“It wasn’t me.”
That line has come to feel like an unofficial campaign message for Karen Bass as Los Angeles’ mayor seeks reelection in November.
During a radio interview released this week, Bass addressed one of the frustrations familiar to Angelenos: the battered streets and sidewalks found across the city.
Her explanation was that Los Angeles infrastructure has been deteriorating for decades — long before her administration — and that “those sidewalks did not break because I’m mayor.”
She then added: “I promise I didn’t break those sidewalks.”
The remark may have been intended as a joke, and critics could reasonably be relieved to learn the mayor is not personally wrecking public walkways. Bass later acknowledged that fixing potholes falls under her responsibility, saying they are hers “to fill them up.”
Still, the exchange raises a larger question about leadership at City Hall. Why was Bass’ initial response to point to previous administrations, followed by a joke about not being the cause of the problem, before directly declaring, in effect, that she did not do it?
Bass is the leading elected official in the nation’s second-largest city.
Los Angeles residents should expect a mayor who approaches persistent civic problems with seriousness, results and accountability.
Instead, Bass’ comments risk sounding less like a plan to address Los Angeles’ broken infrastructure and more like an effort to minimize the problem and shift responsibility elsewhere.
Bass has ducked accountability on a range of issues, from public safety to the Palisades Fire to LA’s homelessness crisis.
This time it’s street repair –– which entails far more than just filling potholes.
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Last year, under Bass’ watch, LA steered away from full street repaving in favor of patchwork fixes.
This approach costs less in the short-term, and can dodge pricey ADA-required curb ramps. But the half-measures can rack up huge costs over time as the patches erode, broader deterioration sets in, and the pavement keeps (yes) crumbling.
The reality is, Bass and far-left City Council members have spent years prioritizing ideological fancies over city basics like street repair. That’s a record they own.
While Angelenos deserve better, they won’t get it from Bass’ opponent on Nov. 3.
Nithya Raman is a radical who’s been unproductive in her nearly six years on the council. She spews word salads, can’t defend her socialist views, and delivered the worst debating performance in recent memory from someone not named Joe Biden.
And who can forget Raman’s own take on infrastructure “fixes”? Last month, she gloated over a newly painted crosswalk in her district –– bright yellow paint slapped over cracked and dilapidated pavement. What a joke.
In a similar vein, Bass recently celebrated the filling of a pothole.
Oh, how standards in LA have slipped. This is Third World-level stuff in one of America’s grandest cities.
Both candidates for mayor disclaim responsibility for the mess, of course, while boasting of pathetic “fixes” that do almost nothing to address the real problems.
“It wasn’t me,” indeed.