LA mayoral debate: Karen Bass, Nithya Raman both lose

LA Mayor Karen Bass and Councilmember Nithya Raman faced off in the first mayoral debate of the general election, and both managed to earn terrible grades.For 90 minutes at the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association, the two attacked each other, interrupted each other, and told each other what a bad job they were doing.It was hard to disagree.At one point, even the moderator lost patience.During an exchange on homelessness, he scolded both candidates.“The audience doesn’t know who to believe, and they don’t have a lot of confidence that either of you have a definitive plan.”Ouch.Neither candidate seemed to have any new ideas for solving LA’s problems.

Neither candidate seemed up to the challenges of the office.Mayor Bass spoke vaguely about transforming the system for dealing with homelessness, and about creating a new central economic development authority, as if she hadn’t been in office for four years.Raman managed to step on one rake after another.When Bass declared, “You have missed several thousand votes because you won’t show up to work,” Raman, amazingly, said, “Yeah.”When a resident asked what the candidates would do about the fact that street vendors are outcompeting brick-and-mortar restaurants by evading regulations and taxes, Raman talked about how great vendors are.Bass didn’t miss the opportunity to land a punch: “I do not think that you should have a food vendor in front of a restaurant, period,” she said, to applause.

Bizarrely, Raman also brought up the fact that she had once endorsed Bass.She failed to explain why she had changed her mind.The only positive point the challenger managed to put across was the fact that homeless encampments had declined in her own council district.

But Raman struggled to explain why she had voted against a city ordinance banning homeless encampments near schools and day care centers.There was evident frustration in the room against Raman, who represents Sherman Oaks as part of Council Distr...