Pending confirmation by the City Council, Mayor Karen Bass has appointed Renata Simril to the Board of Recreation and Parks Commissioners. Here’s why City Council must reject this pay-to-play appointment, which reeks of impropriety.
- Simril was a member of the private Olympic bid committee and, as the CEO of the LA84 Foundation, remains a close partner of the LA28 organizing committee and US Olympic and Paralympic Committee. All these private Olympics bodies have a direct interest in expanding their control over LA’s parks, which will host Olympics events, and the International Olympic Committee is giving $160M to LA’s Department of Recreation and Parks over eleven years. If appointed, Simril will have direct control over those funds. Last year voters rejected Measure SP, a ballot measure that would have created a slush fund for Olympic event sites in parks, but Simril’s appointment could enable her to promote actions that bypass ballot measures. This is an obvious, irreconcilable conflict of interest for a position on a public body that is actively engaged in business related to Olympic venue sites and sponsored initiatives.
- Reporting by The Daily Beast found that under Simril, LA84 Foundation, the private “youth sports” nonprofit created out of the 1984 Olympics, frequently failed to meet basic requirements of nonprofits and “repeatedly donated less than their required annual threshold.” Furthermore, Simril’s LA84 has invested nearly $22M in private equity giant Blackstone, which has been condemned by the United Nations and countless unions for exacerbating the global housing crisis. Simril has a Masters in Real Estate Development from USC. According to its most recently-available tax filings, LA84 spends more on Simril’s salary than sports programs ($391K vs $314K respectively) and invests $21.7M in Blackstone. You can learn more about the LA84 Foundation here, here, here and here.
- Simril and her husband donated $4.5K to Bass’ mayoral campaign. The appearance of “pay-to-play” is, again, irreconcilable.
- Simril has extensive financial and personal ties to corrupt politician and fellow Olympic booster Mark Ridley-Thomas, who in March 2023 was found guilty of seven felonies of conspiracy, bribery, and fraud. In 2019 when Ridley-Thomas was a member of the LA County Board of Supervisors and running for an LA City Council seat, Simril maxed out donations to his City campaign and contributed $1.5K to his Board of Supervisors officeholder account, the latter serving as a legal way for Simril to side-step campaign finance law and continue funding Ridley-Thomas’ political ambitions. After he won, Simril put $800 in his new City officeholder account. She had a corrupt politician on her personal payroll, and not just any politician: Ridley-Thomas led the charge to bring the notoriously-corrupt Olympic machine back to LA.
- This nomination is just the latest example of Karen Bass enmeshing Olympic Boosters into city governance (as she did with Chris Thompson late last year). We need MORE city independence from Olympics interests, not less.
Renata Simril must not be considered for any position within the City pertaining to Olympic spending. The Board of Recreation and Parks Commissioners needs to make public space available to ALL Angelenos – not the IOC and their developer friends.