L.A. Controller Subpoenas Olympic Organizer LA28 for Its Books

Kenneth Mejia wants bank statements, venue budgets and LA28's contracts over $1 million, citing the city's risk if the Games lose money.

L.A. City Controller Kenneth Mejia subpoenaed the city's Olympic organizers, LA28, on Friday for their finances, contracts and venue budgets, LAist reported.

Mejia says the city's exposure is the point. If the Games lose money, Los Angeles covers the first $270 million, according to the Los Angeles Times. The state takes the next $270 million, and any loss beyond that lands back on the city.

The fight is over paperwork LA28 agreed to hand over. The Games Agreement, the 2021 contract between the city and the committee, requires it to list every contract over $1 million by name, type, dollar amount, term and purpose, and to keep the city posted on venue schedules and budgets. LAist reported that LA28's latest budget report to the city didn't include the contract list.

Mejia's office has already tallied $27 million the city has spent on the Games. The subpoena is after the other half of the picture: what LA28 is spending, and with whom.

This started as a letter. In August, Mejia asked LA28 for the records and set a Sept. 28 deadline, MyNewsLA reported. On deadline day, the committee said it had already given the information to the city's official liaisons, including the mayor and the city attorney. Mejia's office then went through every LA28 document the city holds and said the records it wanted were either incomplete or missing outright.

By the office's count, LA28 was meeting just two of the nine subsections of its disclosure rules.

LA28 spokesperson Jacie Prieto Lopez told the Times the committee didn't have the subpoena in hand Friday night and couldn't formally respond. "At a moment when every day counts, we are disappointed to see the City pulling away time, resources, and attention from the work that matters most," she said. Committee officials have said sponsorship and ticket revenue is running ahead of projections and the Games are on course for a profit, the Times reported.

Some city officials have seen the list, briefly. Sharon Tso, the chief legislative analyst and one of the city's top Olympic negotiators, told a council committee last month that she'd seen LA28's contract list in a meeting, LAist reported. The city didn't keep hard copies, she said, over worries that going public could hurt sponsor talks. According to the Times, LA28 quit naming its million-dollar contractors two years ago, and the City Council didn't step in.

Mejia didn't soften it. In a statement, he called LA28's refusal, "after years of withholding information that they are contractually obligated to provide to the City of L.A.," unacceptable. LA28 has said it shared the information with other city officials.

The power he's using sits in Section 217 of the City Charter, which lets city officers order people to produce documents, with subpoenas issued through the City Clerk, the Times reported. City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto's office told the Times it supports the effort. Mayor Karen Bass said in a statement issued before the subpoena that she backs releasing more financial information, the Times reported.

Controllers rarely reach for it. Ron Galperin, a former city controller, put his own count at one subpoena, according to LAist. "It's a power that controllers don't necessarily exercise a lot, but when it's the right time, it's an important tool," he told LAist.

The city's own negotiators are still waiting, too. Tso told LAist on Friday that she and City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo were still waiting on LA28 to answer their own request for the contracts. Mejia gave the committee 15 days to answer his, MyNewsLA reported.

Source: LAist, retrieved October 17, 2026. Other sources: yahoo.com, mynewsla.com.