austin beutner

Los Angeles mayoral candidate Austin Beutner took aim at the rising cost of basic city services Thursday, saying Mayor Karen Bass and her administration have contributed to an affordability crisis that is “crushing families.”

Beutner, appearing outside Van Nuys City Hall, pointed to the City Council’s recent decision to increase trash collection fees to nearly $56 per month, up from $36.32 for single-family homes and duplexes and $24.33 for three- and four-unit apartment buildings.

Since Bass took office in December 2022, the city also hiked sewer service fees, which are on track to double over a four-year period. In addition, Beutner said, the Department of Water and Power pushed up the cost of water and electrical service by 52% and 19%, respectively.

“I’m talking about the cost-of-living crisis that’s crushing families,” he said. “L.A. is a very, very special place, but every day it’s becoming less affordable.”

Beutner, speaking before a group of reporters, would not commit to rolling back any of those increases. Instead, he urged Bass to call a special session of the City Council to explain the decisions that led to the increases.

“Tell me the cost of those choices, and then we can have an informed conversation as to whether it was a good choice or a bad choice — or whether I’d make the same choice,” said Beutner, who has worked as superintendent of L.A. schools and as a high-level deputy mayor.

When the City Council took up the sewer rates last year, sanitation officials argued the increase was needed to cover rising construction and labor costs — and ramp up the repair and replacement of aging pipes.

This year sanitation officials also pushed for a package of trash fee hikes, saying the rates had not increased in 17 years. They argued that the city’s budget has been subsidizing the cost of residential trash pickup for customers in single-family homes and small apartments.

Doug Herman, spokesperson for the Bass reelection campaign, defended the trash and sewer service fee increases, saying both were long overdue. Bass took action, he said, because previous city leaders failed to make the hard choices necessary to balance the budget and fix deteriorating sewer pipes.

“Nobody was willing to face the music and request the rate hikes to do that necessary work,” he said.

DWP spokesperson Michelle Figueroa acknowledged that electrical rates have gone up. However, she said in an email, the DWP’s residential rates remain lower than other utilities, including Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric.

By focusing on cost-of-living concerns, Beutner’s campaign has been emphasizing an issue that is at the forefront of next week’s election for New York City mayor. In that contest, State Assembly member Zohran Mamdani has promised to lower consumer costs, in part by freezing the rent for rent-stabilized apartments and making rides on city buses free.

Since announcing his candidacy this month, Beutner has offered few cost-of-living policy prescriptions, other than to say he supports “in concept” Senate Bill 79, a newly signed state law that allows taller, denser buildings to be approved near public transit stops. Instead, he mostly has derided a wide array of increases, including a recent hike in parking rates.

Beutner contends that the city’s various increases will add more than $1,200 per year to the average household customer’s bill from the Department of Water and Power, which includes the cost not just of utilities but also trash removal and sewer service.

Herman pushed back on that estimate, saying it relies on “flawed assumptions,” incorporating fees that apply to only a portion of ratepayers.

In a new campaign video, Beutner warned that city leaders also are laying plans to more than double what property owners pay in street lighting assessments. He also accused the DWP of relying increasingly on “adjustment factors” to increase the amount customers pay for water and electricity, instead of hiking the base rate.

The DWP needs to be more transparent about those increases and why they were needed, Beutner said.

Former investment banker Austin Beutner, an advocate for arts education who spent three years at the helm of the Los Angeles Unified School District, appears to be laying the groundwork for a run against Mayor Karen Bass in next year’s election, according to his social media accounts.

At one point Saturday, Beutner’s longtime account on X featured the banner image “AUSTIN for LA MAYOR,” along with the words: “This account is being used for campaign purposes by Austin Beutner for LA Mayor 2026.”

Both the text and the banner image, which resembled a campaign logo, were removed shortly before 1 p.m. Saturday. Beutner did not immediately provide comment after being contacted by The Times.

