The city is governed by a mayor-council system. The current mayor is Antonio Villaraigosa. There are 15 city council districts. Other elected city officials include the City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo and the City Controller Laura Chick. The city attorney prosecutes misdemeanors within the city limits. The district attorney, elected by county voters, prosecutes misdemeanors in unincorporated areas and in 78 of the 88 cities in the county, as well as felonies throughout the county.

The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) polices the city of Los Angeles, but the city also maintains three specialized police agencies; The Office of Public Safety, within the General Services Department (which is responsible for security and law enforcement services at city facilities throughout the city, including City Hall, city parks and libraries, the Los Angeles Zoo, and the Convention Center), the Port Police, within the Harbor Department (which is responsible for land, air and sea law enforcement services at the Port of Los Angeles), and the Airport Police, within the Los Angeles World Airports Department (which is responsible for law enforcement services at all four city-owned airports, including Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), Ontario International Airport (ONT), Palmdale Regional Airport (PMD), and Van Nuys Airport (VNY), the busiest general aviation airport in the country).

The LAPL, Los Angeles Public Library System and Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) are among the largest such organizations in the country. The LAUSD is the second largest school district in the United States; only the New York City Department of Education is larger. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power provides service to city residents and businesses.

The city government has been perceived as inefficient and ineffective by residents of some areas, which led to an unsuccessful secession movement by the San Fernando Valley and Hollywood in 2002. The campaign to defeat secession was led by then Mayor James Hahn. The most often raised complaint is that city administration in Downtown gives priority to high-density neighborhoods like Mid-City and Downtown at the expense of its far-flung suburban neighborhoods.

As the city does not have officially named districts, most areas and neighborhoods are known either by the names given by tract developers when first developed, or by the names of principal neighborhood streets, or by the names of the formerly independent communities that were annexed by the city.

[edit] Neighborhood councils

To promote public participation in government and make government more responsive to local needs, voters created neighborhood councils in the Charter Reform of 1999. The councils were first proposed by City Council member Joel Wachs in 1996 and were hotly contested for a number of years. Indeed, they are still hotly contested ten years later.

The councils cover districts which are not necessarily identical to the traditional neighborhoods of Los Angeles, the borders of which often reflect those of cities that were annexed to Los Angeles.

86 neighborhood councils are certified and all "stakeholders" – meaning anyone who lives, works or owns property in a neighborhood – may vote for council members. Participation in NC elections has, for the most part, been proportionally as narrow as in city, state and federal elections.

Though the councils are strictly advisory, and have little actual power, they are still official government bodies and so must abide by California's Brown Act, which strictly governs the meetings of deliberative assemblies. These and other regulatory requirements have proven frustrating for some activists unaccustomed to bureaucratic procedures. For those with organizing experience, or the administrative ability to overcome regulatory hurdles, the councils have been effective advocates for community interests.

The first notable achievement of the neighborhood councils, collectively, was their organized opposition in March 2004 to an 18% increase in water rates by the Department of Water and Power (a municipal monopoly), which led the City Council to approve only a limited increase pending independent review. More recently, the councils petitioned the City Council in summer, 2006 to allow them to independently introduce ideas for legislative action, but the City Council voted to give the idea further study (this, despite 18 months of committee hearings).

As Mayor, James Hahn provided each council with $50,000 for any project of their choice and an additional $100,000 for street improvements in their neighborhood. These financial commitments have been maintained by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.