone is a criminal.

Everyone is with Ms.

13 and trend arugula.

Neither really true.

What is fair to say with all the stories we've done, all the people we talked to, most of these immigrants are salt of the earth, decent folks who are just trying to make a dollar, and they really help the Los Angeles economy.

I've always said L.A.

would fall into the Pacific Ocean without these workers in the hospitality service, at the construction sites, anywhere and everywhere.

However, many officials I talked to, council president, they tell me that it has somewhat been a taxing with, let's say, for example, Medicaid or on the health care system or in the schools.

And I wonder if there's maybe a common sense approach where the city of LA can work with the Trump administration.

There's more of a dialog and it's not a he said, she said, such a battle.

Look, I think it's a it's a great question you pose and you're asking us to to really put on our best hats and try to solve the challenge.

And I have my opinion and it comes from, from my political point.

I think we have to be a country that respects, work and respects workers and respects workers families.

And if you do that, all the other questions answer themselves.

So Medicaid America, you know, Medicaid medical care.

Yeah.

If you work and contribute to our economy when you get sick, we ought to help take care of you.

Bottom line.

And it doesn't matter where you're from or what your papers say or don't say.

The point is, you're a human being.

You're contributing, and you need help.

We ought to help you.

You know, when I go to another country, many countries in the world is, you know, you've traveled.

All you have to do is show up sick.

They don't ask you for insurance papers.

They don't ask you where you're from.

They don't ask you anything until after they've provided care to you.

And sometimes they'll ask you for to pay.

Sometimes they don't.

The point is that our systems ought to be set up to respect work and to respect workers.

And that's really what builds this amazing Southern California economy throughout all of this stuff that we're going through.

California by itself, largely because of immigrants, is the fourth largest economy in the world.

That's an economic miracle.

And it only happens because of the tremendous workforce that we have here.

And I think if we had a country that respected working workers, a lot of these problems would go away.

And there is no question there is a tremendous workforce, no argument there.

There are the critics, however, who claim that LA is sort of a sanctuary city where anything goes, and maybe there should be a little bit more law and order, so to speak.

When you hear those critics, some here in Los Angeles as well.

What's your opinion about that?

I think we should have more more law and order.

I mean, I think that, there's a, you know, a level of lawlessness.

I can't I'm to the age now where these street takeovers are not exciting to me.

They're a big problem.

And I'm like, why?

This is some guy to come and do something about that.

And again, I remember maybe a few years back I might have been in the streets I go for, but but I do understand those who feel like the, the government is not up to the demands that our society creates.

And I think every time we shrink government like the Republicans just did in Congress, every time you shrink, government does a little.

There's money for a few less officers, a few less firefighters, a few less social workers, a few less teachers, and so on and so forth.

And you deal with the consequences.

And that's what I think we're dealing with in Los Angeles.

Let's, segue to another issue, because you were mentioning work, and recently we were out on a series of stories, and we're talking to a lot of small business owners.

In fact, there was a small business owner in the LA area, greater L.A.

area.

They have a middle eastern restaurant, and they had a family luncheon recently, and they were all at a park.

One brother has a restaurant in Long Beach, the other somewhere, I believe, in Pasadena, one in greater L.A.

they were all saying were relocating to Texas because they said there's just too many rules and regs.

And LA is kind of a tough city if you want to be a small business owner as it relates to work, what can be done to help the small business owners so they're not struggling so much that they're not fleeing L.A.

and California, you know.

Well, it's interesting.

I think, you know, one thing I will say about the economic situation in the United States, and I've traveled quite a bit.

The economic situation is slow everywhere.

So the slowness is not limited to Los Angeles in terms of rules and regs.

I mean, it's interesting the story you lay out, you have this family who presumably are immigrants, and they were they this this state and this city is so Bountiful that they've not been able to start one, not two, but it sounds like almost a half dozen businesses.

So there's something to be said for that.

True.

So the same rules that they started their businesses on are the same rules that they have now.

Now that they have capital and the freedom to move, you decide what kind of lifestyle you want.

And if you want what Texas has to offer, you can go pursue that.

But I think I think it's important to say, what is the business climate in general, and then what are specific rules and regulations that people have concerns about, and are they better ways to do it?

I will tell you though, your last question was about law and order, and it seems like everything happens everywhere.

Well, that's how we get a lot of those rules and regulations.

So we say restaurants, you know, you can't do this.

I mean, I walked out just as an example.

I walked out of my house this morning, and the closest McDonald's to my house is two and a half miles.

So full McDonald's bag on the sidewalk in front of my house.

And McDonald's has no responsibility for that, creating that trash through.

And so, you know, my inclination is to say there ought to be a rule.

