Editorial: Transcript of Karen Bass’ interview with the editorial board

The following is a transcript of Karen Bass’ meeting with the Los Angeles Times’ editorial board.

Kerry Cavanaugh

We know you — but tell us a little bit more about why you decided to run for mayor, and how your history prepares you for this.

Karen Bass

Absolutely. Well, first of all, thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. And you know that I am born and raised in Los Angeles, and grew up during a time of great social upheaval, unrest. And so I decided that I wanted to spend my life fighting for social and economic justice from a very young age, and that has taken me in many different places. When my generation was growing up, it wasn’t a living. You had a job and then you did this in your spare time.

So, I’ve worked in the medical field; and working in LA County’s emergency room, and dealing with the unhoused population, dealing with people who suffer from mental illness, substance abuse — I had found myself very, very concerned in the ‘80s and ‘90s about the violence that was happening. And so I went to South Central and started Community Coalition in 1990 to address the crisis that we were facing at the time. And a lot of what I feel we’re experiencing today is reminiscent of the 1990s. So, I started Community Coalition to come up with ways to address crime and violence that didn’t lead to everybody just getting arrested — but was looking at underlying health and social and economic issues that were driving the problems at the time.

I was at Community Coalition for 14 years; worked very, very closely with city hall as well as the county on land use issues and also social issues like foster care and substance abuse. On the county level, I ran for office. Went to the statehouse, continued to work on some of those same issues. My last two years I served as speaker and wound up in the middle of another crisis — which was the States’ great economic crisis, the Great Recession. And then I had to lead in a very, very tough situation there. I had to make very tough decisions, but I was able to bring Democrats and Republicans together and save the state from defaulting.

Moved on to Congress. I’ve been in Congress — I’m in my sixth term now — and it was a big decision to not run again. It wasn’t like I was tired of Congress. It wasn’t like I was tired of the partisanship. It had been that way since I was there. But when, to me, the crisis metastasized here — and I often use a medical analogy if you don’t mind, which I’ll explain a little later but — 40,000 people on our streets; 1,500 of them dying in 2020. And my concern that the electorate, the city, is in a mood where people are angry, people are frustrated, demoralized; just want to see the problem go away — and to me, when you are in those kinds of situations, that’s when I believe very, very bad policy decisions can be made. The city can be torn apart. And I wanted to bring my experience in relationships on the federal level, on the state level, on the city and the county level; and then just the grassroots experience of building coalitions and collaborations across race, class, ideology, geography — to run. And that’s what led to my decision. And it was a big, tough decision.

And I also didn’t spend the last two years contemplating running. So, I really started thinking about this in August, and then decided to run and launch my campaign in September.

Kerry Cavanaugh

You said something that I think was very interesting, which is that this is a moment where the electorate wants to see the problem — and I’m going to assume you mean homelessness — just go away. So, how do you as mayor, convince them otherwise? How do you present an alternative vision that addresses their concern? And doesn’t just make people go away?

Karen Bass

Well, you know what? I mean, I am very hopeful that the campaign can serve to take a major step forward in that. In other words, you know, working with people so that they understand what the problems are and who the population is. So for example, one of the things that’s really distressing to me is that the unhoused population is described as a monolith. And now it’s even become pretty negative — like they’re people that are just using drugs, want to use drugs, want to stay on the street, don’t want to come in —as opposed to seeing the population, and I believe there’s a lot of different categories of people who are unhoused.

So, let me just describe for you that after Proposition HHH was passed, my congressional district — I represent from USC to UCLA, okay, so I cover a lot on the Westside — and, you know, my constituents on the Westside were very clear: after the proposition had been passed, if anybody even thought about building anything in their area, they were going to sue.

So, what I started doing is I started working with the constituents. And we have what we call the congressional council —and we took a group of people from the Westside, right from that area, and put them through an education process so that they can understand the issue. We brought in academics, we took them to Skid Row, we took them to the county — so that they could see that, number one, these were human beings. These were Angelenos. People were there for very specific reasons and opening up our neighborhoods to other Angelenos is not going to be the end of the world. As a matter of fact, in some of the Westside areas, they already have programs and housing programs they don’t even know are there. But the knee-jerk reaction was to reject.

