county government

Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s David Zahniser and Noah Goldberg, giving you the latest on city and county government.

It’s one of the most exacting tasks to face a left-leaning candidate running for office in L.A.: filling out the Democratic Socialists of America’s questionnaire.

During the candidate endorsement process, the DSA’s L.A. chapter issues a lengthy form that ends with a spate of yes or no questions, mainly around hot-button topics: Do you support Medicare for All? Do you favor the policies of the Green New Deal? Would you put a halt to police exchange programs with Israel?

When filling out the form, mayoral candidate Nithya Raman voiced support for all three. But unlike some DSA-endorsed candidates, the council member declined to give a yes or no answer on an assortment of other topics, opting for longer explanations.

Raman, a DSA member, declined to check either box when asked if she would work as mayor to repeal a law prohibiting homeless encampments near schools. She did the same on whether to divert funds from law enforcement into other public services.

She also declined to say yes or no on removing police from K-12 schools, and on banning the use of facial recognition and other surveillance technologies.

The answers offer the latest sign that Raman has been proceeding with caution on some of the DSA’s litmus test issues. Raman, who tweeted “defund the police” six years ago, said in February that the ranks of the Los Angeles Police Department should not get any smaller.

Appearing Wednesday in Pico-Union, she said she was proud to have the DSA as part of her coalition but also described herself as politically independent.

“I’ve made sure that the decisions that I’m making, the votes that I’m taking, are ones that are based on an understanding of how these policies are actually going to improve the lives of Angelenos,” said Raman, who received the DSA endorsement earlier this month.

Mayor Karen Bass, Raman’s opponent, did not seek the endorsement, saying she was not aligned with some of the group’s positions.

Raman’s questionnaire stands in contrast with those of some of her DSA colleagues.

Hugo Soto-Martínez answered nearly every yes-no question posed by the DSA during his first run for City Council in 2022. Ysabel Jurado did the same during her successful council campaign two years later.

So what were Raman’s longer answers? On homeless encampments, she wrote that she has repeatedly voted against increasing the number of locations where tents are prohibited — and doesn’t want to saddle homeless people with criminal records that could stifle their ability to find permanent housing.

Regarding cuts to the LAPD, Raman said she would expand the city’s network of unarmed crisis response teams, ensuring that “trained professionals” — not police officers — respond to mental health and substance use calls.

On campus police, Raman said schools “should never default to armed officers for discipline or student well being.” And on facial recognition software, Raman said she would prohibit surveillance technologies that lack “clear evidence of need and completely enforceable safeguards for civil rights and privacy.”

“I will also require real oversight and consent before the city deploys any of it,” she wrote.

Raman even declined to say yes or no when asked if she wants noncitizens to vote in local elections. But she explained in writing that she voted earlier this year to put a proposal from Soto-Martínez on the ballot that would give the council the ability to enact noncitizen voting for city and school board elections.

The council later dropped that measure.

Picking apart the Paramount deal

Raman and Bass weighed in recently on the deal struck by California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and Paramount Skydance Chief Executive David Ellison on the studio’s merger with Warner Bros. Discovery.

Both mayoral candidates said Paramount should be held accountable for the promises contained in the settlement, which requires the company to distribute 30 films per year in theaters for the first two years after the merger, then 32 films per year for the next three years.

Of the two, Raman sounded more dismayed by the deal.

“There was a better outcome than this,” Raman told reporters at a recent news conference. “But this is the outcome that we have, and now it’s incumbent upon us to fight for the best results for workers here.”

For much of this year, Bass and Raman voiced concern that the merger would trigger mass layoffs within the film and television industries. But last month, Bass began calling for the two parties to engage with each other in good faith, saying too many productions had come to a standstill, putting people out of work.

“The prolonged uncertainty around this decision has already led to job losses and left workers wondering what it would mean for their futures,” Bass said in a statement this week.

The settlement alleviated the anxiety felt by some at City Hall that Paramount might follow through on its threat to leave California.

