Mayor Bass reveals the State of the City 2025
The council chambers in City Hall have seen some contentious meetings over the last several years and a lot of promises have echoed off of those walls. On April 21, Mayor Karen Bass tried to paint a picture of hope and change. “Homelessness is down and crime is down, specifically violent crime,” said the mayor emphatically to the invite-only crowd. A writer for another local publication whispered to me, “Homelessness is down because they stopped counting.” Whether that is a fact or not, I don’t know, but perception becomes reality. Many of us have been touched by crime in the last year and one can simply drive under most freeway overpasses and still see signs of mass homelessness.
The mayor emphasized, “The recovery in the Palisades is on track to be the fastest in California history.” Having driven through the Palisades recently, it seems the recovery is a long way from being complete. She did announce that the permitting process should be much quicker because of a self-certification program that will reduce the time and tedious paperwork needed to get the rebuilding process started. She also asked the City Council to waive all plan check and permit fees. All of these actions will make the process easier, however, until we see them in
CRIME AND HOMELESSNESS are down, our mayor said.
action we will have to reserve judgment. The mayor hoped these new guidelines could be used throughout the city to make building all housing easier. Again, that could be a double-edged sword for some neighborhoods trying to protect their single-family-residence zoning.
The mayor was proud of the newly proposed project of the Los Angeles Convention Center, the L.A. Rams’ permanent headquarters and training facility in the San Fernando Valley, the gentrification of the Crenshaw District with Destination Crenshaw and the continued upgrade of LAX.
The mayor said she is proposing to Sacramento a large increase in tax incentives for filming to remain in L.A.—programs that will add jobs and revenues for the city.
Mayor Bass spoke about the 2028 Olympics and said she is “starting a program called ShineLA (mayor.lacity.gov/ShineLA) to activate a different neighborhood every weekend…[in an effort] to have the residents get our city ready, proud and cleaned for the legions of tourists who will be attending the Games.” She wants the city to come together as we did when the Dodgers won the World Series where the parade was a unifying event for many neighborhoods.
Earlier in the day the proposed budget was announced to close the gap on the city’s billion dollar budget shortfall. Mayor Bass touched on the fact there will be roughly 1,600 layoffs in various city departments. The shortfall is due to receipts having come in much lower than forecasted, and liabilities are going up. The proposed budget makes up for the shortfall with the elimination of some agencies coupled with the layoffs and finished with a plea to Sacramento to give some much needed additional funding to the city. That plea may or may not fall on deaf ears.
While no one would argue with the sentiment of the State of the City address, whether the goals can be accomplished or not is the pressing question. And, judging by the various responses heard from other attendees, the jury is still out. Many left City Hall with more questions than answers and some with a great deal of skepticism.
Category: News