So I did that because when developments were going to happen on the Westside, I wanted to make sure that the constituents wouldn’t just do a knee-jerk reaction and be against it. And I think that you can organize a campaign that’s inspirational, that’s hopeful, that brings people together, and that shows people there are solutions. And then at the end of the day, if you just want the problem to go away, all you’re going to do is move them from one area to another.

Kerry Cavanaugh

You know, you’ve spent so many years in politics in Sacramento and in D.C. What makes you think that you’d be the right person to be an executive in the city?

Karen Bass

Well, one — the executive experience in the state, especially in the middle of the crisis that we had — I am experienced at dealing with crises. The deep relationships and access that I have on the federal level and the state level I think can be transferred here because we need assistance from both. And then my years spent in the city. So, you know, I actually ran for office a little later in life than most folks — so the majority of my life was not spent in office, majority of my life was spent working on a community level. And I think the combination of all of that, and especially where we are right now, does leave me suited to come back to L.A. Not come back — I never left, I’m here every weekend.

Carla Hall

Hi Congresswoman, I know that you’re a big believer in permanent housing for homeless people. But you know, you just said that there’s this whole resistance to anything — housing, shelter, and neighborhoods. HHH will eventually build out about 8,000 units — but we need more. So what do you think? How many more do we need? I think you have a number, and it’s escaping me right now. I mean, how many more units could you see being built and how would you get them built faster? And I think you’re still going to find, even if you take people around to look at, you know, homeless people — I think you’re still going to find a lot of resistance.

Karen Bass

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. So I mean, we all know how much we need — the plan that you’re talking about is 15,000. That’s 15,000 in addition to what’s already being built. And I do think that we need temporary [housing] — obviously we need permanent, we need permanent supportive services — you know, we know that, and I think that we are going to have to do everything, all of the above. And so for example, I know that there’s publicly owned property; it’s owned by the city, the state, the county, the federal government. We need to involve the private sector.

One of the reasons, as I know — you well know — that it costs so much is because of all of the delays. The idea that you want to build affordable housing or you want to address the crisis right now and you have the stand in line right along with somebody that’s going to expand their porch —so we need to have dedicated fast track. And you know, I have compared it to a natural disaster. I mean, when we had the earthquake — when you have a disaster, you waive things, you move things quickly, you don’t sit around and send it through the normal process.

That’s why I always use this analogy, a medical analogy, because of my background. I feel that over the years we have treated this issue like a chronic disease. You know, if you have high blood pressure, it’s never going away; you’re going to be taking medicine all your life, you’re not going to cure it. And I think that has been our attitude up until now, hopefully, and it metastasized — it got completely out of control.

I mean, LAHSA [Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority] was started when? In 1993? At Community Coalition we were talking about taking over motels in 1993, and it took the pandemic in order for that to happen.

I think the entire mentality that we approach this problem has to be different — we have to look at it like it’s an emergency. And I know everybody’s calling for, you know, declaring a state of emergency. I would do that too, but on a local level, that’s really not enough — I think that there needs to be federal involvement and state involvement. Now in order for there to be a federal state of emergency, the governor has to declare that. Our governor at this point, does not want to do that, or he has been reluctant to do that. But what about if a group of mayors got together?

I’ve been talking to the mayors from Sacramento and San Francisco. Yesterday I spoke to the mayor of Portland because he was going along the same lines. And if a group of mayors got together, went to the White House — I’ve certainly been talking to the White House about this for HUD [U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development] and HHS [U.S. Department of Health and Human Services]. They need to waive some of the regulations on vouchers; we need to waive regulations in HHS around substance abuse and mental health. If you approach it with that kind of mentality, I think we can expedite the building, we can expedite the siting.

You know, when I was in Sacramento, I remember there was a stadium — you might remember this, it was going to be in the City of Industry. You remember when we were all fighting for an NFL team? And so, once a year the NFL would mess with us and say “Well, if you award us all of this fast tracking, we’ll move to your area.” And then they moved someplace else. So I watched us — and I didn’t just participate in it, I was in charge — waive all sorts of things to bring the stadium in. We can do these things when we want to. We’ve just never viewed this problem with that same type of urgency. And that’s why I think it is a public health, public safety emergency.