Bass’ stance aligned her more with IATSE, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, whose leaders voiced their own concerns about uncertainty while appearing with the mayor at City Hall last month.

Raman was more in sync with Writers Guild of America West, which denounced Bass for pressing Bonta to seek a resolution, saying “industry workers deserve a mayor who believes in upholding the law.”

Bass’ campaign is supported by IATSE Local 33 and the California IATSE Council, which said earlier this year that the mayor has “done more to bring our jobs back to Los Angeles than anyone in city government.”

On Thursday, the Writers Guild endorsed Raman, saying she is a “true pro-labor candidate who walks the walk.”

State of play

— POLLING PRESSURE: A new poll put Raman decisively in the lead in the mayor’s race, showing her with a double-digit advantage over Bass. The findings will ramp up the pressure on Bass and her allies to go sharply negative against Raman while courting the huge number of voters who say they are still undecided.

— MAKING THEIR CASE: Bass and Raman sat down with The Times for two separate, wide-ranging interviews, discussing issues like homelessness, the Palisades fire and the biggest mistakes they’ve made in office.

— PEOPLE MOVER POSTPONED: The opening date of the People Mover train being built at Los Angeles International Airport has been delayed yet again, with contractors now aiming for early January. The 2.25-mile automated train, which has been over budget for years, was originally supposed to open three years ago.

— EXECUTIVE ORDER: Bass ordered a review of the LAPD’s dealings with mentally ill people this week, saying the training that police officers are receiving is “woefully inadequate.” The mayor said she was particularly troubled by a July 29 incident in which police fatally shot a man who approached them with an aluminum bat.

— HURDLES TO HOUSING: Why has housing production been lagging in L.A.? Real estate developers pointed to a list of reasons, including high interest rates, pandemic-era policies like rent freezes and Measure ULA, the voter-approved tax on high-end property sales.

— TRUMP REBUFFED: An appeals court blocked the Trump administration from stopping the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority from applying for millions of dollars in federal funding. The agency had applied on behalf of homeless service organizations from across the county.

QUICK HITS

• Where is Inside Safe? The mayor’s signature program to address homelessness went to the area around 11th and Irolo streets, a location represented by Councilmember Heather Hutt.
• On the docket next week: Bass and Raman are slated to appear Tuesday at the Skirball Cultural Center for the 2026 Jewish Los Angeles Mayoral Forum. The event is hosted by the Jewish Federation Los Angeles, the Skirball Cultural Center, ADL Los Angeles and other groups.

Stay in touch

That’s it for this week! Send your questions, comments and gossip to LAontheRecord@latimes.com. Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Saturday morning.

The advertising blitzkrieg of L.A.’s mayoral campaign is here.

Mayor Karen Bass and her opponent, City Councilmember Nithya Raman, dropped new campaign commercials over the last week, buying time on television, streaming channels and other platforms. Supporters of both candidates released ads as well.

The two candidates relied heavily on free media for most of the summer, putting videos on Instagram and inviting the news media to cover their appearances.

The dam effectively burst on Monday, with Raman touting her new Hollywood-themed ad “For Your Consideration,” timed to coincide with the Emmy Awards.

The 30-second spot starts with Raman stepping out on the town, then shifts to some standard L.A. imagery: freeways, palm trees, Echo Park Lake and, of course, the Hollywood sign.

“L.A. shows the world what it means to be a star,” declares the ad’s narrator, actor and screenwriter Bob Odenkirk. “And every Angeleno deserves the chance to reach for their own.”

After Raman has stopped off at a taco stand and hugged a dog, Odenkirk delivers the ad’s final message: “Change. Affordability. An L.A. that loves you back.”

That ad ran on television a few times before being cycled onto social media, per the Raman campaign.

Three days later, Bass went up with a 30-second spot — on digital platforms for now — centered on President Trump’s immigration raids.

The ad offers footage from the day in July 2025 when Bass confronted federal immigration agents in MacArthur Park. The video features images of gun-toting federal agents in military uniforms and Bass hopping out of a car in an aquamarine pant suit to face them.

