LA’s WFH nightmare: Empty City Hall leaves once-thriving mall an apocalyptic ruin – infuriating Angelenos

Los Angeles City Hall looked less like the nerve center of America’s second-largest city Friday — and more like an abandoned office complex after a zombie apocalypse.

Entire hallways with deserted offices. Corridors eerily silent. Parking garage empty besides the city hall guards.

When the California Post visited City Hall Friday, the Office of Finance, a council liaison office, and the Los Angeles Housing Department were closed for business.

Over the course of the day, about 50 Angelenos oblivious to the closure turned up to pay their bills or seek financial advice, only to find no staff to help them.

City Hall staff said this was a scene repeated every Friday.

Among those left frustrated was small business owner, Kyla Wilkenfeld-Bronson.

She had burned her only day off to drive to City Hall from near LAX where she lives and fed a pricey parking meter with the aim of settling her $4,000 tax bill — but was instead greeted by closed doors.

Ms Wilkenfeld-Bronson said she even checked the website before leaving, and didn’t see any notice of the Office of finance would be closed or any hint that City Hall would be a ghost town.

“This is crazy,” she told The Post. “I had no idea their office would be closed. It doesn’t make sense. I drove all the way down here.”

Now, with a late-February deadline closing in, she’ll have to ditch work again — risking the paycheck she relies on at her day job as she tries to build her independent sign-language business — just to pay the bill.

The irony is stark: Los Angeles is scrambling for revenue, yet on Friday, there was nowhere for taxpayers to pay.

Los Angeles City employs about 50,312 workers across about 44 departments and bureaus in numerous buildings across Los Angeles, with a total payroll of $6.4 billion.

Each is run by a general manager who decides when employees must report in person to the office.

The California Post contacted 40 city departments asking about their policies on remote work.

Only the Los Angeles Housing Department confirmed a they are still working from home a certain amount of days a week. Two other departments — including the Department of Public Works — replied only to say the inquiry had been forwarded and that a response would be forthcoming.

The Post discovered several offices were closed only after visiting City Hall in person.

Los Angeles Housing Department alone has about 670 employees, the Office of Finance about 230, and the Bureau of Street Services commands a workforce in the thousands responsible for maintaining streets, sidewalks and trees across Los Angeles’ 470 square miles.

City Hall was eerily underpopulated on what should have been a routine weekday.

While Mayor Karen Bass ordered her own staff back four days a week, that directive stopped at the edge of her suite, and has yet to ripple across the sprawling city workforce.

Departments acknowledge that many administrative employees still work remotely most of the week.

The Housing Department, for instance, says field crews report in person while a significant share of office staff operates off-site.

The California Post contacted Mayor Bass’s office to ask when she would demand employees return to work, but didn’t receive a response.

Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez introduced a motion last year ordering an audit of office leases, telecommuting costs and at-home equipment to determine the impact on taxpayers as the city pays for empty office space.

One angry resident, Jennifer Clark, from North Hollywood, also submitted a formal comments to the council file, demanding the city “take inventory of what office leases are still needed and make fiscally smart decisions…to save money.”

A report prepared for the motion has found the city has invested heavily in remote setups, with telework equipment costing roughly $1,150 for a basic laptop workspace and up to about $2,170 per employee for premium home-office configurations — even as the city continues paying leases for office space.

So taxpayers are funding both empty offices and fully-equipped home workstations.

And while office lights are off, so are the streetlights. The Post asked the Los Angeles Department of Public Works about its work-from-home policies but did not receive a response.

Frustrated city staffers say most administrative employees in the department work remotely up to four days a week.

A City Council staffer responsible for lighting issues in their community told The Post coordination has grown harder in the hybrid era. “It’s hard to get business done when people aren’t at their desks.”

The impact is visible across Los Angeles at night, with one in 10 streetlights not working, leaving neighborhoods in darkness and fueling safety fears.

Copper wire theft has helped cripple the system, with repairs taking up to six months.

The city logged a record 5,225 streetlight service requests in January, and more than 45,900 in 2024, with 44% remaining unresolved, according to data from the city’s 311 system.

About 200 field workers are responsible for maintaining lighting across the city’s vast footprint, meaning administrative delays can translate directly into darker streets.

Meanwhile, Los Angeles is under increasing financial pressure, with a report from City Controller Kenneth Mejia finding the city took in $160 million less revenue than expected in 2025, meaning officials had to source reserves to balance the budget.

Liability payouts also soared to a record $287 million, while capital projects have stalled, with the city spending just $25 million of a planned $131 million.

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Across the across the street from City Hall, the Los Angeles Mall is nearly dead. One of just two businesses still open on the block told The Post revenue has plunged a staggering 90% since the pandemic and the city’s shift to work-from-home policies.

Shops and restaurants that thrived pre-COVID from the daily flood of government workers are closed, with just a few barely hanging on.

The lunch rush has vanished.

Storefronts have gone dark one by one — including a longtime shop that shuttered after 18 years — while those hanging on say sales have cratered.

For residents navigating City Hall on Friday, the policy debates didn’t matter. What they encountered instead was a government that wasn’t officially closed — but wasn’t open either.

Wilkenfeld-Bronson left with a parking receipt, a lost day’s income and no resolution. She still needs to pay the city.

If she can find someone there to take the money.