You know, the experience I have in Congress —working overseas and going to refugee camps and being in conflict areas — our government can do lots of things when we want to. And so, the question is, how do you mobilize on a federal level and on a state level to get these things done? And for it to be seen as an emergency of people dying on the street?

Mariel Garza

Congresswoman, I just wanted to ask you your opinion of the approach that the city council has taken recently when it comes to encampments — which is to list the encampment that they want cleaned up, and then, you know systematically go through that. What’s your opinion on that approach? And if you don’t like it, what is your suggestion?

Karen Bass

Well see, you know what I don’t like is, I think it’s still in the same vein. With this we have to have a regional approach. Obviously, we have to have a city approach — we have to have a regional approach too. And so just having the council districts saying, “Take this encampment and that encampment.” It’s still the chronic disease approach. It’s not the, you know, I think that still allows it to —

Mariel Garza

What would you do? Would you tell them to stop doing that, and say, “I have another plan?” Or would you add a component?

Karen Bass

First of all, if I have the honor of being elected mayor, I’m very clear about what it is to work with a legislative body, what it is to work with the council. I can’t go in and tell them this is what they’re gonna do. I mean, I served as speaker, I had to get people to vote. You have to organize the body, you have to build the consensus for the body to move, right? And so, I think what I would do would really be to try to bring in a regional approach, a city approach, and a county approach to say that we have to have a strategic plan that looks at the entire area. I probably wouldn’t stop them from doing what they’re doing; I wouldn’t propose that. But what I would propose is, because you know, what’s real is that the election — the new mayor doesn’t take over for quite a while, so this is going to continue. I think — oh, go ahead. I’m sorry.

Mariel Garza

What does that regional approach look like? The reason I ask this is because I’m sure you know — many, many voters in the city are really just at their wits end. That’s why they’re haranguing their council members saying, clean up this. There have been promises from City Hall: oh we’re going to take this, we’re going to have a great plan. And we haven’t seen anything yet. So what I’m asking is, what are the nuts and bolts? What are you going to do? What are you going to offer to voters?

Karen Bass

Sure, and so let me be clear — I would not attempt to stop what they’re doing. But what I would attempt to do is to bring the city together and the county together, and say we need a strategic plan for how we are going to address this on a regional level.

We declare a state of emergency, we bring in federal and state resources, we bring in the private sector — so that we can begin building in a rapid fashion. And in terms of how much, I mean, one — I would never sit here and say we’re going to build 40,000 units in two years. We know that this is going to take a while. But I do think that voters and people would be a lot more tolerant if they saw very specific actions. So while they’re using this council-wide approach, I would still be trying to drive another approach that is bigger — that says that we need to look at adaptive reuse; we need to look at publicly owned property; we need to bring in the private sector. And what I would like to do is to get the private sector to develop a fund so we could have bridge funding. Because you know one of the reasons why it’s so expensive is because it takes a long time to access the public money. But it’s about mobilizing and harnessing all of the resources in the city and getting people on the same page.

So while we’re doing the piecemeal approach, I would look for a much bigger way to deal with this. And I would continue to try to convince the governor to call on the federal government.

Laurel Rosenhall

I’m sorry, just to clarify on that — so I thought you said that you didn’t feel like Newsom was amenable to the emergency declaration. And so you were talking about going to the president instead. But it requires you to do both then? Get both of them on board?

Karen Bass

All of the above. I did say that — I did say that I know today he does not want to declare a state of emergency. But I also said that I would still try to work with him, hoping that he would do that. But I’m not going to stop there. I mean, I can talk to the White House now, which is what I have been doing. I think we have to have all of the above is what I’m describing — I don’t think there is just one lane. And then, you know, obviously I’m running, and if I am fortunate enough to win, it’s months away.

But what I’m trying to do now is work with HHS, work with HUD, because in the last couple of years with the Biden administration, we actually have an administration we can work with. The four years of the Trump administration — they wouldn’t speak to Democrats. I mean, that was essentially the order. And obviously, they weren’t concerned about this issue.

We have the Domestic Policy Council; we have an administration that says they’re committed to equity that says they want to address issues like poverty. So if that’s what the administration wants to do, how could you not take up this issue? So talking to the HUD secretary and saying, can you waive some requirements and regulations on the vouchers? Because we have the vouchers, [but] we have a hard time using some of the vouchers. Sometimes we need them to increase the dollar amount, we need them to combine, we need them to not exclude people. We need them to make the process easier. This is stuff I’m trying to work on now.