“When someone comes after your family, you don’t hesitate,” Bass says. “You stand up. You fight.”

One of Bass’ most formidable allies — the Los Angeles Police Protective League — went hard negative with its first ad of the runoff campaign, offering the message that Raman “Doesn’t Get It.”

The commercial, released Friday, follows a young girl as she walks past a homeless encampment, juxtaposed against video of Raman talking about her opposition to a law that prohibits encampments near schools.

“I don’t think a kid’s gonna be safer because a tent is 500 feet away from a school,” Raman said in the clip, which was taken from a 2024 candidate forum in Sherman Oaks.

The backpack-wearing child speaks to the camera and says: “Walking to school shouldn’t be scary.”

“I’m just a kid,” she says. “But even I know I’d be safer if this was 500 feet away.”

The police union says the ad will start running on television this weekend and already is on social media platforms.

Meanwhile, Raman’s backers have an assortment of attack ads running on Facebook and Instagram.

Streets For All, a group that wants to expand the city’s bus and bike lane network, pulled video footage from a different Sherman Oaks candidate forum — this one featuring Bass and Raman last month.

At that event, Bass told the audience that Raman is unresponsive to her constituents, forcing many in Sherman Oaks to contact the mayor’s office directly.

“Many of you have my cellphone, you have called me,” Bass says in the ad. “You called on me specifically for help.”

Streets For All contends those remarks show that Bass gives wealthy homeowners her number while “regular Angelenos get ignored.”

“L.A. deserves a mayor who doesn’t just listen to the rich and powerful,” the ad says.

By Friday, Streets For All had nearly two dozen different video spots opposing Bass over such issues as homelessness, transparency and the Palisades fire, according to Ethics Commission filings.

The biggest backer of the group’s political action committee is hedge fund manager Aaron Sosnick. Of the $1.2 million that the group plans to spend in the mayor’s race, Sosnick has provided $1 million, said Michael Schneider, who heads the group.

Schneider said the committee also has financial support from retired real estate developer Yuval Bar-Zemer — known for his work in the Arts District — and Todd Wexman, chief principal of 4SITE Real Estate, a real estate development company.

Raman pollster says she’s in the lead

The Raman campaign shared the results of a new internal poll that showed their candidate with a five-point lead over Bass.

Of the 600 likely voters who were surveyed, 44% supported Raman and 39% backed Bass, with 17% undecided, according to a memo provided to the campaign and viewed by The Times. The survey, conducted by Hart Research Associates in early September, had a margin of error of 4 percentage points.

“In the initial trial heat for Los Angeles mayor, Councilmember Nithya Raman is in the rare position for a challenger of already LEADING the incumbent,” the polling firm wrote.

Another poll, commissioned by an independent expenditure group supporting Raman, portrayed the race as a statistical tie, at least initially. Estamos con Nithya for Mayor of LA 2026, sponsored by the Western States Regional Council of Carpenters, said its poll showed Bass with 38% and Raman at 37%.

However, when voters received more information on the candidates, Raman took a 7-percentage-point lead, with 41% supporting her and 34% supporting Bass, according to a memo prepared by the group’s pollster.

The margin of error was 3.7 percentage points.

The Bass campaign declined to share its internal polling when contacted by The Times.

However, Neighborhoods for a Better L.A., an independent expenditure group supporting the mayor, said a survey it commissioned in early August showed the mayor with an edge over Raman of 41% to 35%, with 24% of the electorate undecided.

That poll, conducted by Tulchin Research, surveyed 1,200 likely Los Angeles voters and has a 2.8-percentage-point margin of error, the group said.

The poll also found that when given “balanced biographies” about both candidates, Bass’ support grew to 45% while Raman went down to 33%.

“Communications focused on Raman’s record can both reduce her support and consolidate voters behind Bass,” the pollsters wrote.

Giving back El Grito cash

Los Angeles City Councilmember Imelda Padilla locked down sponsorships for the city’s celebration of El Grito, which marks Mexico’s independence.

