Los Angeles LA Mayoral Debate (NBCLA)

>> A high-stakes race for the future of Los

Angeles. We are not going to stop until

we catch who is involved in this and hold them accountable. >> The candidates promising bold fixes and facing

tough questions. I think housing and homelessness are our two biggest issues.

>> Homelessness, wildfire recovery, affordability, and public safety on the

line. What LA needs is somebody to come in and unplug all of these established

stuff. Tonight, the current LA mayor and her challengers make their case, but will they convince voters? This is

2026. It is debate night on NBC 4. Welcome to this special edition of the NBC 4 News at 4:30. I'm Carolyn Johnson.

>> And I'm Michael Brownlee. In just about 30 minutes, the top three candidates for LA mayor will face off in a debate. We want to take you inside the Skirball Cultural Center. This is a look at the debate stage. Calling Williams, Connan Nolan, and Enrique Cierbra will be the

moderators. The next mayor of Los Angeles will enter office during a pivotal time for the city. From wildfire recovery and immigration enforcement to the LA 28 Olympics and housing, voters are looking to candidates for solutions.

>> All right, NBC 4's Lolita Lopez joins us live from the candidates' plans to

Lolita. Yeah, absolutely. We're less than half an hour away from that mayoral debate to start and we've just heard of some of the issues. Housing, homelessness, public safety, and post-fire recovery. That's just some of the things that will be touched on today as these candidates tried to say tried to show that they are up for the challenge to be the next The next mayor of the city of Los Angeles will inherit a city at a crossroads. Los Angeles soon welcoming the World Cup and the Olympics in 2028 while trying to create more affordable housing, increase public safety, and accelerate rebuilding homes and businesses after one of the most devastating wildfires in California history. Mayor Karen Bass, the incumbent, was criticized for her initial response to the Palisades fire in 2025. She has focused on creating pathways for rebuilding using her roots as a former congresswoman to ask for

assistance. There's no city around that can function without federal support.

That was the mayor calling NBC 4 right after her visit to the White House late April where she asked the president for federal help for fire victims and support in pressing some insurance companies to pay out claims. Her recent $14.9 billion budget proposal doesn't change the status of the fire department. It does fund more officers to the LAPD and more street service work to fix sidewalks

and roads. We are going to install 60,000 new street lights. That's Mayor

Karen Bass. Former reality star Spencer Pratt joined the mayoral race after losing his home in the Palisades fire, becoming a vocal critic of the mayor's handling of post-fire cleanup and rebuilding. He's looked at by some as an alternative to the City Hall establishment. The political novice is tapping into his entertainment roots in his campaign messages to stop animal abuse and create greater transparency with how homeless funds are distributed.

It's scary to think what's going on outside of the Palisades where they don't have somebody like me every day trying to expose and find it, you know, fight for

accountability. >> I think housing and homelessness are our

two biggest issues. An urban planner and council member Nithya Raman represents District 4, which stretches from Silver Lake to Reseda. She says a mandate by the state to create more affordable housing wasn't being met and in part led her to jump in the race. As chair of the council's housing and homelessness committee, she says the mayor's homelessness program needs more accountability, like what she says she's created in

her district. I've hired the first council office staff and team dedicated to homelessness. And that team oversees our shelter sites, pushes on the system, tracks

data. Among top priorities from the candidates, how to respond to federal immigration enforcement in a city of immigrants, and how to get Hollywood to increase production across Los Angeles, benefiting gaffers, caterers, florists, and the many thousands of people who get a boost when the director says,

"Action." And really that is the keyword, action. What can these candidates actually do to be the change that the people want to see? That is what we're going to hear in, again, less than 30 minutes. Live at the Skirball, Lolita Lopez, NBC 4 News.

Lolita, thank you. And of course, whoever becomes LA's next mayor will have to make some major decisions when it comes to public safety and policing.

Yeah, the LAPD has fewer officers than it's had in decades, and yet the cost of running that department continues here to rise.

>> Investigative reporter Eric Leonard is here now with a look at some of these

issues. Yeah, there's really pressure coming from all sides on public safety in particular. The feeling from many residents that the city's been powerless to stop burglaries and robberies and hasn't restored the quality of life in some neighborhoods. And then there's the LAPD pleading for more officers. Some on the city council resistant to any new funding and the city's budget reality that the city might have to make more cuts to other departments and services if the cost of policing continues to LA's crime rates are at their lowest points in decades and that's happened with the fewest police officers on the streets in a generation. Data shows burglaries and robberies continue to decline, but many Angelenos say they still feel unsafe with spikes in home break-ins in many neighborhoods.