Kerry Cavanaugh

You know the city has benefited greatly from federal funding, but that money’s going to run out and the next mayor is going to have to deal with a significant budget challenge. As mayor, how are you going to balance the priorities? What are you going to pay for first? What are your top priorities for funding?

Karen Bass

Well, first of all — yes, I know that federal money is going to run out. We will be fortunate if the state continues to be flush, and the state is quite flush. And we better hope that it’s that way at the end of the year, which it should be. The way the forecasts look, it should be that the state is still flush, and we’re going to need those resources.

The first job of the mayor is definitely to keep the city safe, and given that we’ve been talking about homelessness, but we also know that people are very, very concerned about the uptick in crime — some people will propose cutting the police budget. I think you know — I don’t propose that. We have to make sure that we can maintain the resources that we have now. But again, even if the federal government is not going to send the money like they have been in terms of the rescue package — one of the things that I discovered a couple of years ago is that the mayor’s office doesn’t have a development department. I want to create a development department and hire staff that do nothing but look for money.

So I also discovered that L.A. leaves money on the table; L.A. doesn’t apply for all of the money that is available on the federal side, but there’s also private philanthropy as well. And when it comes to some of the programs that are typically cut in a budget crisis, I think we need to be proactive and make sure that those programs are not cut.

Kerry Cavanaugh

What do you mean by those types of programs?

Karen Bass

So some of the social service programs, GRYD [Gang Reduction and Youth Development]. You know, in talking about public safety, we often just talk about law enforcement, but I am a big believer and big supporter in prevention programs and I don’t believe that we have invested very much in that.

So we have GRYD, we have a community safety partnership with the police department. Those programs, to me, need to be greatly expanded, but not citywide. I don’t think either of those programs need to be expanded citywide. Those programs need to be located in areas that are dealing with the problems — the problem of gang violence, the problem of crime. Those programs need to be targeted for those areas; and those programs often suffer.

So, after being in Congress for 12 years — they took away earmarks, they brought them back. They’re now called special projects, community projects. And so, I applied for 10 projects at the beginning of last year — running for mayor was the furthest thing from my mind. But last week, the projects were funded and the projects that I applied for covered homelessness, substance abuse, violence prevention, the community intervention workers — the programs that are the ones that are often cut back. Senior services.

Terry Tang

On public safety you have proposed, I believe, adding another 200 police officers to the LAPD. Why do you think the LAPD needs that? And how would they be deployed differently?

Karen Bass

So what I proposed was addressing attrition, and so attrition — 200, 300 — it fluctuates. So I propose right now — the city budget is budgeted for 9,700 officers, and right now depending on attrition, it fluctuates between 200 and 300 down — so that’s what I proposed doing, hiring the officers that we could afford now.

The other thing that I proposed was hiring civilians. So, there are some neighborhoods as I have gone around in this campaign — and I would say I’ve zoomed around more than gone around — there are some neighborhoods that want to see an increased police presence. And in order for them to see an increased police presence quickly, the quickest way to do that is to hire civilians and have some of the officers where it’s appropriate — have some of the officers get back out into the street. And where they would be located would be those neighborhoods that want to see them located there.

You know, some neighborhoods — that’s not what is desired. I don’t think it would be a big cry from South L.A. South L.A. wants to see police be more accountable, but they don’t necessarily want to see hundreds of police officers.

Terry Tang

So how do you respond to criminal justice advocacy groups that have been very supportive of you, generally, but are distressed about enhancing the police department? Or increasing it, or the way you framed it is you’re bringing it up to 9,700; back-filling in the vacancies — but they want to see the city move in a very different direction?

Karen Bass

Well, I can respond to that. And that’s nothing new by the way. This is a difference that I’ve had with folks even going back to 1990. When I started Community Coalition and wanted to deal with crime and wanted to deal with drugs, there were people who were critical of me then, because they didn’t feel that was important and I did.

I think that if you are experiencing an uptick in crime — and we are — that it has to be addressed, and you can’t ignore that. But the bulk of my effort, the bulk of my time, the bulk of my history has been on prevention. And I think you can have safety and justice at the same time.