Tuesday’s event, which featured an evening of musical performances, was sponsored by an assortment of city contractors and government agencies, including waste hauler Athens Services and the Department of Water and Power.

Still, Padilla decided she didn’t want to partner with one particular business, announcing at the last minute that organizers no longer would accept a $5,000 sponsorship from Home Depot.

On the day of the celebration, Padilla issued an apology on Instagram, saying she had heard from community members upset over the event’s affiliation with Home Depot, whose parking lots have been the site of many federal immigration raids.

“We have rescinded their partnership for this event,” Padilla said in her post. “The spirit of El Grito is rooted in celebrating our Latino heritage and creating a space where our families feel welcomed, safe, and celebrated.”

In an email, a Home Depot spokesperson said the company is not involved in immigration enforcement activities and doesn’t coordinate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement or U.S. Border Patrol. The company also doesn’t receive advance warning about enforcement actions, the representative said.

“We cannot legally interfere with federal enforcement agencies, including preventing them from coming into our stores and parking lots,” Home Depot spokesperson Evelyn Fornes said.

State of play

— COZY WITH CARUSO: Billionaire developer Rick Caruso, who was defeated by Bass in 2022, appeared alongside the mayor at a groundbreaking for the Palisades Recreation Center. Caruso praised her for her work on the project but stopped short of endorsing, saying he intends to meet with Raman in the coming weeks.

— LIFE AFTER PRATT: The voters who picked reality TV personality Spencer Pratt in the June 2 primary election are now up for grabs. But will they stay home instead of picking a mayoral candidate?

— BASS BAILS: The mayor skipped a congressional hearing on waste and fraud in homeless spending this week, calling the session politically motivated. Rep. Tim Burchett, the Republican who chaired the subcommittee meeting, accused her of dodging accountability.

— FINDING FRAUD: Federal authorities arrested three people who were working in Los Angeles-area homeless nonprofits this week, accusing one of them of misappropriating more than $7.5 million in taxpayer funds. Scott Turner, secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, said the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, which provided the funding, had allowed fraud to “run rampant.”

— WE’RE IN THE MONEY: The 2028 Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles will generate up to $40.6 billion in increased economic output and add as many as 224,000 jobs, according to an upbeat economic forecast released this week. Another, more tempered estimate put the increase at $20.5 billion to $25.4 billion.

— SEETHING OVER SKID ROW: Some activists want dogs taken away from homeless residents living in Skid Row, saying those animals are living in an unsafe environment. A Bass aide responded by cautioning that it is “neither humane nor legal to remove animals from their human companions without appropriate cause.”

QUICK HITS

• Where is Inside Safe? The mayor’s signature program to combat homelessness went to Avalon Boulevard and 64th Street in South L.A., an area represented by Councilmember Curren Price.
• On the docket next week: The council’s Public Works Committee meets Tuesday to discuss ways of cleaning, safeguarding or demolishing nuisance properties.

Stay in touch

That’s it for this week! Send your questions, comments and gossip to LAontheRecord@latimes.com. Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Saturday morning.

Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s David Zahniser, giving you the latest on city and county government.

It wasn’t that long ago that the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority was the place to be — at least, if you were a local politician.

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass put herself on the agency’s 10-member board in 2023, saying direct oversight would help her confront the region’s homelessness crisis. L.A. County Supervisors Lindsey Horvath and Kathryn Barger joined that year as well.

Those who follow local politics — and the travails of the region’s beleaguered homeless agency — know what happened next.

Barger left the board, comprised of city and county representatives, after a single year. Horvath lasted two. Both spearheaded the effort to shift more than $300 million out of LAHSA and into a new county homelessness department, saying they had lost confidence in the agency.

On Wednesday, Bass finally stepped down too, offering the latest and perhaps most crucial sign that LAHSA’s days could be numbered.

