Los Angeles Mayor-elect Karen Bass promised to declare a state of emergency to deal with the city’s homelessness crisis her first day in office on Dec. 12.
While polls have consistently shown that addressing homelessness ranks among Angelenos’ foremost priorities, it’s not the only issue residents in the City of Angels care about.
We asked representatives of various interest groups – from housing advocates and neighborhood groups to environmentalists and business leaders – what other issues the new mayor should tackle, including specific actions she should take, during her first week in office. Their responses are below.
Larry Gross, executive director of Coalition for Economic Survival
“The priority is to deal with our homeless situation, but what’s missing is ensuring that we’re not creating more homeless (individuals) by pushing people out of the existing homes they presently have. (Bass) needs to be looking at steps to preserve the existing affordable housing, as well as preventing the displacement of existing tenants. She said she supported the moratorium on evictions. … Before those protections expire (in February, officials) need to adopt permanent protections.”
Eviction protections should be extended to include non-rent-controlled housing units, tenants who adopted pets in the pandemic even if their lease says prohibits pets, and individuals who had a family member move in since the pandemic, Gross said.
Lindsay Sturman, co-founder of the Livable Communities Initiative
“The state is mandating Los Angeles to plan for half a million new homes in coming years. We would love to see our new mayor implement efforts like the Livable Communities Initiative to streamline the process for creating walkable, sustainable car-light communities near transit and job centers – so residents’ daily needs can be met without having to drive. We should encourage small commercial property owners to create 3-to-5 stories of beautiful, naturally affordable apartments above retail on streets designed to be safe and livable for everyone from kids to seniors. The mayor can create a team with representatives from every department that impacts housing to coordinate project approvals within a guaranteed 60- to 90-day time frame.”
Glenn Bailey, executive committee member for the Valley Alliance of Neighborhood Councils
“Her convening a roundtable of neighborhood council leaders early in her administration — first week sounds great – just to get some feedback from the neighborhood council leaders in a give-and-take setting. … That way, she can hear our concerns. I would like to make sure that the 99 neighborhood councils in the city, (including) the 34 in the Valley, remain integral in the Bass administration.”
Bailey suggested that Bass could hold either a regional roundtable with all the neighborhood council leaders or hold multiple, smaller-sized meetings that might be more manageable.
Marcia Hanscom, executive director of Ballona Institute and on executive committee of Sierra Club’s local chapter
“What I’d like to see the mayor-elect do her first week is appoint an environmental advisory council to address what scientists have said is a double-barrel threat to the planet,” which includes the beginning of the sixth mass extinction of species on earth and climate change, Hanscom said.
“Our mayor really has a chance to be a leader. I don’t think she can do that unless she has an advisory council of people who really work with these issues day in and day out,” said Hanscom, who served on an environmental commission that Bass convened when Bass was California state Assembly speaker.
“We need to protect nature and minimize impacts of climate change,” Hanscom said. “With L.A. being the media capital of the world, we … can set an important example to the rest of the world and the rest of the country.”
Joanne D’Antonio, chair of the Neighborhood Council Sustainability Alliance Trees Committee
“What I would like her to do is to commit to a vision for trees — preserving trees and in everything she does, and not think ‘We can just replant.’ It takes a long time to replant, to get a big tree – 20 years. … We’re removing trees at an unbelievable pace in this city. So what I’m asking her to do is to have a vision for trees that starts with a commitment … to preserve trees.
“Whether she (states) this publicly … more important is what she does than what she says. … I just want her to have trees in her vision and her consciousness.”
Nancy Hoffman Vanyek, CEO of San Fernando Valley Chamber of Commerce
“The business community welcomes a new voice to lead the City of Los Angeles. There are too many issues to address — from homelessness to crime, to the high cost of living, to excessive red tape that hinders economic growth, to the lack of adequate infrastructure, and to corruption that seems to have plagued the city council for years. Addressing these issues will require all stakeholders to be at the table, and we are hopeful that Mayor-elect Bass will welcome business input to be a solution to these many problems.
“The first order of business needs to be one of healing — encouraging (Councilmember) Kevin de León’s resignation and supporting charter reform where councilmembers can no longer draw their own districts for political gain.”
De León was one of three current or former Latino councilmembers caught in a secretly recorded conversation in which racist and demeaning remarks were made about Blacks and other groups of people during a conversation about possibly rigging the city’s redistricting process last year.
Former Council President Nury Martinez has resigned and Councilmember Gil Cedillo will leave office in December when his term is up. Many in the city have called for de León, who has two years left in his term, to resign.
Tracy Hernandez, CEO of the Los Angeles County Business Federation, or BizFed
“We look forward to establishing productive partnerships with Mayor-elect Karen Bass and leaders of the Bass administration with the shared goal of compassionately serving the unhoused, dramatically improving public safety in all communities, rooting out city corruption, addressing the prohibitively high cost of living and cutting through excessive red tape that hinders the region’s economic growth.”
Amber Sheikh, founding member of Council District 15’s Homelessness Working Group
“She understands how things work on the ground level as well as how policy works. So I hope she’ll bring the same blended philosophy to homelessness. Can she fix (Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority)? I don’t know, but the mayor’s position gives her the ability to push the lever. She understands what the best practices are, and I’d also ask her to think outside the box. We can’t solve this using the same tools and approach we’ve been using all along. We need her to lead the way on finding those new tools.”
Donna Littlejohn contributed to this story.