So when I led the effort around George Floyd Justice In Policing Act, the police reform bill, a lot of people were critical of that too. That bill put hundreds of millions of dollars toward policing to pay for different reforms. They also put money in communities to reenvision public safety, which is something that I would like to do in L.A.I would like to start an office of community safety — which is separate from the police department — that looks at other ways that neighborhoods need to be safe.

I’m proposing in the first year that we bring in experts, and that the mayor’s office leads a citywide effort where we go to different neighborhoods to say, what is it that you need to feel safe? And that at the end of the first year, we have a vision of community safety in Los Angeles, and then we move to implement it.

Now some things I know right away, because, you know, I spent the bulk of my time in South L.A. So, I know what is going on there, which is why I propose projects like GRYD, the community intervention workers, the community safety partnership — and if you want, I don’t want to go off track, but if you want, I could talk for a minute about the intervention work and what that’s about, if that’s of interest.

Kerry Cavanaugh

You’re talking about a change in intervention work that you’d like to see?

Karen Bass

I’m talking about really expanding the work, investing in the work that we have now; but I don’t believe it’s truly been invested in, it’s very unstable.

Kerry Cavanaugh

You mean what the mayor has done with GRYD and those programs that have been created in recent years?

Karen Bass

Yes, some of those ideas for those programs came out of work we were doing at Community Coalition, that was then studied and replicated and expanded on; and these are, you know, evidence-based programs on how to intervene and prevent violence.

By the way, the Biden administration is proposing billions of dollars in community intervention, violence intervention projects. I think L.A. should aggressively go after that money. So the point is, is that you need the police when there is crime, but I’m focused on addressing crime when it happens — but I want to prevent the future crimes, and so we never invest in that. We just lock people up. And 85% of the people that get locked up, come home and we’re not prepared for them. And so some of those people are intense right now.

So addressing violence and crime before it happens and prevents it is not something most politicians like to do. Because you’re not really rewarded for something that doesn’t happen. And so politicians are more inclined to look for getting tough and passing something that they can say, this is what I did to address crime.

I would rather say, I just finished raising a few million dollars for violence prevention projects.

Kerry Cavanaugh

On LAPD, would you retain Chief Moore?

Karen Bass

I couldn’t answer that. I’m not against Chief Moore. But what I believe, and I don’t just believe this about the chief, I believe this about a lot of areas in the city — he should be evaluated. He should be evaluated — his tenure — because I believe his five years is up. Isn’t it up next year? So I would evaluate it, I would evaluate where we were in the city when he started, and where we are now — the accountability measures.

I’m concerned about the officer-involved deaths and shootings and the disciplinary boards — or I should say lack of disciplinary boards is very, very disturbing.

Carla Hall

You said something about the private sector being involved in helping make a dent in homelessness?

Karen Bass

Yes.

Carla Hall

What’s the role of the private sector?

Karen Bass

Well, I think there’s a couple of roles. One, what I was mentioning is, I would sure like to have a fund that the private sector would contribute to.

Carla Hall

So philanthropy?

Karen Bass

I mean, I’m not thinking of it as philanthropy. Philanthropy absolutely could play a role, especially the social impact investing. I can see that, but I’m talking about individuals as well as companies who are all concerned about the problem of homelessness — so contribute to a fund. Let’s raise hundreds of millions of dollars so projects can get bridge funding while they’re waiting to go through the laborious process in the state of qualifying — whether it’s the tax credits or the whole, you know, array of funding streams that you have to apply for and the process that you have to go through — when you’re trying to build affordable housing and supportive housing, permanent supportive housing.

Carla Hall

You’re right, like part of what takes a long time is that affordable developers have to apply for grants and tax credits and things like that. That takes forever. Would it be that you could replace some of those funding sources with this fund?

Karen Bass

Well, I mean, that would be nice, but it could be a bridge. They could be paid back, but just so that it is not delayed. You know what — to me, it’s like all hands on deck; all of the things that we can do to fast track this.