Bass, now in a tough reelection fight, portrayed her resignation partly as a scheduling issue, saying she recently became chair of the board that oversees the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

But Bass also said she has concluded that the city needs direct control over homeless services, replacing the joint city-county governance structure that has existed for three decades.

“To me, it is not functional at this point,” the mayor told reporters on Wednesday.

Bass was in fact Metro’s board chair when she joined LAHSA three years ago, juggling the two roles. But things are different now. LAHSA, long a subject of criticism, is under attack from all sides.

The Trump administration has spent months trying to strip LAHSA of its federal funding. Federal court battles have highlighted weak oversight at the agency. L.A. City Council members have voiced renewed frustration with LAHSA’s handling of the yearly homeless count. All of this follows years of critical news coverage and unflattering audits.

Paul Rubenstein, a LAHSA spokesperson, said the agency remains focused on its work — moving unhoused Angelenos indoors, managing public funds and “ensuring transparency and accountability across our rehousing system.”

Bass and her opponent in the mayor’s race, City Councilmember Nithya Raman, tried without success last year to dissuade county officials from pulling their funding out of LAHSA. At the time, they sent a letter telling the supervisors they were “going backwards into a silo.”

Now, LAHSA’s core responsibilities are up for grabs. County officials plan to compete for those duties, including management of the homeless count.

Bass and Raman want the city to compete as well. Asked this week if that process spells the end of the homeless agency, Raman hedged a bit.

“I don’t know what moment will be the death knell of LAHSA,” Raman said. “What I am saying right now is that the city … should be able to take greater control over the dollars that we are investing.”

Bass said Friday that she can envision a scenario where LAHSA continues to exist but is much, much smaller.

“Our $300 million would stay within the city,” she said.

Traci Park unloads on Raman

Raman has been taking her campaign to Pacific Palisades, talking to residents about her recovery plan for the community, which was devastated by the January 2025 wildfire. During one recent appearance, she told an audience that the city has let them down.

“I don’t want to let you down. I feel an urgency to show up,” she said.

That appearance — and Raman’s social media posts on the issue — drew a testy response last week from Councilmember Traci Park, who represents the Palisades. Appearing on KFI’s The John Kobylt Show, Park said Raman never spoke with her one on one about the disaster or what her constituents needed in the aftermath.

Park said she had council members tour the burn area with her early on, to help them understand what would be required during the recovery. Although most of her colleagues took her up on that offer, Raman did not, Park said.

“The Palisades have been through enough,” Park said. “They don’t need politicians discovering their suffering, and the challenges they’re dealing with, only when it becomes politically useful.”

Raman, through a campaign spokesperson, said she did tour the Palisades both before and after launching her mayoral bid — and signed on to multiple council motions dealing with wildfire prevention and disaster recovery.

In a statement, Raman also offered praise for Park, saying she has “worked tirelessly to support the rebuilding of the Palisades.”

“As mayor, I’ll be the strongest partner to her and Palisades residents to help them rebuild and return home as quickly as possible,” Raman said.

Park remains the only council member who has not endorsed in the mayor’s race. Thirteen others are backing Bass.

Dueling controllers unite for Raman

Raman has picked up endorsements from something of a political odd couple: two city controllers who have not always had kind things to say about each other.

City Controller Kenneth Mejia, who recently won reelection, stood with Raman in Chinatown on Wednesday as she called for L.A.’s nonprofit homeless providers to be paid based on their success rates.

A day later, Raman appeared in the San Fernando Valley with former City Controller Laura Chick as the two spoke out against the city’s $2.6-billion upgrade of the Convention Center.

The back-to-back appearances brought back memories. Chick had tough words for Mejia back in 2022, calling him “unfit for public office.” She pointed to his tweets calling then-President Joe Biden a rapist and a racist, and his decision to pose for a photo with a poster of Hillary Clinton photoshopped to look like she was behind bars in an orange prison jumpsuit.

Mejia responded by blasting Chick, a former City Council member, as a career politician who recycled lies and “exaggerated attacks.”