New “AustinforLA” accounts also appeared on Instagram and Bluesky on Saturday, displaying the same campaign text and logo. Those messages were also quickly removed and converted to generic accounts for Beutner.

It’s still unclear when Beutner, 65, plans to launch a campaign, or if he will do so. Rumors about his intentions have circulated widely in political circles in recent weeks.

Beutner, who worked at one point as a high-level aide to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, would instantly become the most significant candidate to run against Bass, who is seeking a second four-year term in June.

Although seven other people have filed paperwork to run for her seat, none has the fundraising muscle or name recognition to pose a threat. Rick Caruso, the real estate developer whom Bass defeated in 2022, has publicly flirted with another run for the city’s top office but has yet to announce a decision.

A representative for Bass’ campaign did not immediately comment.

Beutner’s announcement comes in a year of crises for the mayor and her city. Bass was out of the country in January, taking part in a diplomatic mission to Ghana, when the ferocious Palisades fire destroyed thousands of homes and killed 12 people.

When she returned, Bass faced withering criticism over the city’s preparation for the high winds, as well as fire department operations and the overall emergency response.

In the months that followed, the city was faced with a $1-billion budget shortfall, triggered in part by pay raises for city workers that were approved by Bass. To close the gap, the City Council eliminated about 1,600 vacant positions, slowed down hiring at the Los Angeles Police Department and rejected Bass’ proposal for dozens of additional firefighters.

By June, Bass faced a different emergency: waves of masked and heavily armed federal agents apprehending immigrants at car washes, Home Depots and elsewhere, sparking furious street protests.

Bass had been politically weakened in the wake of the Palisades fire. But after President Trump put the city in his crosshairs, the mayor regained her political footing, responding swiftly and sharply. She mobilized her allies against the immigration crackdown and railed against the president’s deployment of the National Guard, arguing that the soldiers were “used as props.”

Beutner would come to the race with a wide range of job experiences — the dog-eat-dog world of finance, the struggling journalism industry and the messy world of local government. He also is immersed in philanthropy, having founded the nonprofit Vision to Learn, which provides vision screenings, eye exams and glasses to children in low-income communities.

He is a co-founder and former president of Evercore Partners, a financial services company that advises its clients on mergers, acquisitions and other transactions. In 2008, he retired from that firm — now simply called Evercore Inc. — after he was seriously injured in a bicycling accident.

In 2010, he became Villaraigosa’s jobs advisor, taking on the elevated title of first deputy mayor and receiving wide latitude to strike business deals on Villaraigosa’s behalf, just as the city was struggling to emerge from its worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.

Beutner worked closely with Chinese electric car company BYD to make L.A. its North American headquarters, while also overseeing decisions at the Department of Water and Power and other agencies.

Slightly more than a year into his job, Beutner filed paperwork to begin exploring a run for mayor. He secured the backing of former Mayor Richard Riordan and many in the business community but pulled the plug in 2012.

In 2014, Beutner became publisher of the Los Angeles Times, where he focused on digital experimentation and forging deeper ties with readers. He lasted roughly a year in that job before Tribune Publishing Co., the parent company of The Times, ousted him.

Three years later, Beutner was hired as the superintendent of L.A. Unified, which serves schoolchildren in Los Angeles and more than two dozen other cities and unincorporated areas. He quickly found himself at odds with the teachers’ union, which staged a six-day strike.

The union settled for a two-year package of raises totaling 6%. Beutner, for his part, signed off on a parcel tax to generate additional education funding, but voters rejected the proposal.

Beutner’s biggest impact may have been his leadership during COVID-19. The school district distributed millions of meals to needy families and then, as campuses reopened, worked to upgrade air filtration systems inside schools.

In 2022, after leaving the district, Beutner led the successful campaign for Proposition 28, which requires that a portion of California’s general fund go toward visual and performing arts instruction.

Earlier this year, Beutner and several others sued L.A. Unified, accusing the district of violating Proposition 28 by misusing state arts funding and denying legally required arts instruction to students.