I certainly would want to have the leadership in my office, one individual that just reports to me. I would like all of the departments that are involved to be at the table. I would like to fast track the planning, the building, and safety process. All of that stuff, to me, needs to be expedited. And I think that the bridge funding is one thing that delays it. We know there’s other things that delay it too. And I think there certainly has been state legislation to help fast track, but there needs to be other state legislation. That’s why I use the example of the stadium — when we want to get things done, we can get them done. I just don’t believe there has been the urgency around this issue.

Tony Barboza

I have a question about your environmental priorities. Can you describe for us your agenda for addressing climate change in Los Angeles? And can you give us a sense for whether you’d continue with the goals and targets that Mayor Garcetti has established under the Green New Deal? Are there things that you would pull back, or accelerate, or change in some way? Thanks.

Karen Bass

So let me just say that, whether we’re talking about homelessness or any of the other issues — to me, one of the core problems is profound income inequality, the gap between the rich and the poor in the city. And so I want to look at every angle in which to get jobs, open small businesses, and deal with equity issues.

So yes, I would continue the goals that the city has put forward. I would look at the port, the electrification of the port, we know that the port is one of the main drivers. I would look at electrification of port operations. I would go again, to the federal government and say, “Hey, I mean 40% of the goods in the country come through our ports. You guys need to invest more.”

Again, this is an administration that is committed to climate change. They need to invest more in the electrification. Now that the cost of electric vehicles have gone down, I want to see EV stations in a lot of different places so that other communities can have electric cars. But I raised equity and I raised jobs because I was in Sacramento when AB32 was passed — and it was, you know, the big greenhouse gas legislation — and that created a whole lot of millionaires and created a lot of jobs, a lot of businesses.

So while we’re moving toward our climate change goals, can we think of small businesses? Can we think of jobs? Can we think of neighborhoods that are lacking the jobs? Can we think of businesses that are women-owned, minority-owned? Can we get them involved in this so that they can actually make money off of it too?

So when I think of income inequality, again, I want to look at every aspect. Yes, I’d like to have a deputy mayor that focuses on business, that convenes the legacy businesses, entertainment, healthcare, manufacturing — but also focuses on small businesses. But I want to view things with a lens toward: how are we addressing income inequality? How are we addressing equity? That make sense?

Tony Barboza

Yeah. Do you support a ban on natural gas hookups — like speaking of electrification — that would apply to new buildings?

Karen Bass

Yes, yes, yes. I saw that. I actually had not been familiar about it until I read about it — the Times editorial a few days ago, I thought that was quite innovative.

Tony Barboza

And then could you tell us at all about what you would do to ensure reliable water supply for L.A. during the time of drought?

Karen Bass

Yeah, well, we are just receiving more cutbacks now. And conservation, I mean, I think L.A. has done very well with conservation, but we need to continue to move further. You know, a few years ago in the drought when people were establishing drought resistant landscaping — I think is good, I think we need to continue with that. Although I do think there were some boondoggles along the way with that last effort, and we probably need to look back at that and figure out how to do it better.

But again, I would still view that from an equity angle too — and neighborhoods that could afford to do that and neighborhoods that can’t.

Kerry Cavanaugh

I mean, I don’t want to have you bash on Garcetti, but can you talk about what you think he’s done well and what he’s struggled with? And what perhaps you would do differently from the way he’s managed the city?

Karen Bass

I think that he’s done a lot of things well. I think he’s positioned our city to receive major, major events coming up — I mean, obviously it’s the Olympics, everybody says that. But there’s several other ones too, that I think are going to be very, very important for our city. And hopefully, it’ll be a positive push on us in terms of addressing some of the other issues that we were talking about, as opposed to a negative one — like we got to get rid of these people because the U.S. Open is coming. I don’t want to see that. But maybe we have to fast track. That’s a reason why we have to fast track things — is because we need to get people housed as opposed to: we need to have them disappear.

I think that moving us forward on transportation issues, the national role he’s played, climate change, the national and international role he’s played — and what I would do differently is what we’ve been talking about. We have got to view this as an emergency. It has to be viewed as an emergency, and I don’t think that happened.

Mariel Garza

So, I wondered if you have thought about the unique and weird dilemma for the city street vendors, and if you have a solution to legitimize or to somehow bring them out of this weird legal limbo that so many have been stuck in?

Karen Bass

I’m not sure — the street vendors that are selling everything? Or food? Everything?