Chick, who served as controller from 2001 to 2009, went after Mejia again this year, endorsing his opponent, real estate executive Zach Sokoloff, in the run-up to the June 2 primary. This time, she said Mejia was not producing enough reports to fulfill his office’s watchdog role.

In many ways, Chick was the Mejia of her day, railing against the status quo and turning a spotlight on the city’s shortcomings, drawing the ire of other elected officials.

So could the Raman campaign bring about a detente between the two?

Chick, in an interview, said she hasn’t spoken with Mejia but would gladly take his call. She said she wishes him well now that he has another four years in office.

“I think she’s trying to get us together,” Chick said, referring to Raman.

Chick said she’s hoping that Raman, as mayor, will receive “lots of vigorous audits” from the controller and then implement the findings.

“I yearned for a mayor, as city controller, that I could turn to and say, ‘Here. Here are the findings of my audit. Please do something about it.’ She’ll have that with Mejia,” Chick said.

We should point out that Bass has picked up support from at least two former city controllers: Rick Tuttle, who served from 1985 to 2001, and Wendy Greuel, a former city councilmember who succeeded Chick in 2009.

State of play

— STICKER SHOCK: A long-promised makeover of the Veteran Administration’s historic Building 13 in West L.A. will create 24 units of housing for homeless veterans, at an estimated cost of $1.25 million per apartment. “It must be one of the most unaffordable projects ever undertaken,” said Bobby Shriver, the former Santa Monica mayor.

— LINEAGE LAWSUIT: Lineage, whose cold storage warehouse recently burned down in Boyle Heights, leaving behind the stench of rotting meat, said in a new lawsuit that a company that operated a solar array on the building’s roof is to blame for the fire. Altus Power, the solar company, said it would fight the allegations in court.

— BOTHERED BY BUSES: Business owners in Eagle Rock are worried about a dedicated bus lane coming to Colorado Boulevard — and the potential impact on customer visits.

— SETTING A SCHEDULE: The City Council voted this week to draft legal language that would require fast-food restaurants to give employees notice of their work schedules at least two weeks in advance. The move would build on an existing city ordinance that currently applies to retail employees at large companies.

— BACKING A BILL: Hollywood film and TV post production workers stood with Bass and Assemblymember Nick Schultz (D-Burbank) on Thursday, urging Gov. Gavin Newsom to sign a bill that would create the state’s first standalone post-production tax incentive.

— LIFE AFTER PRATT: Bass or Raman for mayor? In Spencer Pratt’s Pacific Palisades, some say that’s no choice at all.

QUICK HITS

• Where is Inside Safe? The mayor’s signature program to address homelessness went to Skid Row, an area represented by Councilmember Ysabel Jurado.
• On the docket next week: A House subcommittee holds a hearing Tuesday to discuss waste and fraud in L.A. County’s homelessness response system — one that won’t be attended by Bass.

Stay in touch

That’s it for this week! Send your questions, comments and gossip to LAontheRecord@latimes.com. Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Saturday morning.

Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s David Zahniser, with an assist from Sandra McDonald and Noah Goldberg, giving you the latest on city and county government.

Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman is waiting to hear whether she has secured a prize coveted by many of the city’s left-of-center candidates: an endorsement from the Democratic Socialists of America.

Earlier this year, the DSA’s Los Angeles chapter took up the idea for the June 2 primary, only to decide against it. They made that decision after hours of debate, all under the watchful eyes of local reporters. The group later recommended Raman in its June 2 voter guide, but that didn’t give her access to the DSA’s vaunted get-out-the-vote apparatus, which goes only to endorsed candidates.

This time around, endorsement discussions for the Nov. 3 runoff were held behind closed doors, followed by an online vote now under way. But the debate has been playing out publicly on a somewhat obscure platform: Geese magazine, which bills itself as “a daily review of American Communism.”

Contributors to that online publication — which declares on its website “We answer to no one” — have been going back and forth for weeks over whether the DSA should endorse Raman, a DSA member herself, in her campaign to unseat Mayor Karen Bass.

