As voters prepare to go to the polls early next month for the June 2 primary election, four mayoral candidates sat down with ABC7 this week for one-on-one interviews.
As Los Angeles voters prepare to go to the polls early next month for the June 2 primary election, several mayoral candidates sat down with ABC7's Josh Haskell this week for one-on-one interviews about their political platforms and their respective campaigns.
As part of her reelection campaign, Mayor Karen Bass is promising to make the city safer and more affordable while positioning herself as a candidate who will take on the Trump administration.
"The fact that homelessness is down 17.5% -- two years in a row -- it's the first time we've seen a decline in street homelessness," Bass said. "Around the country, homelessness went up 18%. Incumbent Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is running for a second term, and she joined Eyewitness News to talk about what she's accomplished while in office and what she plans to tackle with another four years.
"Crime is down -- 60-year low in terms of our homicide rate," the mayor said. "We go through spikes here and there, and when we do, we respond aggressively. " About 40% of people who have participated in Inside Safe, the mayor's homeless program, have returned to the street. Asked what is being done to address that, Bass replied: "Well, first of all, the No. 1 thing that has been lacking is the services.
So, once we get the people off the street, making sure we address why they fell on the street to begin with.
" She noted that "sixty-percent of the people in Inside Safe have remained housed. I think it's really important to build on that success, but what L.A. needs to do in the next four years, that I plan to accomplish, is building out a more cost-effective system to deal with people when they get off the street, and not put them into permanent housing immediately.
"Rae Chen Huang is deputy director of Housing Now California, a coalition of over 150 organizations that fight tenant displacement. If elected, would be Los Angeles' first Asian-American mayor. Huang has big ideas to reshape L.A. that start with reimagining public safety. The first thing Huang said she would do fire LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell.
"So much of our city budget goes to LAPD, even though, while we've seen a drop in crime, while the numbers of LAPD go down, we continue to fund this community, or this particular organization that doesn't actually make people feel safe or secure. " Tech entrepreneur and candidate for Los Angeles mayor Adam Miller joined Eyewitness News to discuss his plans for the city and make his case for why he's the best person to fix its problems.
Huang said she would expand crisis response services instead of sending just police officers to an incident - something the city is already doing.
"Housing is a human right, that's what I believe," Huang said. "Housing should be for people, not for profit, and so we need to make housing a real reality for most folks because a lot of people can't stay stably housed. "Nonprofit executive and entrepreneur Adam Miller describes himself as "a lifelong Democrat with working-class roots who went on to build global organizations.
" Miller is not the only candidate in the race who has never held election office, but he says he's the only one who can turn L.A. around. "We're wasting a lot of money," he said. "We waste an inordinate amount of time. We're just not operating efficiently, but it make sense because the people running the government have never operated before.
They don't know how to optimize budgets and maximize resources -- and neither do any of the other candidates. I've been doing it for decades.
" Affordability, housing and safety are just a few of Rae Huang's priorities for the City of Los Angeles. The community organizer and mayoral candidate joined Eyewitness News to make the case to voters ahead of the June primary. Miller is not widely known across the city -- unlike Spencer Pratt, another candidate who is also running as a City Hall outsider.
"Spencer Pratt should have our sympathy. He lost his home," Miller said.
"He has very justified outrage, and I think a lot of Angelenos share that anger. The problem is, it's not just about anger, it's about results. We're not going to be able to turn the city around based just on talking. We have to have somebody that knows how to get things done.
"Reality TV star Spencer Pratt was scheduled to be interviewed on Wednesday. His team confirmed the day and time weeks earlier, but on Tuesday ABC7 was told he could not come to our studio due to a scheduling conflict. We offered to do the interview virtually, but his team also declined that option. Los Angeles City Council member Nithya Raman says she made her last-minute campaign announcement for mayor after growing frustrated with not being able to help her constituents.
"We don't have to pick our broken status quo, and we don't have to pick a MAGA Republican," Raman said. "We can actually pick a different path forward. " For six years, Raman has served as the councilmember for District 4. Once a close ally of Bass, Raman is running a campaign critical of Bass's leadership.
"In 2023, the mayor signed a new contract with PD that gave the police union more money than the city even had, which directly led to a significant budget deficit that we had to deal with last year -- over a billion-dollar budget deficit that then resulted in worse public-safety outcomes, fewer officers than we had before, that we were paying more money for," Raman said. "Public safety is one of the most important things for every single family.
" Nithya Raman has served in the Los Angeles City Council District 4 since 2020, but now her sights are set on a different seat at City Hall. The councilmember joined Eyewitness News to discuss her mayoral candidacy. Former CA gubernatorial candidate Stephen Cloobeck arrested in WeHo in investigation involving modelSoCal can expect cool to mild conditions Friday as a warmup makes its way into the region
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