\u201cKaren Bass decisively won the debate.\u201d<\/p>\n
She was \u201can assassin,\u201d a \u201cvery skilled politician\u201d who \u201cmade mincemeat of Nithya throughout the debate, both stylistically and substantively.\u201d<\/p>\n
If you think that assessment came from a Bass supporter, think again. <\/p>\n
The words come from none other than Spencer Pratt, the erstwhile mayoral candidate, a Republican who routinely referred to Bass as Basura (that\u2019s trash in Spanish) during the primary campaign.<\/p>\n
There was no mention of Basura in Pratt\u2019s Substack recap of Wednesday night\u2019s debate before the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn. To be sure, his post was titled \u201cSurviving the Dumb and Dumber Debate,\u201d but even so Pratt praised the mayor\u2019s performance<\/a> against Councilmember Nithya Raman.<\/p>\n Not that he was thrilled by the prospect of four more years with Mayor Bass, however. <\/p>\n \u201cA Karen Bass Mayorship is depressing,\u201d he wrote. \u201cA Nithya Raman Mayorship is terrifying.\u201d<\/p>\n Pratt suggested Bass was borrowing from his own playbook, citing her comments saying street vendors shouldn\u2019t be on the sidewalk outside restaurants and her call for the long-term involuntary hospitalization of people on the street who pose a threat to themselves. Bass herself said that backing involuntary hospitalization was a \u201ccontroversial thing to say.\u201d<\/p>\n Pratt didn\u2019t respond to a text from The Times about whether he was considering endorsing the mayor in the runoff.<\/p>\n Bass is likely to welcome conservative voters during the Nov. 3 general election as she faces off with Raman, who is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.<\/p>\n And it\u2019s not just Pratt who seems to be leaning toward Bass from the right. <\/p>\n Rick Caruso, who ran against Bass in 2022, referred to her as a \u201cvery good partner\u201d when he recently celebrated the reopening of his Palisades Village<\/a> shopping center. He didn\u2019t respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n In The Heights<\/p>\n Raman traveled to Boyle Heights Monday to join activists calling for Lineage to leave the neighborhood after the devastating fire at the company\u2019s warehouse in June.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t Raman\u2019s first visit to Boyle Heights since the blaze, but it was her first public appearance and news conference. <\/p>\n \u201cLineage shouldn\u2019t be permitted to open this warehouse again,\u201d Raman said to cheers from the crowd.<\/p>\n Bass followed suit Thursday, after Lineage blew past its own self-imposed deadline for cleanup. <\/p>\n They \u201cdo not deserve to rebuild,\u201d Bass said in a statement, while also calling on city lawyers to pursue litigation, a lien and other legal options for cost recovery against Lineage. Bass had already ordered the company\u2019s building permits delayed<\/a> at the end of July.<\/p>\n Raman was joined at the news conference by Eastside Padres Contra la Privatizaci\u00f3n and the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment \u2014 a group that has endorsed her \u2014 to call for the closure of the facility.<\/p>\n Raman also called for Lineage to pay for Boyle Heights residents\u2019 healthcare, for environmental testing, cleaning and relocation assistance, lost wages and more. <\/p>\n \u201cFamilies and taxpayers should not be left with the bill when a corporation runs up the tab,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n Raman\u2019s news conference appeared to draw the ire of at least one council colleague, Ysabel Jurado \u2014 who represents Boyle Heights<\/a>. <\/p>\n Jurado didn\u2019t mention Raman by name, but after winning council support for a motion Wednesday continuing the state of emergency in Boyle Heights, she thanked her colleagues who called and texted before they \u201cdid a press conference about the issue.\u201d<\/p>\n Jurado spokesperson Mason Santa Maria declined to say whether the remark was directed at Raman. Raman spokesperson Liz Garcia said Raman was invited to the presser. Raman wasn\u2019t the host. <\/p>\n Jurado, who has endorsed Bass, did not attend. <\/p>\n No shows at H&H<\/p>\n Raman has been outspoken about her removal from the chairmanship<\/a> of the council\u2019s housing and homelessness committee, suggesting she is being punished by Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson for challenging Bass.<\/p>\n Harris-Dawson rejects that narrative, saying the committee needed a chair who can focus undivided attention on the crisis.<\/p>\n Raman doesn\u2019t officially lose that post until the end of the month. So on Wednesday, she was still listed as chair of the committee\u2019s 2 p.m. meeting. But she wasn\u2019t there, and neither were two of her colleagues.<\/p>\n Councilmember Bob Blumenfield took the gavel instead, delaying the session until 3 p.m. in the hope that a third member would show up to join him and Councilmember Tim McOsker, giving the committee a quorum.