Things got rolling on Aug. 11, when Geese posted a 4,400-word essay supporting a DSA endorsement of Raman, arguing that such a move could “open the floodgates for socialism in Los Angeles.”

The four writers, DSA-LA members themselves, conceded that Raman is “no Zohran” — a reference to New York City’s charismatic DSA mayor, Zohran Mamdami. They acknowledged that she’s had a sometimes turbulent relationship with the group, which endorsed her council campaigns in 2020 and 2024 but also censured her at one point, in part because she accepted an endorsement from a pro-Israel group.

Still, the essayists praised her work on homelessness and tenant protections. And they commended her for seeking greater cooperation with the organization in recent months, hiring DSA-LA members to lead her campaign.

“What this signals is that with a DSA-LA endorsement, we may anticipate more constructive collaboration with the Nithya campaign going forward,” the group wrote.

Not so fast, argued another group of Geese contributors. On Monday, those five writers — also DSA-LA members — panned the idea of an endorsement, saying Raman hasn’t earned it.

These writers assailed Raman for voting to confirm former Sheriff Jim McDonnell as Los Angeles police chief and for seeking a rewrite of Measure ULA, the so-called mansion tax, which she views as an impediment to housing production. The authors also portrayed her as woefully out of touch with the DSA on Israel’s war in Gaza.

“If we endorse Raman, a candidate who lacks the inspirational leadership and collaborative political relationship that forms the foundation of a strong DSA endorsement, we risk spending the next four years managing the consequences; explaining, defending, and organizing around the shortcomings of a mayor who was never meaningfully accountable to our democratic socialist movement in the first place,” the group wrote.

Two days later, third Geese essay showed up, arguing that Raman is “the nerd that can dig our city out of this crisis.” That piece sought to rebut some of the criticism contained in the previous essay, while conceding that Raman can be “overly fixated on details, slightly thin-skinned, obtuse, and argumentative.”

“But let’s not forget that Nithya also has a long list of positive attributes as well: she is an exceptional administrator — reducing homelessness in her district by 49% through careful service provision,” the group wrote, anointing her as “Our Pothole Populist.”

A fourth piece, also pro-Raman, posted Friday. Meanwhile, Bass has not emerged unscathed during the back-and-forth.

Geese’s contributors criticized Bass for refusing to let City Controller Kenneth Mejia audit her Inside Safe homelessness program, saying she showed a “disregard for democratic processes.” They assailed her over her handling of the Palisades fire, the Lineage fire, police spending and other issues.

The pro-Raman rebuttal piece had some of the harshest language, accusing Bass, who made many trips to Cuba earlier in her life, of being “puppeted by business interests, landlords, the more reactionary segment of labor, and a smattering of liberal NGOs.”

Bass has not sought the DSA’s backing, either in the primary or the runoff. But she does have endorsements from the council’s other three DSA members.

Raman needs to win 60% of the vote to secure the endorsement. More than 6,000 chapter members have received emails with online ballots.

Monday is the last day to vote.

Tracking Traci Park

City Councilmember Traci Park represents a Westside district that runs along the coast. But that didn’t stop her from heading to Sherman Oaks for the raucous Aug. 19 mayoral debate.

Her appearance in the audience immediately sparked questions. Was she trying to make a decision on whether to weigh in on the mayor’s race?

After all, Park is the only council member who has not publicly picked a horse. Thirteen of the council’s 15 members have come out for Bass. (Raman also endorsed Bass at one point, but then jumped into the race at the last minute.)

Park has made clear she is no political ally of Raman, diverging on such issues as the city’s anti-encampment law. Still, an endorsement of Bass could pose risks.

Park represents the Pacific Palisades, where residents have sharply criticized Bass over her handling of the Palisades fire, which destroyed thousands of homes and left 12 people dead.

On Friday, Park declined to say whether she plans to endorse, saying she simply wanted to “hear what both candidates have to say.”

“It was a mayoral debate. I’m a City Council member, taxpayer, and resident,” she said in a statement. “The progress we’ve made on the Westside is at stake.”

