In Karen Bass’ alternate universe, she’s doing a fantastic job
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass delivered the first of two planned State of the City addresses Monday from the EXPO Center in Exposition Park, and also from somewhere in a parallel universe.
In that world, everything is fine. She’s solving homelessness and housing affordability by “accelerating” 30,000 new units and implementing “expanded tenant rights and capped rent increases.” She’s helping film productions navigate the permitting process, and the “entertainment industry is finally coming home.” She’s expanding the Convention Center and booking “marquee conventions.” She’s solving an unspecified problem by “getting those solar streetlights installed.”
People living in the real Los Angeles may see things differently.
Of the 30,000 housing units the mayor “accelerated,” even she had to acknowledge that only 6,000 are actually under construction. Bass did not acknowledge that the ordinance to expand tenant rights and further cap rent increases could reduce available housing by driving more L.A. apartment building owners out of business.
The mayor offered sweeping praise for the volunteer response to help Palisades fire victims, describing how “Angelenos of all kinds handed out water.”
That is, every kind of Angeleno except the one she appointed to run the Department of Water and Power.
The mayor, smiling as always, summed up her interactions with enraged fire victims by saying, “Thank you for your honesty, for your resilience, and for making me a stronger leader.”
Seriously. She said that.
Bass got a few laughs during the speech, especially when she mentioned the two “marquee conventions” that Los Angeles has lured away from other cities, “the American Speech, Language and Hearing Association and the American Geophysical Union.”
The invitation-only audience broke out into giggles. “Now, don’t laugh,” the mayor implored, urging the crowd to imagine 30,000 people coming to downtown L.A. to patronize hotels and restaurants.
They were probably imagining the Expedia reviews.
To hear the mayor tell it, the only problem facing Los Angeles is President Donald J. Trump, or as she calls him, This Difficult Chapter in Our History.
In her alternate universe, a “neighborhood playground” was “terrorized” by “troops” ordered into her peaceful, resilient city by Difficult Chapter. Translated for earthlings: she was talking about MacArthur Park, the site of so much crime, drug use and gang activity (“ongoing public safety and quality-of-life challenges that pose challenges,” in the words of the parks department staff) that the city is thinking of enclosing it with a $2.3 million iron fence.
The nearest the mayor came to discussing the city’s severe and self-inflicted financial troubles was her announcement that she will travel to Sacramento next week to beg state officials for money, again.
She did not explain why the city has so underfunded the fire department that the firefighters’ union is collecting signatures for a ballot measure to raise the sales tax. It would jump from 9.75% to 10.25% to pay for firefighting, which, arguably, should be funded in the regular budget ahead of expanding the Convention Center to attract geophysicists.
Bass didn’t mention the multiple tax increases currently under consideration by the City Council, including higher hotel and parking taxes, plus some kind of tax they believe they can collect from illegal marijuana businesses. Everybody has to believe in something.
In another other-worldly moment, Bass praised two city residents for their inspiring online videos of cleaning up trash in their neighborhoods, then urgently called for volunteers to show up at her monthly “Shine LA” events to remove garbage and graffiti before the World Cup arrives, and then trashed the president for saying Los Angeles is “falling apart.”Bass also praised the “harmony” of the Los Angeles Unified School District, where “125 languages” are spoken by the students. Whether they can read in any of them, she didn’t say.
The mayor’s big announcement in the speech was an admission that World Cup tickets are too expensive for most L.A. residents, so the city parks will play host to 100 free watch parties.
It’s the classic political flip-flop. First she promises to move heaven and earth to protect our immigrant population, and then she sits them all in front of a big-screen and gives ICE an easy day of fishing after all they’ve been through.
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