Los Angeles City Council President Herb Wesson’s son received preferential treatment on his rent for years at an L.A. apartment building while his father helped the building’s executives win approval of a controversial high-rise, according to interviews and records reviewed by the Los Angeles Times.
Wesson helped shepherd the 27-story Koreatown residential tower through the city’s review process amid opposition from city staff and the planning commission, The Times reported. During the same period, his son was living in a building owned by Rosewood Corp., a company headed by tower developer Michael Hakim and one of his relatives.
The councilman’s son, Herb Wesson III, went more than five years without a rent increase at the apartment building on Rosewood Avenue, even as many other tenants saw their rent go up, a Times analysis of city records found.
Three other people who lived in the building at the time said they were aware that he was receiving a rent break while living in Apartment 4, and that it was provided because his father is a councilman. One of them said Wesson III explained during a private conversation that he had received a discount because of “business his father was doing with the owners of the building.”
Legal experts said the rental arrangement should be investigated by the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission to determine what role, if any, Wesson played. Under city law, L.A.’s elected officials are barred from using their power to create “a private advantage or disadvantage, financial or otherwise, for any person.”
Experts on ethics laws said investigators should also look at whether Wesson III, who worked from 2013 until July as a mid-level aide to Councilman Curren Price, should have publicly disclosed a rental discount as a gift. Between 2013 and 2018, Wesson III did not report any gifts on the disclosure forms he was required to submit to the Ethics Commission.
Wesson, the council president, did not answer questions about whether his son had received a rent discount when his office was reviewing the planned tower. Instead, an aide issued a statement saying Wesson “does not arrange rental agreements for his adult children,” The Times reported.
“Every policy he supports or opposes, every council action or vote he takes is based 100% on what is in the best interest of his constituents and the people of Los Angeles,” Wesson spokesman Edward Johnson said in an email to the newspaper.
Wesson III, 43, declined to be interviewed when approached by The Times at the Rosewood building, a two-story brick structure built in the 1920s.
Hakim, during a phone call with The Times, initially said he had “no clue” about whether Wesson’s son received a discount and said he has no financial interest in the apartment building.