Mariel Garza

Mostly food. You know, there’s also the subcategory of people who are selling things, all sorts of things. But I’m mostly thinking about the food street vendors.

Karen Bass

For me, my concern about it is really from a health point of view. And that’s what I would like — would be to focus on the health aspects of that, and then trying to get the vendors in a situation where they’re not necessarily on the street. And I’m not exactly sure, you know, what that might be. Maybe that’s a place where there’s a lot of different — you know there’s the Mercado. Are you familiar with the Mercado in South L.A.? That might be an example, because a lot of those people there, I could see as street vendors, but they’re not on the street. They’re inside. And it’s a bit more of a controlled environment.

So that’s what I worry about. So how do we provide technical assistance and capacity building to folks that are doing street vending.

Kerry Cavanaugh

There was a news story a while back about USC and you getting a degree. This came at a time when the school was under a lot of scrutiny for the way it was charging some students exorbitant fees for an online degree, while giving free degrees to folks who are high profile like yourself. Can you address that concern? And was there injustice in that program?

Karen Bass

Sure, and let me just back up and tell you a little bit about my USC history. So I’ve been affiliated with USC — I went there in ‘82, and I joined the faculty, I think, around ‘86, and worked for about 15 years. Actually it was more than that, maybe it was closer to 20 years.

So when you’re a member of the faculty, you can go to school tuition free. And when I first enrolled in school — and I’ll explain why I went to school in a minute — but when I first enrolled in school, I didn’t think anything of it. I enrolled in the school of public administration, because I assumed I had this benefit. And it turned out that they had changed the benefit and it no longer applied after you left — you had to be a full-time faculty member. And so when I found that out, I went back to Congress and said, well I guess I can’t get the degree.

And then Marilyn Flynn called and offered the MSW, and so I went and accepted it. It didn’t occur to me that it was something that was that out of line because of my long-standing relationship, and because I had been on faculty and actually thought I had that benefit.

Now let me just explain why I went to school in the first place. I’ve worked — back to Community Coalition — worked on child welfare and trying to reform the child welfare system at the county level. And when I went up to the statehouse on the state level, and when I went to Congress, I realized that I did not understand the country. And so I wanted to legislate without having total reliance on lobbyists, I wanted to have my own core of knowledge. And so I was going to go after public administration to study the child welfare system.

When she [Marilyn Flynn] offered an MSW, I said, fine, I can accomplish the same thing I want to do there. So I went back to school to get that degree to help me be a better legislator in the child welfare space. Again, because of the context of my relationship with USC, I didn’t see it as out of the ordinary.

Now, just to be absolutely sure, I asked for an ethics opinion, because I most certainly didn’t want to do anything that was crossing the line in Congress, regardless of what my historic relationship had been with USC.

And then I’ve always promoted USC and UCLA, and have always had a relationship with both schools. So even back at Community Coalition, we always had MSW interns. I have MSW interns in my office today, from both schools.

So both schools, and other schools, always invite me to speak and talk to their students, or host their students, or their faculty, or their boards in D.C. So I didn’t see it as out of the ordinary at all.

Mariel Garza

I know not everything that a mayor does is big, even in a city as big as Los Angeles. A lot of it is boring, the nuts and bolts stuff, but it’s sort of the stuff that people expect. You know, picking up trash, filling the potholes, keeping streets clean and traffic going. There’s a sense among Angelenos, a lot of them, that things have broken down in the last few years. And I wonder if you have given any thought to how you are going to approach these kinds of nuts and bolts — city things that are not fun, but they got to get done?

Karen Bass

Well you know, the one that sticks out to me — that’s the most dramatic to me, is graffiti. I mean, it’s just totally out of control, it’s like it was many years ago. But I view problems like that as an opportunity.

And so if you look at the graffiti, especially on the highway — those are jobs, those are jobs for young people. You have to be careful though, you have to have security to make sure that they’re safe removing graffiti. But I would use those so-called mundane jobs as ways to increase community involvement, as ways to increase community investment, creating that spirit. And I think a mayor does do that; can do that.

