DSA-backed Nithya Raman vows to oust police chief, slash homelessness but faces hostile City Council

Nithya Raman is preparing to take control of Los Angeles City Hall with promises to oust the LAPD chief, slash homelessness and overhaul billions in taxpayer spending , but the Democratic Socialists of America-backed mayor-elect faces a City Council where she has made plenty of enemies.The 45-year-old councilwoman inherits America’s second-largest city with 45,194 homeless residents, a depleted police force, mounting financial pressures and the 2028 Olympics less than two years away.On the campaign trail, Raman laid out an ambitious first 100-day agenda, promising to shake up City Hall’s leadership, put more police officers on the streets, cut red tape for struggling businesses and hold city department heads accountable for results.She pledged to appoint a chief operating officer and chief financial officer to oversee city operations and spending, along with a Palisades recovery czar to accelerate wildfire rebuilding and a financial executive to monitor Olympic costs.Raman also promised to establish a dedicated Hollywood film office to bring production jobs back to Los Angeles, allow restaurants to self-certify for outdoor dining and minor kitchen changes, and launch public dashboards tracking city departments’ successes and failures.Her public safety agenda calls for hiring more 911 operators, expanding unarmed crisis response teams citywide and shifting administrative work away from LAPD officers so they can concentrate on violent crime.But delivering those promises could prove difficult for a politician whose six years on the council were marked by bitter clashes with colleagues.Not one fellow councilmember endorsed her mayoral campaign, and she was stripped of her powerful Housing and Homelessness Committee chairmanship after entering the race.Councilwoman Imelda Padilla blasted Raman’s leadership, pointing to canceled meetings and hundreds of stalled motions.“It had started to feel less like a policymaking body and more like a scholastic seminar,” P...