UPDATE: 4:41pm PST We are inside Chase Bank with Councilmember Alarcon right now. We are trying to deliver our taxpayer demands to the bank. They didn't want to listen. But the Councilmember made it clear that we're the taxpayer aren't leaving until the bank listens to us. We've been ignored long enough.

We're standing and waiting right now. The LAPD is here, but everyone is calm and orderly. We just want our demands to be heard. It's as simple as that. Supposedly, they're sending our demands to their Wall Street headquarters right now.

More to come...

UPDATE: 3:54pm PST Out of City Hall and into the streets of Los Angeles! Taxpayers left the City Council hearing and delivered our taxpayer demands to Bank of America. They didn't seem to want to listen.

We're en route to Chase Bank right now. Councilmember Alarcon is waiting for us there. Updates and photos on the way shortly...

UPDATE: 2:58pm PST It's clear to everyone here that this movement doesn't fit inside one room at City Hall. Between live testimonies from people in the room, Councilmember Alarcon is reading testimony you submitted online. It's pretty powerful to hear voices from Los Angeles, the state of California, and all across the country saying the same thing: The big banks are continuing to hurt us and our communities - we need to stop supporting them with our tax dollars.

We're hearing from Angeledos who have been playing by the rules, trying to do what's right, but are still at risk of having their homes taken away by Wall Street banks. We're hearing from L.A. workers who are sick of seeing tax dollars squandered away on costly contracts with the big banks. And we're hearing from city officials who are explaining how we ended up locked into agreements with big banks and how much money it's draining from the city budget. Just one of the unfair deals the city of L.A. is stuck with is costing taxpayers about $14 million a year. And the city is locked into it for... 30 years.

We're getting close to the end of the hearing where Councilmember Alarcon will make any final motions and votes, and decide if this bill moves forward to the full council. After that, we're headed into the street to deliver our taxpayer demands to the big banks here in Los Angeles.

More photos and video to come.

Update: 2:12pm PST Executives from community banks, credit unions, and local businesses in L.A. are first to testify. They're all going on record as supporting this bill. They're feeling the same pain caused by Wall Street as the taxpayers and L.A. workers in the room.

Councilmember Alarcon asks a rep from a credit union "how much of our money are you investing in Dubai?" The answer is none. "And how much invested in our community?" 100%.

Can the Wall Street banks say that?

Update: 12:55pm PST: The hearing room is packed. There are L.A. workers of all stripes - parks workers, city attorneys, mechanics - filling the seats. Sitting beside them are taxpayers and community activists from Los Angeles and the surrounding area. Everybody is here for the same reason. They're sick of L.A. tax dollars being used to line the pockets of Wall Street bankers. And there's finally a chance to do something about it.

In just a few minutes, L.A. City Councilmember Richard Alarcon is going call to order a hearing on a bill that would set high standards for the banks the City does business with. There are standards about preventing home foreclosure, small business lending, and fair lending among others. If the bill passes, and the banks can meet those standards, they can do business with the taxpayers. If not, the City will move the money to banks that can. It's pretty simple.

For the L.A. workers in the room, this hearing is about more than dollars and cents, it's about their livelihood. With the City's budget gap growing wider by the day, the Council has voted to cut 4,000 L.A. jobs to make ends meet. But, until now, they've done nothing to stop the tens of millions of dollars being eaten up by Wall Street to pay for their billion dollar bonuses.

After the hearing, we're going to go directly to the big banks in Los Angeles and let them know what's happened here today. We're going to give them a list of demands on behalf of the L.A. taxpayers. Stay here for photos and video as the events unfold.

Here are the stacks of testimonies you wrote online. Not very exciting, I know. But it will be much more exciting when we present them to the L.A. City Councilmembers in about an hour. We're headed to City Hall right now, where we'll be submitting them during a hearing on moving L.A. tax dollars out of the big banks.

We'll have live updates here at SEIU.org with photos and video during the next few hours.

We'll also be updating live on our Twitter feed.

Stay tuned...