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For the mayor of Los Angeles Karen Bass, the list of problems continues to accumulate.
The year in which she faces a barrage of criticism about the city’s dealings with the Palisades fire – its initial absence, and its removal of an explicit firefighter, which is unpredictable actions from its recovery of Caesar.
But even without that destroyed emergency, there are other signs that the city entered an unstable period.
The construction of new homes slowly slowed, even with the high housing costs. Cinematic and television productions were escaping from the city, which had already injured the entertainment industry in a crisis. President Trump’s commercial war and migration threaten two other years of economy: international trade and tourism.
On Monday, Bass will provide her evaluation of the city’s general health during its annual speech to the city. On the same day, its budget will be issued for the period 2025-26, and set its plan to address another huge problem: the city’s financial crisis.
In the face of a shortage of nearly a billion dollars, Bass weighted whether more than 1500 city workers-or nearly 5 % of the workforce-would be demobilized with some vacant situations. Those delights behind the scenes have left many in the city hall concerned about the potential impact of street repairs, street lighting, animal shelters and public safety programs.
“She was surprised by the size of the challenges.
The Los Angeles City Council member, who took office in December, said she was surprised by the size of the challenges facing the city hall.
(Renjo Cyu / for times)
“I knew that our city’s services were broken. I knew that we did not face the healthiest budget. But I did not expect to think about the demobilization of workers,” she said.
Bass seeks, for its part, to offer optimism. In interviews with the Times, it highlighted the decline in last year in the displacement in the streets, a recent decrease in two numbers in the murders and shooting crimes, and the restoration of the fire that it said is moving more quickly than following other huge forest fires.
“The city faces challenges, there is no doubt. The city is not a decrease. In fact, the city will be welcomed by the world a little more than a year ago,” Bass said, in reference to the 2026 World Cup.
Bass said that she still hopes to avoid demobilization, partly by insurance Financial relief From the governor of the state, Gavin News, and the state legislative body.
Mayor and many members of the Council He went to Sacramento Last month, to highlight the city’s financial situation. The mayor also spoke with newsom on the phone on Thursday about the crisis – and the city’s need to help.
She said: “I have not heard of it that there is no hope. I was hung with hope.”
The mayor of Los Angeles Karen Bass is talking in a discussion with local and resident leaders to celebrate 100 days since the start of forest fires at Will Rogers State on Thursday.
(Carlin Steel /Los Angeles Times)
While Pass publicly tells the idea of financial relief to the state, its workers’ negotiators are working behind the scenes to persuade employee unions in the city to make financial concessions, such as postponing the increase in the next fiscal year. These two increases, which Bass, have been supported over the past two years, will add about $ 250 million to the budget next year, which enter on July 1.
To date, the conversations have not resulted in results.
Last month, the Los Angeles Police League board, which represents nearly 8,800 officers, took a position against the postponement of increases.
The Federation’s Board of Directors said in a letter to the members: “You deserve every part of the compensation it receives. The city must look to other areas to tighten its belt.”
International Service officials, the local federation 721, which represents more than 10,000 civilian workers in the city, had a similar communication message.
David Green, head of the International Service employees of the International Federation 721, pledged to stop “bureaucrats outside the touch” from the budget budget “on the emergence of city workers.”
(Al Sib / Times)
“We will not allow bureaucrats out of touch … to balance the budget on the appearance of the city’s workers,” said David Green, President of Seiu Local 721.
The possibility of deep discounts for city services may increase the complexity of a bass offer to re -election. Although she does not yet have any competitors who finance them well, she is still a frequent goal of criticism from real estate developer Rick Caroso, who fought against her in vain in 2022.
Caroso, who did not reveal whether he would run for the second time, I recently posted a video clip On social media, highlights the results of A. New poll From the UcLa Luskin Public Affairs School, which found that the residents of Los Angeles Province felt very frustrated at the high cost of living in the region.
This quality of life, which included the population outside Los Angeles who could not participate in the city’s elections, showed that 49 % of the respondents have unpleasant views of the bus, largely from the previous year.
The mayor of Los Angeles Karen Bass speaks in January with the Pacific Palisades population at Santa Monsia College to learn the logistical services to remove debris.
(Gina Verizy / Los Angeles Times)
Mindy Romero, the political sociologist who runs the USC comprehensive democracy center, said that the Palisades fire and events that followed the erosion of some good intentions enjoyed by the mayor during the first two years in his post. She said that the two speech could allow the dress to reset the narration.
