Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s David Zahniser, with an assist from Noah Goldberg and Laura Nelson, giving you the latest on city and county government.

If Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass manages to hold on to her power to oversee the city’s homelessness programs, she may well have one person to thank: City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo .

Szabo, a fixture in the administrations of the past three mayors, was effectively the city’s star witness in its legal battle against the L.A. Alliance for Human Rights , the nonprofit group that sued the city in 2020 over its handling of the homelessness crisis.

During a seven-day hearing that concluded Wednesday, the alliance pressed U.S. Dist. Judge David O. Carter to take authority over home

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