>> It feels like we even have less police presence

feeling. >> People should feel safe in their own homes.

police. What's the next mayor to do? The LAPD's budget now tops $2 billion a year. Raises and hiring incentives have consumed most of that leaving little money for expansion. This year's police budget proposal includes funding for about 500 new officers, but the head of police personnel says that won't keep up with the number retiring.

>> We still are averaging about 570 per year.

>> In the last few years funding has been cut or reduced for many special police assignments like human trafficking or illegal cannabis enforcement which directly affects the quality of life across the city. The violent crime rate has plummeted in every big city for the last few years. LA experienced the fewest murders last year than in any year since the 1960s. Despite those reductions last year LAPD officers were involved in more shootings than in years past and detailed analysis of the reasons why has yet to be delivered to the mayor's appointees on the police commission. The 2028 Olympic Games will strain the LAPD and the size of the workforce will be far smaller than former Mayor Eric Garcetti initially promised. Outside funding for officers Olympic overtime is expected, but the police chief says the department needs even more money to get new police cars ready for the games.

>> We need additional funding for technology and specialized equipment.

>> That's where the next mayor might appeal to the federal government for grants or assistance. There's also growing resistance from some members of the city council on spending any more money on legacy law enforcement. So, the next mayor may consider alternatives to police for traffic control or calls involving the homeless or mental

So, as for

all of these budget issues, the LAPD continues to make changes to its organization and its priorities. And Carolyn and Michael, these are the kinds of decisions that the next mayor could have a lot of impact on. Guidance to the department, how is the city going to cope with a department that again is becoming more expensive and is

All right, Eric Morgan, we appreciate it. Thank you.

>> it. NBC 4 and Telemundo 52 will bring you live coverage of the mayoral debate next at 5:00, just 21 minutes from now. But first, we have a closer look at some other key issues

I'm Keenum Willard asking Angelenos one question. What's hard to pay for here in LA? The biggest affordability concerns we're hearing ahead of tonight's mayoral

Two debates.

>> One defining

night. NBC 4 and Telemundo 52 present Decision 2026.

>> The mayoral and gubernatorial debates. Join us live right here from the Skirball Cultural Center in partnership

with LMU. We get answers about the

issues impacting you. Safety, housing, affordability, and what's next for Los Angeles and California. Your community, your candidates, your station. The

mayoral debate at 5:00, gubernatorial at 7:00. Tonight on NBC 4

The race for Los Angeles mayor is heating up, and it comes at a time when the city is dealing with some major

challenges. >> the key issues, the cost of living, affordability, and wildfire recovery in the Pacific Palisades. At the same time, Hollywood has faced a production slowdown with fewer projects in Los Angeles.

>> All of it shaping what voters say they want to see in the city's next leader. NBC 4's Keenan Willard crisscrossed Los Angeles to find out which costs are

I'm Keenan Willard asking Angelenos one question. What's hard to pay for here in

LA? What makes LA unaffordable? Everything, guys. The cost of living, groceries. It's just ridiculous at this

point. >> Every month when you have to pay your rent or pay your mortgage, what does

that feel like? Broke, cuz I don't have no money. Everybody, there's a lot of people homeless, Uh a lot of people living on the streets

because of that. The food is getting expensive, like the meat products. Those are The gas is

high. What's hard to pay

for in LA? Rent. Rent is one of the biggest things, man. Rent shouldn't be half of your income, you know? And that's really the case here in Los

Angeles. Probably like student loans. When I have to fill up my tank, I get kind of nervous because I don't know if I'm going to be able to afford groceries after paying

rent. >> When you look at your budget, what are some of the things that make you go ouch

Uh food prices, eating out. Rent's been going up. Do a lot of rescue and um Food food prices for the dog has gone up, too, so it's gone all around.

How do

Probably voting.

do you fix it? >> Well, it I think it happens through legislature. Unless that happens, we're going to be continuing this perpetual cycle of people not having what they need, which

Keenan Willard,

All right. Well, 16 months after the Palisades fire, some homeowners tell us the rebuilding process is chock-full of delays, a lot of waiting and frustration. Many say this is not the speedy recovery LA leaders promised. NBC 4 City Chang spoke with two homeowners about their biggest challenges here.

