All those undecided L.A. voters may actually know what they want — someone to win them over
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- If you want to lead a world-class city, you need to have world-class answers.
uncertain
you → know → answers
- L.A. City Hall is broken, and voters want to know who can fix it.
asserted
who → want → it
They’re worth passing consideration, maybe, but you’d have to be a fool to bet your house on their accuracy.
asserted
you → ’re → accuracy
And yet there’s something that rings true about the recent poll suggesting that L.A. Mayor Karen Bass is in deep trouble among likely voters as she tries to hold on to a job that Councilmember Nithya Raman is trying to snatch away from her.
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Raman → ’ → her
Here are the numbers, as compiled by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies and co-sponsored by The Times:
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numbers → compile → Times
Bass has naturally tried to debunk the poll.
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Bass → try → poll
What else could she do, when her supporters are outnumbered by people who can’t make up their minds?
uncertain
who → do → minds
Bass would need to dominate the undecided vote to have a chance, but given her high unfavorability rating, that’ll be hard to do.
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that → need → rating
On the other hand, Raman certainly hasn’t put things out of reach, despite the fact that Bass carries the baggage of the Palisades fire and has made only minimal progress on her signature issue — homelessness.
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Bass → put → issue
Election day is less than two months away, and Raman has failed to convince anywhere near a majority that she’s the answer.
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she → fail → majority
So what do Raman and Bass need to do between now and Nov. 3?
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Raman → need → Nov.
I beg to differ.
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I → beg → ?
We need both candidates to be bolder, more creative, more convincing, and to tell us things we haven’t heard before.
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we → need → things
All the recent L.A. mayors I’ve known had their faults and failures, whether the task was filling potholes, building out transit or addressing the high cost of housing.
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task → know → housing
But among their best qualities, Dick Riordan was arrogantly confident, Jim Hahn had a steady hand on the tiller, Antonio Villaraigosa was tireless and passionate, Eric Garcetti was a long-range thinker on earthquakes, water and energy.
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Garcetti → have → earthquakes
Councilmember Nithya Raman leads Mayor Karon Bass by double digits in the latest UC Berkeley/L.A. Times poll.
asserted
Raman → lead → poll
L.A. needs a mayor with all of those qualities.
asserted
L.A. → need → qualities
Running the second-largest city in the country is no easy task, because many of the problems at street level begin well beyond local control, related in part to an economy that leaves too many people behind.
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that → run → people
But if you want to lead a world-class city, you need to have world-class answers on the big stuff like housing and homelessness and on the basics, too, like fractured sidewalks and neglected parks.
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you → want → sidewalks
Most voters don’t give a hoot about which candidate is more of a socialist or a moderate.
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candidate → give → socialist
City Hall is broken, and they want to know who can fix it.
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who → break → it
On Wednesday, I checked the same sadly neglected area around City Hall that I wrote about in April and found only minimal improvements.
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I → check → improvements
Graffiti has been washed from the Frank Putnam Flint fountain, but it remains a broken-down monument to neglect, as it has for most of the past 60 years.
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it → wash → years
And all around it, most of the little placards identifying native plants are broken or missing.
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most → identify → plants
The L.A. Mall is still a largely abandoned wreck, with broken planter boxes and weeds at street level.
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Mall → abandon → level
A woman with two shopping carts told me she’s been homeless for 5½ years.
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she → tell → years
The restaurant next to the nearby police department is shuttered; the restaurant across the street from it is long dead, and the once-vibrant downtown — which generated revenue that benefited every neighborhood of the city —
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that → shutter → city
I drove down Hope Street, south of 12th Street, because a reader who lives in that area and has told me about repeated fires at abandoned properties.
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who → drive → properties
A tractor was clearing debris from a recent blaze.
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tractor → clear → blaze
I drove west on Olympic toward Alvarado, an area I visit regularly to see a friend.
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I → drive → friend
Streets are strewn with trash.
asserted
Streets → strew → trash
They’re always strewn with trash.
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They → strew → trash
At Olympic and South Lake, where encampments line the street and a fire once spread into a church parking lot, destroying vehicles, there’s a concrete triangle that was heaped with trash.
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that → line → trash
It’s always heaped with trash, like a municipal dump on a busy thoroughfare.
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It → heap → thoroughfare
Next I headed west on Wilshire to the RFK Memorial I wrote about 10 months ago, near the site of the 1968 Bobby Kennedy assassination.
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I → head → assassination
It remainsfenced-off, with trash and graffitiand with overgrown vines covering tributes to Kennedy.
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It → remainsfence → Kennedy
The city was going to help the school district clean things up.
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district → go → things
Then the school district took on the task.
asserted
district → take → task
It’s still a mess.
asserted
It → ’ → ?
Actually, it’s more than that.
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it → ’ → that
…and 20 more, not listed.
The Aporia
