NICK’S VIEW - Yet again, LA28’s organizers have refused to provide the City of Los Angeles with crucial information, perpetuating a pattern that obstructs even the most basic oversight.
The organizing committee for the Olympic Games is actively frustrating the city’s ability to govern by refusing to provide critical details so that the city can assess risk, verify spending, and protect taxpayers from unexpected cost overruns.
From the very start, LA28 has rejected all calls to be accountable. It is operating outside the bounds of responsible public governance. Instead of detailed information, reports provided to the city are vague and incomplete.
Although a private nonprofit, LA28 is governed by two binding contracts with the City of Los Angeles, the Games Agreement, and the Enhanced City Resources Master Agreement. These agreements require LA28 to provide detailed venue plans, cost estimates and payment schedules so the city can plan staffing, police, fire, traffic, sanitation, and other needs.
Further, LA28 must identify specific resource needs at each venue, like security, traffic control, and sanitation, information necessary for reimbursement — meaning LA28 must provide data that allows the city to verify costs and receive payment from the organizing committee.
All of these are contractual obligations. They are not optional. The city cannot safeguard public funds, public safety, or public credibility without full cooperation from the organization running a multi‑billion‑dollar global event. It’s as simple as that, and as consequential.
Lamentably, without hesitation, Casey Wasserman’s LA28 is stripping the city of the fundamental oversight tools it is legally entitled to.
It refuses to provide basic information about who is securing the Games, who is producing the ceremonies, and how hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent, thus preventing elected officials from assessing risk, potential conflicts of interest, auditors from verifying compliance, and residents from understanding how their city is being financially exposed.
LA28 has not provided required disclosures, including contractor identities, contract values, scopes of work, bank statements, venue schedules, and comparisons of financial forecasts with actual results.
Disturbingly, the city has not used its full authority to compel compliance.
Although City Controller Kenneth Mejia formally requested the missing financial records, no enforcement mechanism has been activated; Mayor Karen Bass has not publicly pressed LA28 to provide the information owed to the city, and the City Council has declined to subpoena the missing records.
Within the City Council, only Monica Rodriguez has consistently raised alarms about LA28’s nondisclosure and the mounting public‑finance risks it creates. Mayoral candidate Nithya Raman has remained publicly absent on the organizing committee’s refusal to collaborate. And Mayor Bass has not publicly addressed LA28’s refusal to provide the documents the City Controller requested, leaving the Controller’s demand for transparency without mayoral backing.
The situation demands decisive action: challenge Wasserman directly, use the bully pulpit to rally the public, and pressure sponsors to act. When sponsors remain complacent, they worsen LA28’s dysfunction and increase the burden on Los Angeles.
Given the magnitude of the risk, I believe the city should sue, as I have previously argued in this space. Such a lawsuit would face a difficult and uncertain path, with little prospect of a quick victory. Because LA28 is not a public agency, a judge may be unable to apply standard public-records requirements. Even if the suit failed, however, it would focus public attention on the structural problem LA28 has created for Los Angeles and put pressure on the sponsors.
According to the Los Angeles Times of Sept. 28, 2026, the incomplete updates leave the city’s taxpayers with less information than promised on matters such as who is winning business — and the attendant jobs and profits — from contracts that soared to $687 million in value last year. They also don’t have as clear a picture of things like the progress on plans to install a running track at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and swimming pools inside SoFi Stadium in Inglewood.
That is the reason why Mejia demanded that LA28 release more detailed accounting of its activities through bank statements, revenues and expenditures accounting and other documents.
“L.A. taxpayers need to know that LA28 is doing well. They want to make sure that those numbers are legit, which is why we’re requesting more information,” Mejia said in an interview. “Because if LA28 does not do well, then we as taxpayers, as the fiscal backstop, we’re on the hook.”
I believe it is essential to Los Angeles’ well-being that the Olympic organizing committee does not fail. If it does, taxpayers will not merely be on the hook—they could be trapped in an excruciating choke hold, an escalating financial burden the City has no legal means to escape.
As I have written repeatedly in this space since May 2025, if cost overruns occur, LA must cover the first $270 million. The State of California would then cover the next $270 million. Beyond that, local taxpayers have no protection and face unlimited liability, leaving the city responsible for any remaining debt, a common outcome in modern Olympic history, and LA facing possible bankruptcy.
Imagine, bearing the ultimate financial risk without the authority to oversee how LA28 allocates its budget.
The city needs clear visibility into LA28’s operations for many reasons, including one critical contingency: if Metro does not receive federal funding by December 21, LA28 would assume responsibility for a mobility plan it is unprepared to carry out, as it does NOT have plan B, putting Los Angeles at risk of traffic Armageddon.
I have found no evidence that LA28’s refusal to provide data stems from internal incompetence. Instead, the public record indicates a deliberate strategy to restrict disclosure, not an accidental or operational failure. LA28 previously shared some contractor information but became less forthcoming after spending close to $687 million.
LA28 contends that disclosing contractor information could weaken future negotiations, but that excuse does nothing to ease the city’s financial concerns. It intensifies them.
I believe LA28 withholds information to avoid oversight and accountability. This limits scrutiny by the City Controller, reduces pressure from the City Council and the public, and makes cost overruns or delays less visible. Opacity thus becomes a shield for the organizing committee.
Now is the time for the Mayor Bass and mayoral candidate Raman to break through LA28’s secrecy and compel the disclosures the city has been denied. They can act immediately to make LA28’s opacity such a serious political and governance liability that continued nondisclosure becomes untenable. It is a timely and appropriate situation to show leadership skills and guts.
Wasserman’s deliberate opacity cannot be permitted to steer Los Angeles toward a potential fiscal disaster.
The 2028 Olympic Games will be one of the most consequential tests of civic leadership the next mayor will face. This question is now in the voters’ hands: will they choose a leader prepared to break through LA28’s shield of obscurity and protect the city’s future?--
(Nick Patsaouras is an electrical engineer, civic leader, and a longtime public advocate. He ran for Mayor in 1993 with a focus on rebuilding L.A. through transportation after the 1992 civil unrest. He was president of the Southern California Rapid Transit District during the 1984 Olympics. He has served on the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, Metro, and the Board of Zoning Appeals, helping guide infrastructure and planning policy in Los Angeles. He is the author of the book "The Making of Modern Los Angeles.")
