It was a welcome acknowledgment by LA’s top elected official that she’ll need to do better — and address some issues differently — if she wins a second term.
asserted
she → elect → term
Bass told The Post that if reelected, she plans improvements in two key areas.
asserted
she → tell → areas
First, she’ll push to expand the undermanned LA Police Department.
asserted
she → push → Department
Second, she’ll work to revamp the city’s failing approach to homelessness.
asserted
she → work → homelessness
Good: Admitting the need for change — obvious though it may be — is the first step toward a safer, stronger, more livable LA.
uncertain
it → admit → LA
And the mayor’s right to focus on public safety and homelessness, even if she might have done so sooner.
uncertain
she → focus → safety
LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell told The Post in July that his department needs 12,500 officers to keep Angelenos safe.
asserted
department → tell → Angelenos
The city has about 8,550 — and a radical-left City Council that wants to cut further, or at best let the PD atrophy.
asserted
PD → have → 8,550
“Staffing up the department after years of decline is one of my top priorities,” Bass said on Friday, adding that she fully supports McDonnell.
That’s as it should be: Public safety is the most fundamental responsibility of any municipal government.
asserted
safety → staff → government
Bass said she’d slice red tape to accelerate hiring, with a goal of reaching 9,500 officers before the 2028 LA Olympics.
asserted
she → say → Olympics
By contrast: Bass’ opponent, Nithya Raman, called McDonnell a fascist and vowed to fire him before walking back both statements.
asserted
opponent → call → statements
That kind of erratic “leadership” would leave LA in chaos on the world stage in ’28.
asserted
kind → leave → 28
Raman has also voted repeatedly to cut funding for LA police.
asserted
Raman → vote → police
“I knew the system was broken, but how profoundly broken it was, I did not know,’ she told The Post.
asserted
she → know → Post
“The system was never designed to end homelessness.
asserted
system → design → homelessness
It was only set up to manage.”
asserted
It → set → ?
That’s correct; as The Post has said repeatedly, the city supports a homeless industrial complex of nonprofits and agencies that have a taxpayer-funded incentive to entrench — not eliminate — homelessness.
asserted
that → ’ → homelessness
That is one reason the city’s homeless population climbed by 3.4% in this year’s official count, and squalid encampments continue to plague large swaths of LA.
Bass’ Inside Safe initiative, which tucks homeless people into hotel rooms, has failed — as has the housing-focused approach of the City Council.
asserted
approach → climb → Council
And Raman was such a failure leading the council’s housing and homelessness committee that her colleagues booted her from the role.
asserted
colleagues → lead → role
Bass said a tentative city-county agreement would give the city more control over homeless housing placements — and perhaps get more Angelenos off the streets.
asserted
agreement → say → streets
This shift, she added, could mean more homeless housing for Angelenos, rather than ceding some LA beds to non-city residents.
uncertain
she → add → residents
The mayor also shared support for expanding mental health and addiction treatment for homeless people.
asserted
mayor → share → people
As she told The Post: ”If you just take people randomly off the street and put them in an apartment and just expect them to magically heal … it’s naive.”
asserted
it → tell → apartment
Bass’ comment may reflect a belated recognition of reality, but it’s a welcome shift away from the city’s fairy-tale thinking and “housing first” mantra on homelessness.
uncertain
it → reflect → homelessness
As we wrote in our reluctant endorsement of Bass the other day, she does have the capacity to learn from her experience.
asserted
she → write → experience
And now we can add to that: Of the two candidates for mayor on the Nov. 3 ballot, she’s the only one who’s shown any common sense at all.
asserted
who → add → sense
The Aporia
