Democratic Mayoral Forum Draws Karen Bass, Nithya Raman

Mayoral hopefuls Nithya Raman and Adam Miller took turns jabbing at Mayor Karen Bass during a candidate forum as the incumbent dug in on her accomplishments of the past three years.

The trio spoke Sunday afternoon at what was dubbed a mayoral forum hosted by the Pacific Palisades Democratic Club. It was the first public campaign-related appearance by Bass since she skipped Monday’s inaugural mayoral debate, which featured Raman, Miller and Rae Chen Huang.

Each candidate at Sunday’s forum had time to introduce themselves, field questions from the club’s moderator and offer closing remarks that tackled a range of topics, including criticisms related to the Palisades fire recovery efforts, Senate Bill 79 aimed at fast-tracking housing projects near transit stations, homelessness and making City Hall more efficient.

Despite the tame format, Raman and Miller seized on their respective speaking times to throw barbs at Bass, particularly with the subject of the Palisades’ fire recovery repeatedly surfacing across the event as a local issue and a larger question of city services.

Last January’s Palisades fire damaged or destroyed nearly 8,000 commercial and residential structures, with Bass drawing criticism from some about the disaster response as the blazes raged and subsequent rebuilding efforts.

Raman, whose 11th-hour entrance into the race surprised many, given her endorsement of Bass in the mayor’s 2022 campaign, called the city “rudderless” and the rebuilding effort “indefensibly slow.” She cited a lack of leadership pushing on issues such as insurance, mortgages, environmental and health concerns.

“If I’m mayor, my preparations and my approach to these issues would be different and my response would be different,” Raman said during the forum. “Under my leadership, the city will be honest and transparent about what happened. I won’t change reports and I’ll hold myself accountable to you, the public.”

Her comment on altering reports was a poke at Bass after a February Los Angeles Times article said the mayor ordered the “watering down” of the Palisades fire after-action report. Bass’ office denied the claims and called the report “muckraking journalism at its lowest form,” in a statement to The Real Deal at the time.

Miller painted with a broad brush, arguing that claims of bureaucratic inertia extended beyond the fires, an observation he based on his experiences working with the city as a non-profit and affordable housing investor.

“Just knowing more deeply how the city is operating, how dysfunctional we operate with the city and the county, how much of a lack of urgency, a lack of transparency and accountability there is — the combination of all of that just put me over the edge,” Miller said.

No backing down

Bass didn’t give ground during the forum when asked what she might do differently, whether it be related to the fire or other city departments she controls.

“The question is what would I do the same,” she said.

She defended the hiring of Los Angeles Department of Water and Power CEO and Chief Engineer Janisse Quiñones, whose final day with the city was Friday. Quiñones was subject to backlash after the fire when hydrants ran out of water and an empty Santa Ynez Reservoir made fighting the flames even more difficult.

Bass did state clearly that she felt “horrible” about being out of the country when the fire started and said “I deeply regret that.”

She also defended her efforts to streamline housing construction overall, a program that was subsequently brought to bear on efforts to fast-track permitting in the Palisades. Still, she acknowledged a large-scale effort is in order to revamp the city’s building process.

“In three years and three months, it is difficult to change what has been a practice for over four decades,” she told the group. “I am very clear that there needs to be massive change, and I’ve done a lot of change over these three years.”

Anyone’s race

Even with the critiques, Bass holds a lead of 25 percent of likely voters in a Los Angeles Times and University of California, Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll done between March 9 and 15.

Some view the share of voters among the three frontrunners indicative of a race up for anyone’s taking.

Raman and former reality TV star Spencer Pratt drew 17 percent and 14 percent support, respectively, in the UC Berkeley-Times poll. Meanwhile, housing advocate Huang drew 8 percent and Miller rounded out the top five with 6 percent.

Raman aimed to further close her gap with Bass by homing in on the topic of affordable housing, which the UC Berkeley-Times poll found to be the No. 1 priority among those surveyed. Just days after the first mayoral debate, Raman issued a multi-pronged approach if she were mayor that promises to triple the city’s housing production. Much of that plan focused on points of tension long held by real estate, including a faster permitting process for zoning-compliant projects, one inspector involved in the lifespan of a project and reducing fees for office-to-residential conversions.

Meanwhile, Pratt has yet to appear in a public forum with other candidates. He was invited to last week’s mayoral debate but did not participate. He was not invited to Sunday’s Pacific Palisades Democratic Club event, however, leading him to criticize the group for not including the one Palisadian candidate in the forum.

“Based on publicly available information, Mr. Pratt is a registered Republican,” the group said in a statement Friday, “so we will not be including him in the forum as our focus is on providing a platform for Democratic candidates who align with the mission of our club.”