Back to school for Mazariegos

It’s supposed to be a little like traffic school — but instead of learning to drive more safely, you learn to run a by-the-book political campaign.

Community organizer Estuardo Mazariegos, who is running to replace City Councilmember Curren Price in a South Los Angeles district, is now enrolled. He agreed to take a seven module, roughly three-hour class on the state’s campaign finance laws to resolve a complaint filed with the Fair Political Practices Commission, said Jesse Alson-Milkman, a strategist for the campaign.

That complaint accused Mazariegos of failing to pay for community space during at least six “postcarding party” events held by his council campaign at Mercado La Paloma. The complaint was filed by Josh Rothstein, a member of the Mid City West Neighborhood Council, who says he submitted the paperwork in his own capacity.

Mazariegos is on leave as co-director of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, which hosts its corporate office at Mercado La Paloma. That facility charges for certain types of meeting space, yet Mazariegos’ spending report initially showed no payments or in-kind donations for such costs, Rothstein said.

Alson-Milkman said five of the postcarding events were held at the market’s public dining area, so no payment or in-kind donation was needed.

The campaign did have a sixth event where it rented a room for two and a half hours, Alson-Milkman said. But the invoice for $137.50 was lost, he said, delaying payment for months.

The FPPC concluded the violation can be remedied without an enforcement action or financial penalty by having Mazariegos take a Political Reform Education Program, or PREP class, Alson-Milkman said.

The class was created by the FPPC to help candidates who commit minor violations to avoid getting “a mark on their record” — or a financial penalty.

State of play

— CRUNCHING THE NUMBERS: We’ve told you in recent weeks about issues surrounding the Homeless Count: the failure to count a 600-bed homeless shelter in 2024 and 2025, which may have skewed this year’s numbers, and the wildly diverging numbers in Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson’s South L.A. district. On Wednesday, the council instructed the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority to report back on some of the discrepancies.

— VENDORS VEXED: Bass has ordered the LAPD to stop issuing criminal citations to street vendors and remove any that were erroneously issued. The mayor’s office took that step after learning that citations were being incorrectly handed to vendors in MacArthur Park, a situation reported by LA Public Press. The street vending issue has been a flashpoint in the mayor’s race in recent weeks.

— UNDER THE MICROSCOPE: With the mayor’s race heating up, Raman’s record on homelessness has come under fresh scrutiny, particularly her time overseeing the council’s housing and homelessness committee. Raman has touted her work in identifying less expensive strategies for tackling the crisis. Critics say her tenure as chair hasn’t adequately met the moment.

— AUDITING THE GAMES: Mejia, the city controller, called on LA28, the committee organizing the 2028 Summer Olympic Games, to turn over reports on its finances. Mejia said the private committee has fully complied with only two out of nine requirements of its contract with the city. The controller issued his statement on the same day that several lawmakers called on Trump to provide much-needed transportation funding for the event.

— NO IFS, AND OR PHENIBUTS: The City Council instructed the city attorney to regulate phenibut, a drug that’s available at gas stations and being abused as a nervous system depressant. The regulations would include warning labels, a prohibition on sales to people under 21 and a ban on sales near schools and daycare centers.

— WHISTLE BLOWER SPEAKS: The police officer who recorded his colleagues making racist remarks told The Times that the LAPD “ruined my life.” Council members had been planning to formally condemn Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman over his filing of 16 felony counts against Officer Daniel Flores. But they shelved that plan on Tuesday after those charges were reduced to misdemeanors.

— PROGRAMMING NOTE: Our newsletter will be going dark for the Labor Day holiday weekend. We’ll see you again on Sept. 12.

QUICK HITS

• Where is Inside Safe? The mayor’s signature homelessness program went to the Westside, focusing on an area around Venice Boulevard and Glendon Avenue, which is represented by Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky.
• On the docket next week: As we mentioned previously, the DSA will wrap up its endorsement vote in the mayor’s race.

Stay in touch

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