In Pacific Palisades, many homeowners have blamed incumbent Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass for the devastating losses caused by the 2025 fire. Yet when we spoke with voters leaving the polls about their choice for mayor, one answer surfaced repeatedly—and it was Karen Bass.
“I did vote for the current mayor, which in my personal circles has been very complex,” said Lexi Montee, who lost her home in the Palisades Fire.
“It’s a very progressive, intellectual circle of people who I think are hoping for change. But I think that sometimes reality is different, and you can’t be dogmatic about your beliefs. You have to be more pragmatic and realistic,” she added.
Montee said the upcoming Olympics also influenced her decision. “At this delicate time, in the face of other big things happening, it doesn’t feel like the right time to change that,” she told The Post. “I do believe she’s learned her lesson, and she’s been giving us some grace and perhaps guilt. But whatever it is, she’s shown up for us.”
Maria Demina, a pianist who is also rebuilding after the fire, agreed that Bass may have learned from the crisis.
“I hope that she knows how to deal with it,” Demina said. She expressed concerns about Nithya Raman, including what she described as “a little bit too much” extremism in statements from the DSA and Raman’s alignment with its policies. “I just want a little bit more calm, a little bit more methodical moving forward rather than extreme moves,” Demina said.
Joe Cilic, a Palisades real estate broker, said deciding how to vote for mayor was difficult.
“Given that I partially blame [Bass] for the fires, I never saw myself voting for her, but the alternative was something worse,” he said. “I think that Nithya Rahman is incompetent. But more than that, her ideas are dangerous. And she voted multiple times against moving homeless encampments from schools. … She is not endorsed by her district. She wants to fire the police chief. She doesn’t have a plan and she’s against public safety. And so I didn’t have a great choice.”
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Cilic backed Spencer Pratt in the primaries, but said he also wished Rick Caruso—Bass’s opponent in 2022—had entered the race again.
Jeremy Elbaum, a chief commercial officer, likewise said Caruso was a candidate he would have preferred.
Elbaum voted for Raman, though not for the reason most voters typically support a candidate.
“In order to really hit rock bottom and maybe start to see some progress, you got to hit really the worst of the worst,” he said. “It’s like tanking in sports. So if you have this really bad candidate now and Raman, who’s even a little bit worse than Bass, maybe then we’ll start to wake up.”
Tom Doran, an electrician who has begun framing his rebuilt Palisades home, described his vote for Bass as a choice between “the devil you know versus the devil you don’t.”
“If I left it blank, it’s just one more vote for Raman,” he said. “Raman is a new breed and much worse. She’s against the police. She’s done nothing with the homeless, with the drug addicts.”
Robyn Sidoti, a stay-at-home mother in the Palisades, said she voted for Bass “hesitantly, having lost my house and all of the failures that happened after.”
Sidoti said she asked City Council member Traci Park—whom she and some friends viewed as a stronger choice for Los Angeles mayor—who had been most helpful to Palisades residents. Her answer was Bass.
“If anyone’s going to help us, I feel she will,” Sidoti said. “Karen Bass being more centrist would be more effective for the Palisades.”