Romero said: “The state of the city, the state of the state, the state of the union – all these types of reports for the public are always about informing the public, but also about the status of a tone.”
Darri Sarago, a strategic expert of the Democratic Party, said that the dissatisfaction that voters in Los Angeles feel beyond forest recovery.
Not only is discontent not only major issues, such as the loss of functions of the entertainment industry, but also daily matters such as broken sidewalks, distinctive streets and long waiting times 911.
“There is a feeling that things are not under control,” he said.
SRAGOW claims that the city’s financial problems are largely self. He expressed strong doubts about the arrival of Sacramento.
“I don’t know that there will be a lot of sympathy for a large amount of state money to save Los Angeles,” he said.
In the period before her speech in the case of the city, Bass began to drop hints about its next budget. She appeared in Pacific Palisades this week to celebrate the 100th day since the outbreak of the fire, she said it will not reduce the fire administration budget.
She told the Times that she did not plan to create any safe interior discounts, and the initiative of her signing to fight homelessness. “We still have to solve city problems,” she said.
Some members of the city council have begun to express its concern about the cost of Inside Safe, which depends heavily on rental contracts with hotels and motives to temporarily accommodate people from the streets.
Mayor Karen Bass holds her first budget in the city in 2023, which provided $ 1.3 billion to address the homeless crisis. Now, some are concerned about the cost of the displaced programs in the city.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
By early March, Inside Safe had moved more than 4000 homeless people inside, according to an audience Dashboard. From this total, about 1350 finally returned to the streets, while another 70 died.
Pass, as part of its efforts to reduce the displacement, cut the red strip for certain types of housing projects at reasonable prices. But housing construction is still on a declining path.
Last year, the city’s Ministry of Building and Safety issued construction permits for 8,706 homes, a decrease of 43 % compared to 2022, Bass took office, according to a report From the research company Hilgard Analytics.
Smith’s death, who heads Anvil Employee CouncilA group of the call that focused on development issues said that the city has failed to make useful progress in approving the policies that will make it easier to build homes. As a result, he said that the main investors and lenders flee the Los Angeles market.
“Even the most difficult reinforcement that is wondering whether it makes sense to do commercial businesses here,” said Smith, who served in a working group in the city that focused on simplifying the process of permits.
Smith said that the slowdown in housing development is deprived of the growth of property tax, which in turn reduces its ability to provide services.
The entertainment industry defenders have argued in a similar case, saying that the loss of local film and television buds has an impact on the economy – and the weakening of the city’s tax base.
Monica Livinson, a member of producers United, who met last week with the mayor’s team to search for additional support for this industry, said that with fewer local production, entertainment workers in Los Angeles spend less in supermarkets, restaurants, dry detergents and other companies, said Monica Livinson, a member of producers United, who met last week with the mayor’s team to search for additional support for this industry.
“People do not put money in the economy,” Levinson said.
Last month, the city’s administrative officer, Sazabou, told the city council that it is expected that tax revenues are expected to come at $ 315 million less than previous expectations, due to the slowdown in local economic activity.
Bass said that she would continue to press for expanded tax credits for the entertainment industry, while also searching for ways to reduce the costs of photography locally. In housing, she said she wanted a faster permit system but also believes that the problem caused a large part of it the market forces, such as high interest rates.
Some people in the city hall fear that the budget crisis will lead to a decrease in the city’s infrastructure reforms, such as streets and sidewalks.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
At the same time, the city faces another financial issue: the increasing cost of the payments caused by the misconduct of the police, broken sidewalks and other types of lawsuits against the city.
The city will need to devote an additional $ 100 million for legal payments – both settlements and jury awards – in the next budget year.
Pictures of stagnation in economic activity and the high cost of legal payments as the largest motivation for the city’s budget problems. She expressed her regret at her decision to increase the wages of police officers and other city staff, saying that this step was necessary to prevent workers from leaving.
Former City Council member Bernard C. Parks, who ran the council’s budget committee for eight years, has many financial problems for the city to the high cost of public employee salaries.
Parks, a former president in favor of LAPD who worked in the Council from 2003 to 2015, said he adopted a strategy to spend taxpayer money early in his political life.
Now, Parks said, all the demobilization of the city approved by the city will mean a decrease in the type of city service.
The employee writer, Times Noah Goldberg, contributed to this report.
