Inglewood Mayor Butts Denies Allegations, Links Attacks to Hollywood Park Fight
Inglewood Mayor James T. Butts Jr. on Monday forcefully denied allegations that he inappropriately touched a 15-year-old girl during a recent city event, calling the accusations “baseless, unsourced, and completely false.”
Butts used an emotional press conference outside Inglewood City Hall to described what he claims is coordinated, racist attack on his leadership. Yet the event ended without questions from reporters or residents — leaving unresolved questions about the mayor’s assertion that political opponents and powerful interests connected to Hollywood Park are behind the campaign against him.
During the press conference, Butts named local activists and political figures whom he said were spreading false claims against him, including Yolanda Davidson, Najee Ali, Earl Ofari Hutchinson and Leonard Redway. Butts characterized the controversy as a “libelous and racist smear campaign” and said the accusations invoked racist stereotypes about Black men.
His press release framed the event as a response to a “coordinated racist assault” on the mayor and his leadership “by the billionaires of Hollywood Park.”
That phrasing is significant as it directly connects the personal allegations against Butts to a high-stakes legal and financial dispute between the City of Inglewood and the companies behind the Hollywood Park/SoFi Stadium development.
Earlier this month, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge David K. Reinert ruled that Inglewood’s 2015 development agreement with Hollywood Park was void and unenforceable because it had been adopted through a voter-initiative process rather than the statutory process required under California law.
The ruling is a major win for the city, at least for now. Companies affiliated with Hollywood Park have argued that Inglewood owes roughly $400 million for infrastructure improvements and public-service costs that the developer says it paid up front under the agreement. The city has argued that, if the agreement is invalid, it has no obligation to reimburse those costs.
The decision also potentially affects the ongoing dispute over Inglewood’s WOW Media digital billboards. Hollywood Park has argued that billboard installations around the stadium district interfere with rights and protections it believed were established through the 2015 agreement. With that agreement now declared void, the legal landscape around those claims has changed.
The press conference did not offer direct evidence tying the people who raised or amplified the allegation to Hollywood Park owner Stan Kroenke, Intuit Dome owner Steve Ballmer, or any other billionaire connected to the stadium district.
Despite Butts’ statements inviting that connection, he did not allow questions from reporters or the public. If the mayor believes the allegations are linked to the development-agreement fight, the public deserves clarity on the basis for that claim.
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