Hedy. Michael, certainly top of mind and front and center for so many Los Angeles motors is recovering from the devastating wildfires. We were in the Palisades last week. We got a chance to catch up with many homeowners and they tell us they could never have imagined now 16 months later they're still

I'm able to pick my citrus, some some lemons and limes and that means a lot to me.

>> Peter Branch has his garden, but what he really wants is his home.

>> Well, currently I'm sitting where my backyard would

have been. Branch is born and raised in the Pacific Palisades. His home among 6,800 destroyed.

>> I thought we'd be a lot more along the

way. LA building officials have granted nearly 800 property owners permits to rebuild. Branch says his frustration is growing every day as he waits for his.

this to

giddy up and go. Of the nearly 7,000 homes destroyed in the Palisades fire, very few are rebuilt. According to the LA Department of Building and Safety, only 13 homes are completed and ready

for move-in. Do you have a permit to No,

I

Why? I think the city is just overwhelmed and

Kevin Harrington says he's still waiting for permits to rebuild his two family homes lost in the fire. The proud Palisades native says he feels lucky his homes were over insured.

>> Because insurance companies have been lacking and also the cost of building has skyrocketed.

>> As he patiently waits, so too does

Branch. Yeah, it would really float my boat to get back in a house by next

Christmas. He wants LA leaders to remember the promises they made of a speedy recovery when so many lost so

much.

Yeah, that same homeowner telling us he wants a leader who knows how to surround themselves with the right people, with the right team. Is that person one of the three candidates getting ready to take the debate stage now? Those homeowners certainly going to be watching closely and so too are we. Reporting live from the Skirball Center, Heddy Chang, NBC 4

News. Heddy, thank you. And another key issue in the race for mayor, keeping Hollywood productions local. And it's not just big studios feeling the pressure. Workers across the industry say the changes are hitting close to home. NBC 4's Jonathan Gonzalez takes a closer look at what's at stake for the entertainment industry and the people

In the race for LA mayor, the leading candidates are saying they want Hollywood to stay in Hollywood. >> Just last month, we did several measures in the city that the industry asked us to do, such as cutting how much it costs to film in LA. From Mayor Karen Bass to Councilwoman Nithya Raman.

>> We need a tax credit with no cap and that's guaranteed into the future so that productions know they can continue to

invest in LA. And former reality TV star Spencer Pratt said this recently on Joe Rogan's

podcast. My idea is literally not charge. You want to shoot in LA, there's no We need We're going to charge you. >> We work. >> We need work.

>> Work in Hollywood has slowly drifted out of the city and the state for years. The workers still here say they prefer to film in LA.

>> The locality here, they know exactly how our production is supposed to go. And other places are just

learning. Armando Lopez Jr. is a communications tech for broadcast productions. He says his side of the business is seeing more interest than ever from workers as traditional Hollywood gigs dry up.

I know a lot of the the a lot of the cameramen and their utilities are talking about, you know, they're just looking for work, man, and they're starting to break into broadcast

as well. We're always in the situation where we're like, how many hats do we have to wear now as we get smaller and smaller? Wes Bailey is the longtime owner of Surreel Studio Services in Sun Valley, which handles behind-the-scenes setups for productions. I'm about down about 40% from what I was originally as far as staffing. Well, every company in town is like that. That means a lot of people aren't working. So, we need somebody to be the voice and to push and say this is essential to to LA. Wes says whoever voters decide to lead the city and the state, he wants them to realize Hollywood's economic impact goes far beyond production itself. >> This isn't just artists making some fun stuff. This is a real job job driving economy that we're that we're, you know, these are jobs. That's what this is about. >> Meanwhile, Armando says the issue can't fall only on City Hall. He believes studios should keep productions alive in LA because he says workers deserve it.

We also got to have a better incentives here to keep them here, but there's also like a a plea to I don't know, when's enough enough, man? Like, uh, it's a race to the bottom sometimes and we can't be doing that.

