Meet the McOskers: How a South Bay family wields power in City Hall

As Los Angeles city officials crafted a deal to modernize the convention center, more than one member of the McOske family played a key role.

City Councilman Tim McOsker supports a $2.6 billion expansion plan that could bring more tourism but risks further exacerbating Los Angeles’ dire financial situation.

His daughter, Nella McOsker, runs the Central City Assn., an influential business group in downtown Los Angeles that strongly advocated for the project.

His nephew, Emmett McOsker, an aide to former Mayor Eric Garcetti, works in the Department of Tourism and manages the convention center.

Nella McOsker often argued for the project while her father listened along with his parliamentary colleagues. In September, he voted “yes”.

“It’s just a family tradition of public service,” said Doane Liu, executive director of the Department of Tourism, a longtime friend and former colleague of Tim McOsker and Emmett McOsker’s boss. “I wish there were more McOskers working at City Hall.”

Indeed there is. A fourth family member, less visible because of her last name, is Anissa Raja, the congressman’s niece (and Emmett and Nela’s cousin), the congressman’s legislative director and chair of the Los Angeles County Young Democrats.

Raja is not led by the fact that she is a relative of the MP.

“I didn’t mention that because I’m an employee. I stay professional at work,” she said.

While the interactions between the McOskers could create potential conflicts of interest, Nella said she documents every lobbying conversation with Tim’s office with the city’s Ethics Commission, just as she does with other council members.

Additionally, she and her father often disagreed. In Los Angeles City Hall, it is perfectly legal to lobby close family members, as long as neither party has a financial interest.

“We made a policy decision as a city that just because you have a relationship with someone in an elected position, you shouldn’t be able to try to influence them,” said Jessica Levinson, a law professor at Loyola Marymount University and former head of the city’s ethics commission.

Councilor Tim McOsker speaks at the 2023 meeting at City Hall.

(Jay L. Clendenin/Los Angeles Times)

For decades, the MacOskes — a close-knit Irish Catholic family from San Pedro — have wielded power in Los Angeles City Hall. Unlike the Garcetti and Hahn families, the Myosquez family has not served in city-wide or county-wide elected office. But their influence on Los Angeles politics over the past quarter-century may be unparalleled.

The MacOskes are not the only family to turn city politics into a family affair.

Among them is Assemblymember Katy Yaroslavsky, whose father-in-law Zev Yaroslavsky once held her seat. There’s also former Speaker Herb Wesson, whose son is an aide, and daughter-in-law Alexis Wesson, who was chief of staff to Assemblymember Adrin Nazarian.

Sometimes this leads to family members conflicting with each other in questionable ways.

Eric Garcetti’s father, Gil Garcetti, is perhaps best known for serving as the Los Angeles County District Attorney during the O.J. Simpson trial. He served as chairman of the Ethics Committee when his son served on the City Council. This led to problems in 2006, when Jill inadvertently contributed to Eric’s re-election campaign, which was not allowed. Or consider Councilor Curren Price, who was accused of voting in favor of developments for which his wife’s consulting firm was bribed to lobby.

McOskers’ legacy of city service predates Tim, who worked for City Attorney James Hahn in the 1990s before becoming Hahn’s chief of staff when Hahn was mayor in the early 2000s. Tim’s father, Mike, was a city firefighter and was considered by many in the family to be the source of shortcomings in public service.

To this day, the family is more of a firefighting family than a political family, with some members even combining the two.

Tim’s brother, Patrick, is a retired Los Angeles Fire Department engineer who served as president of the United Firemen’s Association of Los Angeles, a powerful firefighters union. Another brother, Mike, who died in 2019, was vice president of the same union.

Patrick’s son Emmett said his father had always been his hero and he wanted to be a firefighter. But when he graduated from college in 2011 in the wake of the Great Recession, the fire department was no longer hiring, so he turned to politics.

Tim also once aspired to be a firefighter. Two of his children are firefighters, one with the Los Angeles Fire Department and the other with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, while a cousin works for a county fire department.

In 2003, then-City Councilor Janice Hahn — sister of Mayor James Hahn and daughter of longtime county supervisor Kenneth Hahn — told The Times that Tim and his brothers, Patrick, Mike and John, then vice chair of the city’s Harbor District Planning Commission, were “involved in everything.”

Rebecca Liu Morales is a former aide to then-City Councilman Eric Garcetti and a childhood friend of Nella McOsker’s in San Pedro.

“We grew up very familiar with public life and what it looked like. We were pulled into campaigning. We volunteered on Saturdays,” Liu Morales said. She is Liu Duoen’s daughter and she also grew up in a political family.

Little did Nella McOsker know that decades later, she would still be joining her father’s campaign to help get him elected to City Council in 2022.

She serves as his director of operations and calls herself his “ego killer” because she’s always willing to take him down. The event is filled out by volunteers from Tim’s family, including Tim’s wife Connie and brother Patrick who are eager to visit.

One politician who lives in the area noted that two MacOskers knocked on his door separately and a third called him as part of a phone banking exercise.

After Tim won his council seat, Nella accepted the job running the Central City Association. Now she lobbies lawmakers, including her father’s office.

Councilman Mike Osker and Councilor Yaroslavsky introduced a law in 2023 that would require lobbyists like Nella, who are close relatives of lawmakers or senior parliamentary staff, to disclose such relationships. They would be prohibited from lobbying for land-use development projects in the member’s district. Since the issues Nela deals with involve downtown and not the San Pedro area, she and Tim may not be affected. The law was never passed.

Rob Quan runs a good government advocacy group focused on transparency,
It said there was no evidence the McOskers used their relationship to obtain improper benefits.

Tim said the family rarely talks about local politics over dinners and holidays. First, there are so many of them that the atmosphere can become chaotic.

Tim said the last time he hosted a Thanksgiving, about 47 people showed up and the tables stretched into the backyard. For the most part, they doted on their children and the cousins ​​reconnected.

“This isn’t about politics. This is about family,” Tim said.

When political issues did arise, the MacOskes were often on opposite sides.

Tim said he disagrees with his firefighter daughter Miranda and brother Patrick who believe Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Christine Crowley should be reinstated after Mayor Karen Bass ousted her over her handling of the Palisades fires. The pair were present in the council chambers with other firefighters as council voted on the issue.

“You can’t have the mayor and the fire chief … on different pages. That’s dangerous,” Tim said.

While Tim and Nella both support the convention center expansion, the two disagree on other issues.

Earlier this year, Tim voted to increase the minimum wage for hotel and airport workers – Nella and Central City Association. Strongly opposed.

“I can feel the different intensity with him [than with other councilmembers],” she said, referring to conversations she had with her father about politics.

This summer, Nella McOsker and Central City Assn. is part of a business coalition that has introduced a ballot measure to repeal the city’s gross receipts tax on businesses, which brings in about $800 million in revenue to the city annually. Her goal is to help struggling businesses by reducing taxes.

“Bad idea,” Tim McOske said.

Nella says this is probably what annoys her the most about “Tim.”

She calls him Tim, not Dad—partly out of politeness, since she regularly lobbies him and his colleagues.

That’s how she and her four younger siblings were raised – they always called their parents Tim and Connie.

Nella’s son Omero is four years old. She said he could do anything he wanted when he grew up, but some people in the city’s family were already paying attention to him.

“I’m ready to provide him with an internship,” Liu said.