You can create a spirit of the city coming together and solving its problems, as opposed to viewing all the problems are going to be solved by 15 members of the council, a mayor, and five supervisors. If we continue along that road, I think that is very demoralizing to people — because truth be told, 15 [council members], 5 [supervisors], and 1 [mayor] are not going to be able to solve all the problems. You have to have people’s buy in, people’s investment, and I would argue, people’s participation.

Kerry Cavanaugh

Excellent. Well, folks any last questions before we transition to the Q&A?

Mariel Garza

Oh yeah, like five million questions. A quick one: is there a big city mayor — doesn’t have be in L.A., but anywhere in the country — who you really admire and they’ve taken the sort of approach to being a mayor that you would want to take?

Karen Bass

Well, you know — one mayor I forgot to mention — I’ve gotten to know Lori Lightfoot a little bit. And she’s getting it, and I have admired her tenacity. So you know, through this journey that I’m on, getting to know these mayors — because they’ve reached out to me and I’ve reached out to them, and they’ve been very welcoming — and so I have a lot to learn. I’m excited to hopefully join the ranks. That’s what I hope. So she’d be the one that would come to mind right now.

Kerry Cavanaugh

So, why are you the right person to be L.A.’s next mayor?

Karen Bass

I believe I’m the right person to be L.A.’s next mayor for my decades of experience in the city, and my decades of experience addressing the very problems that are at the heart of our crisis today. And because of the relationships that I have built over the years on the federal level, the state level, and my ability to bring people together with wildly different views. If you can work in Washington and get Republican support for your legislation, that deserves a couple of brownie points.

Kerry Cavanaugh

What would be your first action to address the city’s homelessness crisis?

Karen Bass

My first action would be to declare a state of emergency and to be on the front lines to make it clear to the city that this is the number one issue that we need to deal with. And that this is an emergency and all of us need to be invested in the solution.

Kerry Cavanaugh

What’s the right size of the Los Angeles Police Department force and why?

Karen Bass

Well, right now, I think the right size is 9,700 officers because that is what we are budgeted for. However, I do think that we need to evaluate the police department and see, because we are a large city. Other cities that are smaller than us have police departments that are much larger. But I think right now, we need to get up to what we are budgeted for, evaluate it, and then see where there are gaps.

Maybe we will find we don’t need any more police officers, maybe we will find we need co-responders that focus on mental health or domestic violence or other issues. Maybe we will find that the police department needs partners as opposed to additional officers.

Kerry Cavanaugh

What’s an example of something you’ve done that wasn’t popular, but was the right thing to do?

Karen Bass

When I served as speaker and had to drastically cut education and healthcare and raise tuition at Cal State and UCs. I could have run from that, but I did it and I showed up at the UC Regent meeting to vote and was wildly protested by the students. But it was the right thing to do.

Kerry Cavanaugh

So these are one-word answers for the most part. Should LA tax million dollar real estate transactions to raise money for affordable housing? Yes or no?

Karen Bass

You know, I mean, I would say yes — the question is when. Because I don’t know if that should happen now. I think that voters are not convinced that they’ve gotten the bang for their buck when they raise their taxes for HHH. So I would say maybe in the future.

Kerry Cavanaugh

Roughly, what’s the median income for a household in Los Angeles?

Karen Bass

A medium income of a household in Los Angeles — hard to answer. I mean, I think over 60% of the population make $40,000. I mean it’s very, very low. So when you say the medium income for a household — household of four or household of two?

Kerry Cavanaugh

Well according to the census it’s $62,000 roughly. Metro is considering enacting congestion pricing on local roads and freeways to reduce gridlock and fund more transit or even free transit. Would you support a congestion pricing pilot project in LA, yes or no?

Karen Bass

Yes.

Kerry Cavanaugh

Mayor Garcetti set a goal of eliminating traffic deaths by 2025. But he hasn’t followed through and traffic deaths have increased. Would you commit to make Vision Zero a reality during your tenure as mayor, yes or no?

Karen Bass

Yes, and making it a reality means to fully fund it, because it hasn’t been fully funded.

Kerry Cavanaugh

Digital billboards, do you support having more?

Karen Bass

No.

Kerry Cavanaugh

Same number or fewer?

Karen Bass

I would say no, not more.

Kerry Cavanaugh

Thank you very much for the time and talking with us today. It’s been a pleasure.

Karen Bass

Absolutely. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you.