In downtown LA, Jonathan Gonzalez, NBC 4

News. All right, another look inside the Skirball Cultural Center. We are just about 15 minutes away from the start of the LA mayoral debate. Stay with us for

analysis. Another look now from the Skirball Cultural Center. You can see the candidates' podium, three of them for the mayor's race. Nithya Raman, Spencer Pratt, and the incumbent Mayor Karen Brat Bass are just minutes from taking the

stage. >> And just a reminder, this is the first debate of the night. NBC 4 and Telemundo 52 will also host the California gubernatorial debate later this evening.

We have a team of reporters who will be monitoring the debates and getting analysis from political experts.

>> All right, that includes our very own Lolita Lopez. She's live at the Skirball Center. Lolita, is a few minutes now

huh? Just before showtime. And what's so important really about the NBC 4 Telemundo 52 debate? It's one of the first times that we're actually going to see the political novice Spencer Pratt go up against two powerhouse women in terms of politics. Nithya Raman as a council member for Council District 10 as well as the current mayor of Los Angeles. They're going to be there to talk about the things that they say they have already done with different issues like housing, homelessness, post-wildfire recovery, and public safety. Spencer Pratt is going to come in and have to refute what they have done and then say what he could do, right? He's never been part of political agenda or part of the political scene. And so he's really going to have to come in and be able to see how he reacts to how the other two candidates there. So it's going to be really interesting to get them all together. Again, the first time we really see them coming together in this way. What's also really key and interesting here is it is a live audience of more than 150 people, members of the community. I've already seen business owners from the Eagle Rock Boyle Heights area. I saw the president of the Urban League here, people from different communities across the city of Los Angeles who have a stake in all of this and want to make sure that whatever they hear here, they bring back to their own neighborhoods. And of course, we're going to follow what you have to say at home. We have folks and all of my colleagues searching social media. We're going to be searching all different aspects here to get your live in real time take of what is going on inside that debate stage. Again, all three candidates ready to go in only minutes away. Live from the Skirball, Lolita Lopez, NBC 4 News. Michael Carolan, back

to you. All right, Lolita. Thank you. And we have a jam-packed evening ahead. Up next is the LA mayoral debate.

>> It gets underway in just a few minutes. And then tonight at 6:00, join us for post-debate analysis. We'll have live team coverage on what the candidates said on

stage. >> tuned for the governor's race at 7:00. Colleen Cowan and Enrique are back with the California gubernatorial debate live

Tonight, a debate double-header. First up, the race for

LA mayor. Los Angeles,

reputation. Beneath the blue skies, frustration, fear, and uncertainty.

>> It's horrifying, and everybody has to keep watch. I don't sleep well at night right now at all.

>> It feels like there's no neighborhoods that are safe. Southern California, plagued by homelessness, ravaged by wildfires, and crippled by the rising cost

living. We have family, we have children, we have jobs, we have things

to fight for. For the nearly 4 million people who call LA home, they want answers and solutions.

>> We shouldn't have to expect things to fall

apart to fix them. Tonight, the question is, who's going to

deliver? Here at the iconic Skirball Cultural Center, a face-off with the two biggest races on your ballot. The top candidates for mayor

governor. One night, two debates.

Live from the

And a good evening, everyone. I'm Colleen Williams. Thanks so much for joining us tonight. Our double-header debate kicks off right now with the race for LA mayor. There are a number of issues for Angelenos, and with the primary election now just 4 weeks away, the stakes are very, very high. Joining me for the debate tonight are my colleagues, Conan Nolan, NBC 4 political reporter, and Enrique Ciaobra, Telemundo

And we welcome tonight the 43rd mayor of the city of Los Angeles, the honorable Karen Bass, and her two challengers, Nithya Raman, who is a member of the Los Angeles City Council District 4, and Spencer Pratt, a media entrepreneur and a former reality TV TV host. We'll

be asking questions tonight on behalf of viewers and voters. We are proud to broadcast and stream and stream this debate in English and Spanish on NBC 4 and Telemundo 52 in partnership with