<\/p>\n An hour later, Blumenfield came back.<\/p>\n \u201cThis meeting is going to have to be canceled for today,\u201d he told the audience. \u201cSo I apologize for making you wait.\u201d<\/p>\n Raman spokesperson Stella Stahl, in an email, said her boss already had other plans, with the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn. debate happening later that same day. <\/p>\n \u201cAt the time, Nithya was near Sherman Oaks and had pre-planned campaign activities in advance of the mayoral debate,\u201d Stahl said.<\/p>\n Stahl said the committee had a \u201clast-minute cancellation from a council member who was expected to attend,\u201d but didn\u2019t provide a name.<\/p>\n Jurado, who takes over as chair of the newly renamed homelessness and health committee next month, also wasn\u2019t there. Her spokesperson said Raman\u2019s team was told the previous week that Jurado had a personal matter and couldn\u2019t attend.<\/p>\n Devyn Bakewell, a spokesperson for Councilmember Heather Hutt, said her boss let Raman know Wednesday morning that she would not make it to committee due to a family issue.<\/p>\n The committee won\u2019t meet again until next month. Raman will remain on the panel.<\/p>\n You\u2019re reading the L.A. on the Record newsletter <\/p>\n Sign up to make sense of the often unexplained world of L.A. politics.<\/p>\n By continuing, you agree to our Terms of Service<\/a>, which include arbitration and a class action waiver. You agree that we and our third-party vendors may collect and use your information, including through cookies, pixels and similar technologies, for the purposes set forth in our Privacy Policy<\/a> such as personalizing your experience and ads. <\/p>\n State of play<\/p>\n \u2014 SHAM SURVEY: The Times broke the story<\/a> of the faked poll in the Los Angeles mayor\u2019s race that purported to show Bass leading Raman by around 12 percentage points. The poll was faked as a \u201csocial experiment,\u201d according to Median Strategies Polling, the group behind the fake survey. The creator of the fake poll revealed himself to the Guardian on Thursday as 21-year-old Rahil Prakash<\/a>. <\/p>\n \u2014 FLIP IT AND REVERSE IT: The Los Angeles City Council has rescinded camping bans on a dozen locations<\/a> in Hollywood, Echo Park and Silver Lake at the urging of the area\u2019s council member, Hugo Soto-Mart\u00ednez, who called the bans ineffective in addressing homelessness.<\/p>\n \u2014 THE RUMBLE IN THE VALLEY: Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and City Councilmember Nithya Raman slammed each other Wednesday<\/a> over their handling of homelessness, public safety and many other issues during the first face-to-face debate of the Nov. 3 election campaign.<\/p>\n \u2014 THE BEST LANE PLANS: A long-running dispute between cemeteries and bike-lane and safe streets advocates in the San Fernando Valley has escalated to become a campaign issue<\/a> in the Los Angeles mayoral race.<\/p>\n \u2014 LIGHTS, CAMERA, INACTION: Despite improvements to the state\u2019s tax incentive program, Los Angeles and California continue to struggle to keep movies, television series and even game shows from fleeing elsewhere. Production levels have failed to bounce back<\/a> since the pandemic and the labor strikes by writers and actors, and they remain at historic lows.<\/p>\n \u2014 HEALTH WOES: Hundreds of Boyle Heights residents suffered health problems<\/a> after a fire at a cold storage facility burned stubbornly for days, including respiratory infections, eye disorders and persistent cough, according to a new study.<\/p>\n QUICK HITSWhere is Inside Safe? This week the mayor\u2019s signature program was in Eunisses Hernandez\u2019s district in Westlake, where it moved 37 people indoors from Ocean View Avenue and Lake Street. That\u2019s it for this week! Send your questions, comments and gossip to LAontheRecord@latimes.com<\/a>. Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here<\/a> to get it in your inbox every Saturday morning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cKaren Bass decisively won the debate.\u201d She was \u201can assassin,\u201d a \u201cvery skilled politician\u201d who \u201cmade mincemeat of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27938,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[33078,5727,13927,33077,8991,6369,1949,8,33079,5868,306,9,32417,3072,7,1071,2092,1349],"class_list":["post-69494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-top-stories","tag-barger","tag-city","tag-council","tag-county-government","tag-district","tag-fire","tag-friday","tag-headlines","tag-horvath","tag-l-a","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-news","tag-pacific-palisades","tag-region","tag-top-stories","tag-trump","tag-week","tag-year"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/117147072133880249","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
On the docket next week: After a Saturday meeting, the Democratic Socialists of America will vote next week on whether to endorse Raman for mayor. Stay in touch<\/p>\n