If I find trash from your business in front of my house, you ought to be.

You ought to have to pay for it.

Now, of course, that's over the top, and a bit ridiculous.

But the point is, it is precisely the lawlessness and the disorder that creates these regulations that then people don't like.

So it's a it's always a, you know, a push pull relationship.

And I don't believe for one second that if, you know, Los Angeles said we're going to have the same rules that Texas has, that anybody would be any happier than they are, or that our economy would be any bigger than it is.

But you are out and about on the streets.

So what is the word on the street from what you hear?

Why are people telling you it's been tough for them to maintain, small business here in Los because the economic environment is tough.

We just went through the pandemic and before we could even get through the pandemic, the supply chain issue starts.

And so that stretches out our economy.

Then we go through a period of high inflation.

And now we go through these tariffs, which you go talk to the people down at the Port of Los Angeles.

And again, 40% of all the goods that are imported into the US come through that port down the street.

If nothing's on the boats, there's nothing to sell.

So I don't care what kind of business you have if you don't have a product to sell, anybody didn't matter what the rules are, you're not going to do very well.

So.

So people have faced this.

Our business community is facing this thing after thing after thing after thing after thing.

And at the same time, and I include the city council and myself on this, as well as the state, we've had to do work on wages because of the housing situation.

Again, we've created so many rules and regulations that make it difficult to build housing that the price of housing has skyrocketed.

So what does that mean?

You've got to pay people who work enough to be able to afford a house.

So I think all of those things together have created a pressure cooker for the business community.

And I think, you know, we just got to continue to fight.

And again, the, you know, the tariffs and the raids to me are just those are unforced errors.

Like there's like we didn't need to do either of those things.

And businesses I think would be starting to get back on their feet by now.

Instead, the economy continues to stumble.

There is no argument that seeing military on the streets of Los Angeles, seeing the National Guard when it probably was not needed, was startling and jolting.

I do believe, just to go back then to immigration, since you mentioned that really quickly, would you say at least that there was a serious problem at the border?

And Trump did make one promise and kept the promise he was going to secure the border?

Well, you know, I think that the there were challenges at the border.

He was security border.

And this is something that, you know, I like to stick to the Trump people all the time.

He still has less deportations than Barack Obama.

That's true.

Barack Obama did not have military walking through the streets in American cities.

But what Obama did do, that fell off after he left is they had very serious enforcement at the border.

And so if you made it across, you weren't going to make it very far.

If if you didn't have, you know, if you didn't do it the right way, you weren't going to make it very far, you were going to be returned and then have to go through the regular process.

Well, somehow we dropped that.

But that's a great point that you mentioned, because President Barack Obama was even known back then as the deporter in chief.

As you know, why does the media and why do so many Democrats really target and call Trump Hitler and a Nazi and a fascist, etc.?

Those words were never used on President Obama.

Well, because I think that the the racial dog whistles that Trump blows, Obama never blew.

You know, but you never found Obama saying things like these people or they're sending their rapists and they're, you know, he there was not the castigation of people because they were Latin American or because they were brown skinned.

And also, I will say, the the Obama administration made the point of securing both borders, the northern border and the southern border.

You listen to Trump people as just the northern border doesn't exist, and in fact, they will when they're when nobody's watching, they'll talk about how they want to bring in more people from Europe.

And I think, you know, their their white nationalism is so naked.

It's very, very difficult to ignore, although they are saying they are monitoring the northern border.

Oh they okay, okay.

I'm glad I haven't heard that yet.

The other issue that everyone is talking about these days is homelessness.

We got to spend a few minutes on this.

Just recently, the loss of the Los Angeles Homelessness Authority, their survey is out, and for the second year in a row, they are claiming that, there's another decrease in homelessness last year.

There was a slight decrease in 2020 for now, for 2025, they're saying 17.5%.

I beg to differ a little bit and let me explain why in 30s.

And then the floor is yours.

We've been out for the last two years doing investigative pieces on homelessness, on the fentanyl crisis, which is the worst in America, on the homelessness in Skid row, the largest numbers anywhere.

And it seems to me there's something wrong with that loss, a survey, because I don't see a 75% decrease everywhere in Skid Row tents and homeless encampments.

And the trailers in the West Los Angeles area, Sepulveda, Sawtelle National in the Valley.

I'm not sure I'm getting how homelessness is decreasing.

Well, I think a couple things about that report.

I'll say, just to give you the context, one of the most disturbing things about the the report for the city of Los Angeles was homelessness had decreased everywhere except for Skid Row.

So if you're using Skid Row as a measure, you're right.

There hasn't been much movement in our neighborhoods and the places where we, frankly, weren't accustomed to seeing homelessness.

You're seeing it go away more quickly there.