LMU. All right, there are a couple of rules tonight. Each of the candidates will have 60 seconds to answer our questions and then 30 seconds for rebuttals and or responses to follow. Um that is up to the discretion of the moderators here. If a candidate goes over their time, we'll give them a warning. If it happens repeatedly, the candidate could get fewer questions. And of course to our live audience here at the Skirball Center, please hold your

applause. And of course, we're expecting a dignified debate. Uh we can uh certainly know um no name-calling, obviously. Uh we're interested in uh some precision here, uh some effort at um giving the people of the City of Los Angeles uh uh a a a some specificity as to how you're going to handle some of these problems. And let's start with one. It gets to January 7th of last year. Uh so Mayor, this is for you. Uh I know that you have apologized for being out of the out of the country uh during But still, um there are plenty of people who believe that the city let them down. The Los Angeles Fire Department uh for some reason didn't have a strike team or a brush unit uh where there had been a fire just days earlier and had been reports it was still smoldering. That appears to be inexcusable. LADWP had a reservoir that was dry. Uh the the fire hydrants went dry. So, based on that issue alone, articulate for us why you should get a second contract as the mayor of

Absolutely. Well, first of all, thank you very much for the opportunity to speak with you. You know, when I took over as mayor, LA was definitely facing an awful lot of tough problems. And obviously, January 7th was horrible. And I as I have told you before, it was one of the worst moments of my life to not be here when my city needed me. And it didn't matter where I was or why I was away. To me, it reminds me of like if you're away and a family member is in an accident. But I think that I deserve a second term and I'm going to fight for that because we have made significant progress in a variety of areas. For example, homelessness was going up year after year. And under my watch, it is the first time we've had a decrease in street homelessness. While it went up in the country 18%, it came down in Los Angeles 17 and a half percent. I have expedited the building of housing because our number one issue in this city is affordability. And one of the main drivers for affordability is

housing. Right. So, let me follow up on the fires though. What one gets the impression based on what we saw that you prioritized wages and benefits a a a hike in the salaries of the of the

firefighters union over the operations budget. We saw those pictures of those engines that were inoperable because they they didn't have enough mechanics to fix them. Well, Was that a mistake? Ex- explain that to Let

me just say first of all, the primary problem there was that the chief sent home a thousand firefighters. We actually had fire trucks with not enough firefighters there. So, yes, there were fire trucks that were broken, but there were also fire trucks trucks that were out of use because she had sent the firefighters home. You are correct, there was supposed to have been deployment and pre-deployment in the area. That did not happen, but the same way that LA was not prepared, neither was the

county. >> Thank

Thank you, Mayor. Mayor Bass, Mr. Pratt, this question's for you. Your desire to run for office, for mayor of Los Angeles, really born of your own experience. You lost your home in the fire. You lost your neighborhood. How does that really color your view of what needs to happen at this point? And how does that

Yes, thank you for the question. Uh to the Mayor Karen Bass's the thousand firefighters that were available, but there was no engines for them because of the $17 million that Chief Crowley had asked the mayor for 9 weeks before, and Mayor Karen Bass denied it. So, they may have been available, but they didn't have the equipment they needed. Not to mention Janice Hahn, who Mayor Karen Bass put into a position of power at the LA DWP, she drained both of these reservoirs that these firefighters needed to put out these fires. A lot of people will talk about climate change and hurricane-force winds. The winds in the Pacific Palisades never reach higher than 40 mph. For those first 6 hours, they didn't go above 27 mph. So, without those two reservoirs filled with 117 million gallons and 5 million gallons, these firefighters had to fly all the way to Malibu and Encino to get water. So, that to me is the most dangerous thing that this the mayor put us up against.

>> Mr. Pratt, a follow-up here, though. What would you do moving forward that would make this better 2 years from now if we face the same situation?

Well, first off, as mayor, I will never drain the reservoirs that we need for wildfire protection. There is this conspiracy now that they're empty that they were for drinking water, but if you research it, they were actually made for wildfire protection. As mayor, I'm going to add 20 dip sites all around the communities connecting to pools. So, God forbid the water system goes down again, these dip sites that will be connected to individuals pools will fill up for the helicopters to have

water. Mayor Bass, do you have a response to that?

