THE HUTCHINSON REPORT: Bass will be reelected, but she faces many challenges

By Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Contributing Columnist

The two top contenders trying to oust Mayor Karen Bass from City Hall have one thing in common. They both have taken round-house shots at Bass for her alleged failures to deal with the range of issues from homelessness to public safety.

They are trying to make the case that they are more apt replacements for her at City Hall. Suspected MAGA booster and former reality star Spencer Pratt gave a Trumpian simplistic answer to the greatest and most worrisome issue: homelessness. As mayor, he says he will simply lock ’em up and rid the streets of them.

By contrast, City Councilwoman Nithya Raman took the classic progressive liberal stance on the issue. She would pour vast sums into affordable housing and an array of support services from mental health treatment to job training and placement to help the homeless.

Their respective pitches and radically different approaches obviously worked well in convincing enough voters to back them. That ensured that Bass would be in a runoff with one of them. But their fairly impressive showing was not a full-throated belief by many who voted for them that they would get the City Hall job done better than Bass.

In fact, it was as much a protest vote rather than belief that they had the answers to the crucial issues that bedevil Los Angeles. It could be nothing else since neither Pratt nor Raman could win any name recognition contest among voters.

There’s more. Many L.A. voters are absolutely convinced that L.A. is a ‘broken,” and “failed” city.” They say the city is listing badly. City Hall is dysfunctional. Homelessness, public safety, fiscal waste and mismanagement and a bloated, steadily rising and very-costly-to-taxpayers budget are chronic problems that seemingly continue to pile up.

There are a lot more voters who, though staunch Democrats, have no open or hidden ideological agenda. Yet they are angered and frustrated too. They are fed up with the malaise, the fog of government and the self-serving that has often enveloped the mayor’s office. The taint of corruption, cronyism, manipulation, scheming and secrecy has been an ugly trademark of the City Council. They have no hope that the City Council will reform itself.

Now along come Pratt and Raman. The MAGA guy and the Democratic socialist. One couldn’t make up a more glaring contrast in wanna-be mayors than these two if they had 100 years to try. Yet, they’re in the mayoral hunt. To more than a few voters they seem like the perennial breath of fresh air.

One, Pratt, has never held office. A guy who is not a career politician but a concerned citizen who is disgusted with traditional politics and politicians. In other words, the perennial man on the white horse who charges in to shake up the establishment and bring real change.

The other, Raman, who, while holding an office, still seems like the classic political outlier. One who was once a onetime firm ally and supporter of Mayor Bass then broke with her.

The crucial issue, as always, will be which of the three can actually deliver on the deluge of promises that they are making to solve the city’s mountainous problems. It’s a tough question with no easy answers.

The mayoral winner must craft and push the City Council to enact a solid land-use plan to rein in upscale development. That means taking checkbook politics out of the development process while ensuring the building and subsidizing more affordable housing.

Next is getting a handle on L.A.’s rampant sprawl that has turned freeways and streets into stalled parking lots for hours on end. The answer is the continued expansion of light transit, busways, traffic signal coordination and synchronization, traffic flow monitors at major thoroughfares and carpooling incentives.

Then there is the always thorny issue of misconduct by Los Angeles police officers. How a mayor manages it is perennially the issue that mayors walk a tightrope on.

The taint of corruption, cronyism, manipulation, scheming and secrecy has been an ugly trademark of the L.A. City Council. That must end. And the mayoral winner must not trust the City Council to reform itself.

That means clamping down on special interest deal-making in and outside City Hall, trimming a bloated city bureaucracy and sneaky tax increases that smack of old-fashioned political pork barreling.

Put bluntly, there must be no “for sale” sign on City Hall. A major key to ensuring the smooth, effective, resident-friendly operation of city government is tough, hard monitoring oversight and review, and accountability of city agencies.

The mayoral winner must hit the ground running. That requires political smarts, connections, ability and expertise to grapple effectively with L.A.’s colossal woes. Mayor Bass has already shown that she has the know-how and savvy no matter how many dispute that to accomplish that. The task of her challengers’ task is to prove they can do the same.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book is “Trump’s Obama Obsession” (Amazon ebook and Middle Passage Press). He also hosts the weekly news and issues commentary radio show “The Hutchinson Report” Wednesdays at 6 p.m. at ktymgospel.net and Facebook Livestreamed at facebook.com/earl.o.hutchinson.