So I think you're right about that, that unevenness.

I do think with the as many problems as Lahsa has had, lots of study is peer reviewed, first by USC, then by the Rand Corporation, as it has been every time.

And this is the challenge I put to people who question the numbers, who question the numbers when they were going up.

And to me, if if the methodology was wrong is wrong now, why wasn't it wrong when the numbers were increasing?

Because, you know, for my first eight years on the council, the number went except for one year when during Covid, when we didn't count the number one up every year, I never heard a single person questioning the methodology then.

Well, I think the methodology and it was and it was being done by Lahsa.

And I do give credit to Mayor Bass and to your council and county folks.

They're trying desperately with the Inside Safe program and other programs.

And no question, you folks are taking homeless off the streets.

But the problem is, and I keep saying this in my stories, as soon as, let's say, ten people taken off the streets, 12 or back on the streets 2 or 3 weeks later, and that is no joke.

In the West L.A.

area, there's a part of a 4 or 5 freeway in an encampment on the South Pole to Sawtelle National and on Cotner.

That's right, that's right.

Yeah, it'll be gone soon.

However, even when they're gone, they're just the homeless folks relocate, just, you know, a few blocks away.

And they're still there.

Well, this is, I think, the problem.

Yeah.

This is the thing about inside safe.

I mean, you're right.

We for years have had cleanup programs, Care Plus and other ones, which just moved.

Basically, we tell people, move so we can clean the sidewalk, go where you're going to go.

And we all know full well these people have got no place to go.

So they're going to be back either here or someplace very, very similar.

The great thing about inside safe, as expensive as it is, and it's a very expensive program, it does it.

If they're 12 people on the street, they house 11 of them.

And, you know, the one that refuses, you know, may turn up somewhere else.

But they house 11 of them on the spot and, and they're areas where, at least in my district, where I've done care.

Plus, you're what you're describing happens.

We have eight people then, you know, three months later it's ten people know where we've done inside safe.

We may have 12 people and one person may come back and then that one person, it's much easier to deal with that one person than it is to deal with the full on encampment.

And so we can see that it's that it's that it's working.

And that's why to me, the numbers are not a surprise.

Because I, I see when we're putting people in, into the motels and into temporary housing, the other concern about the numbers.

And I'll leave you with this, and then we'll get to our next issue.

I've been told that about six homeless people dying on the street every day, large in the skid row area.

This is true.

You're mentioning Skid Row a moment ago.

Whether fentanyl overdose, meth overdose, drug overdose, health conditions.

So just by default, if six people are dying a day, well, there goes the loss account, because the diminishment in the number of people and maybe from folks who are dying.

Well, what?

Well, here I think we do lose people.

And those people obviously don't count if they're not with us anymore.

But just remember this again, from 2015 to 2023, we also had six people dying, except the number of homelessness would go up, which means that we were producing new homeless people to replace the ones who were housed and replace the ones who passed away.

It is a big victory for all of us that we don't replace the ones who've passed away with new homeless people, and we don't replace the people who have been out with new homeless people.

I mean, that's the the, the, the homelessness problem.

People like to talk about it in, in isolation, but it's connected to the housing problem.

Right?

Everybody starts off homeless, having been house somewhere somehow, and then they're not.

The most common reason is economic, the most likely demographic for new homelessness.

And this is what's scary, is people over the age of 66.

That is scary.

That's scary.

And what that's and what what you find when you talk to people is somehow they lost their apartment, their rent control apartment.

And then on the new rental market they have no chart.

There's no change, there's no way, there's no way.

And so they end up in the car and then they stay with friends, and then they develop a drug habit and then, you know, and then then they present on the street as someone who's addicted to whatever with the mental health condition.

That takes a lot of work to deal with.

I recently interviewed former Sheriff Alex Villanueva.

You certainly know.

Well, he believes in more of a sort of tough criminalization, and obviously, you know that.

But is there something to be said?

Possibly.

I mean, but with a kinder, gentler touch, so to speak.

But something has got to absent.

Absolutely.

There's that's the case.

I mean, look, the thing about homelessness is it happens to people, you know.

So and as you know, people are very, very different.

And so there's some things that have worked great for this set of people that won't work at all for the next set of people that won't work at all for the next set of people.

So we need all of it.

And, you know, one of the things I get upset about is a lot of the pro criminalization people, the way they paid for no prisons was by defunding the what we're called halfway houses.

And halfway houses did exactly what you're describing.

You go hear their rules.

Sometimes they were religious, sometimes they were based on 12 step.

But you're on a program and there's strict discipline because there's an awful lot of us that respond well to that.

Well, we defunded all of those.

And so now what we do is we put you in a shelter, give you a cot and say, don't screw up, right.