>> Yeah, absolutely. He's saying several things that are completely inaccurate. First of all, there was one reservoir that was out of commission. He is correct, a million years ago it was for wildfires, but over the last 30-40 years it's been for drinking water. He talked about the winds, that is just completely inaccurate. If that were accurate, then the planes would have been able to fly. And so, the winds reached close to 100 miles an hour, and the planes were unable to fly. So, if there were reservoirs, if that reservoir had been open, it would not have worked. We had two other reservoirs >> Mayor, can I interrupt you for a minute? No, no, no. I have to interrupt you. Um, no name calling, please. She called me a liar. I did not hear that. She said

she's making this Yes, she she mentioned me. So, this is she's an incredible liar. Everyone on their phones, Google it. 40 weather stations in the Pacific Palisades, it never went above 40 miles per hour. She is representing the Altadena fire. No,

no, no. I have to interrupt you. Um, no name calling, please. >> though. Yeah, but no name calling. Um, we

can talk later. I don't believe she did. I did not hear that.

We're not going to debate the issue. We have a question now for Councilmember

Raman. Councilwoman Raman, so your district four is a fire prone district. My question to you is, we've seen that you've introduced fire preparedness motions after January 2025. Um, a lot of them happened after the fire, the Palisades fire. My question to you is, what did you do before that? Because this seems like it's more reactive rather than proactive. So, any motions you introduced before January

2025? Yes, so, uh, I my name is Nithya. I'm a councilmember for the fourth district representing a huge percentage of the hillsides. I'm a For those of you who haven't met me before, I'm a mother of young twins. I'm an urban planner by training, and I've been in this role for about 5 years. And in my role as the council member for a hillside area, we have to do a lot of work preparing for uh really extreme weather. Before rainy seasons, actually in the past, mudslides have been the biggest issue in my district. Entire homes have gone off of their foundations, and we go in advance and make sure that uh traps are cleared, that areas are available for uh flood and clearing. We do brush clearance and make sure that all of the departments and all of the inter-jurisdictional areas that are supposed to be doing brush clearance are actually doing that work. Before this set of fires, we sent out an email. We made sure that we were connecting >> But, is that enough

just sending an email, especially for your district, the Hollywood Hills and Cienega? That's a very big fire-prone area.

>> Well, we didn't have a single home that was lost during these fires. Uh I was at the emergency operations center. I was making sure that I was in communication with all of our partners. I also want to make sure that we understand that the mayor's role is to be the CEO of the city. They are the executive authority in the city. As a council member, you're a legislator. You push for your district, which I did, and I will always do, and I will always keep doing. But, really it is the mayor's role to be prepared and to coordinate before and during and after emergencies to ensure that the city is

ready. Thank you,

As I said, we have a lot of topics to cover tonight. The next one is public safety. LAPD is reporting the overall crime rate is down, but people repeatedly say that's not their perception. They do not feel safe. We're seeing yet another series of home burglaries in the San Fernando Valley, and just today federal authorities arrested at least 18 people connected to a drug trafficking investigation. They called it Save MacArthur Park. Mayor Bass, you have 60 seconds for this. Who ordered this operation with the feds? Is it a sign that our communities are not

safe? No, actually that operation was ordered by the feds. However, we have been working in collaboration because we were very well aware of the drug dealing that was taking place there. We have used a comprehensive approach when it comes to MacArthur Park. Multiple things are needed and so what happened a couple of hours ago was an action that had been in the works for many many years. But let me just say or many many months. Let me just say also that LAPD and that Los Angeles is understaffed in terms of LAPD for the nation's second largest city. And so I have been fighting to hire more officers. Unfortunately, I have not had the cooperation from the city council including unfortunately my colleague next to me who has voted repeatedly against hiring officers including when we were finally able to increase the class size and the council would not fund it. What is in my current budget now is 512 officers which still is not enough. We at least that will deal with attrition. We cannot shrink our

department. Uh Councilmember Raman, you have 30 seconds to respond to that.

>> You know, I've supported multiple budgets, thoughtful budgets that maintained and sometimes even increased the size of the police force. I did vote against a big contract, a contract that gave the police union more money than the city had. A contract and its knock-on effects which ultimately led to the city having a billion-dollar budget deficit last year. That led to us having to cut essential services across the entire city. If you're wondering why your streetlights are out on your block and the Bureau of Street Lighting is telling you that it's taking a year to fix a streetlight, that's why.

>> Councilmember Raman, thank you. Mr. Pratt, um there were 100 LAPD officers working with the feds today. You're responsible what went down in MacArthur

Park. It's unbelievable. I hope we have the FBI, the DEA, the CDC, the ATF, the more resources we can make the streets of LA safe with federal money, amazing. I talked to thousands of moms a week. They do not feel safe in the street. No matter what these crime statistics are telling anybody, it's not how people feel on the street. There's a difference between people reporting crime and feeling unsafe on the street. And with Councilwoman Raman, people are more concerned about getting stabbed in the street than the lights being out. So, I think Mayor Bass funding the police was important actually.