And for a lot of people, as you know, that's just not going to work.

That's going to fail more times than it's going to be successful.

And so I think we need all of it.

We need, you know, we need things for people who are active in drug use.

We need people.

I mean, it's one of the most tragic things that we see.

And as wealthy as we are, people come up to us and to our workers and say, you know, I've been on drugs, I've been on the run.

I'm ready to get clean.

And we tell them, we'll get back to you in 3 or 4 days with a bed, you know, there's got to be a better answer.

It's got to be a better way than that.

And drugs are not new.

Drugs are not limited to race.

They're not limited to class, are not limited to to, political ideology.

Addiction is a disease that we just refuse to treat.

I would be remiss if I did not leave about five minutes in this interview to tell your personal story.

I met you about 15, 20 years ago.

As I said the beginning, we were both youngsters back in the day.

And you were the kind of person who I'd be knocking on your door, driving you crazy.

We're doing a story.

I'm doing a story.

And I said, Dave, sure, we'll talk to you.

No worries.

Truth be told, you were really an amazing community activist, community organizer.

You fought for the South L.A.

community.

You were a proud son, born here, raised here.

I mean, this is your city.

These are your folks.

And, it was so unbelievable what you've done.

And I believe that has sort of catapulted you into the world of politics.

All you've done back then and follow in your career.

I haven't spoken with you in years.

Tell us a bit about.

I mean, you were born here.

You, even when you went to Great universities, you returned here to give back to this community, share a bit of your story and some of those accomplishments.

I do want the viewers to know it's a great story.

Well, you know, thank you for that.

I mean, I you know, I love this I love this community.

I love the streets.

But more than that, I love the people in them.

I, you know, I was born in, like you said, born in this community and raised up with a big, extended family.

You know, I had one of those families a size where you weren't quite sure if the person was actually related to you or not, or, you know, just your cousin and you never kind of asked how they were your cousin.

And certainly in the church community, you know, just in the nurturing way, that produced, you know, lots of people and, and I count myself among them.

And then, you know, in my, early or pre adolescence, the crack cocaine epidemic hits and crack cocaine epidemic just tears apart.

Everything that we're used to seeing.

It tears up people.

So individual.

You saw this person one day was, you know, funny guy at the party.

Good basketball player.

You know, nice with the ladies.

And suddenly, like, that person can't even figure out how to put on clean clothes, right?

Institutions, businesses, churches, all of that you saw take really, really, really big hits.

And so my family eventually moved, my brother and I out to the San Gabriel Valley, and at that time, that made a big impression on me that I still remember the emotion to, to this day, that I just wanted to make my life about making it so that people did not have to move out of that type of situation.

And, you know, seeing if we could sew it back together again, maybe not in my lifetime, but begin to start the process and build a community unity, movement, momentum so that the community understands what it has and protects what it has going forward.

And so nothing, no outside force like that can come in and tear things apart.

And so, you know, I we met each other at, I was a community coalition.

And.

That's right.

You were you were at, PBS.

And I think our first time we did was something on the one of the anniversaries of the civil unrest.

I lose track.

We it was a it was the anniversary of that.

And we walked the streets and, we were talking about the blighted neighborhoods.

I mean, sadly, even years later, I wish more real estate developers would take a chance on.

Yeah, South L.A.

we recently here doing a story on the new seed school.

Yeah.

And, you remember when we want when you.

We walked.

That was a big, giant, vacant lot.

That's right.

And thank you for remembering that.

You might still have footage.

Yeah, we do, and it was.

And we even use it in the.

It was a giant vacant lot.

And look at it now I wish more folks would take a chance on the South Philly area.

Yes, they're they're building a lot further north towards us.

See, they see the dollars there.

And you see the mixed use in the condos in the retail.

I know you have really fought the fight to try to bring investment into this area and really have spoken loud and clear for the people of this community.

You know, we try to do that and we try to make, the opportunities apparent to people in the business community because we can't count on the regular business channels to tell the story.

You know, it's like when you go to a town and you check in the hotel and there's a map of the city that says, oh, go here to this attraction and go here to that attraction, then there's always usually a big donut or something or a big area where there's nothing.

That's the place where you have to go and talk to the people.

And so we try to make ourselves one of the people you go talk to.

And, you know, we we're we're having success.

We're building as much housing or or more than anybody else in the city, at all income levels, which is exciting to us.

And, you know, we have exciting new businesses as the business community adjusts to the new reality, lots of exciting things are popping up in South L.A., the least of which was allowing me to speak with you today, which I greatly appreciate.

LA Council President Marquis Harrison, thank you so much for being here.

Thank you.

Good to be with you.

Thank you.

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