>> Mr. Pratt, I have a follow-up question for all of you here. Langer's Deli

So, do I get to respond to

that? Um, just a moment. I This is a response to some of that. Langer's Deli, which as you all know is a staple of downtown Los Angeles, is asking you on the now to end the needle run giveaway program. So, my question Mayor, first of all to Um It's run by the city. The city run needle program.

>> Right.

Councilmember Raman.

Mr.

Absolutely no needles and pipes for drug

ever. Got it. I'll take that as a yes.

Go ahead. You have 30 seconds.

Well, I did want to say in response to this question that the way you address homelessness, the way you address people living on the street is by bringing them off the streets and indoors. I think we need to absolutely invest in shelter. We need to invest in services. We need to actually get people off the streets for people to be safe. That's what I've done in my district. We've had a 54% reduction in tents and encampments in Council District 4 just over 3 years, and I'm very, very proud of those results. That's how you achieve real public safety outcomes. That's how you ensure that the people of Los Angeles

are safe. So, Mr. Pratt, uh the Chief of Police uh said the other day that there he doesn't think we're going to have enough officers for LA 2028. Now, the federal government's responsible for security for the Olympics, but um LAPD's part of that, plus you have to patrol the rest of the city. Uh hiring more officers is expensive. Um it's it it extraordinarily so in many cases. What is your strategy for getting more people uh recruiting more officers and paying

for them? You know, it's more expensive than hi- hiring them is overtime, cuz that's what these salaries for the fire department that everyone's complaining about. These Everyone's understaffed. So, first off, I'm going to bring hiring back to the LAPD. Right now, the LAPD is hired by the same people that hire sanitation, and we need to bring it back like it was 20-plus years ago, so that police hire police. And we need a 10-year plan. It's going to take 10 years to get to the 12,500 officers that we need, and that needs to be a priority. Our sheriff's partner, they're the same size. They have a billion-dollar more budget for the same size. So, this idea that Councilwoman Raman keeps saying that the police department is overfunded, public safety should be our number-one priority, and we're going to find all this money when we stop her useless open-bed plans that actually doesn't put drug addicts in these housing that we're spending billions of dollars and we're going to actually start checking where this money's going. Not to mention, when you get rid of all the drug addicts off the street, the police won't be responding to the drug addicts all day long.

>> Thank you, Councilwoman. You can

You know, I have not argued against paying police officers what they're worth. They do some of the hardest jobs in our city, and all they and all of our city employees deserve a living wage. They deserve to be paid. What I am arguing against is bad fiscal management, which is what has gotten the city of Los Angeles into this moment. The police union is the most powerful force in LA city politics, and when you give contracts to people because they are going to fund your campaigns. And by the way, I'm the only person on the stage that is being spent against because I had the courage to speak out about bad budget

decisions.

>> That is

what happens. Appreciate that.

We're going to stay with you, Councilwoman Blumen. So, you've said, even last night you said it, that you're okay with the current staffing levels at LAPD. My question to you, people say that's just ridiculous, it's not enough, we need more officers. My question to you is, what do you tell people, especially victims, who say the vic- the city has let them down?

Yeah, and I think this is this is a very real issue. The city's most important response is public safety. It is so important to me, I'm the mother of young children. The safety of people in Los Angeles is absolutely essential. But that's why I think we have to start getting honest with people about how we're actually going to respond to public safety needs. How will we make sure that when they call for help, someone picks up the phone at 911, and someone comes when they call. The right person comes when they call. Right now, we have not built out that system because we have funded in more police officers, but haven't been able to hire. Our police force is actually shrinking. We have shrunk right now. So, no more officers, stay the

same? What are you What are you saying?

I would love to keep it the same. We have funded them more. The police force has been shrinking. So, let's get real about how we actually deliver public safety outcomes. I'm going to work as hard as I can to maintain our police force where it is, but we also need to make sure that we build out responses that can actually take call load off of LAPD. So many calls that are coming into LAPD do not require armed officer response. Let's take call load off of them Thank you, Councilwoman. >> make sure that police can come when people call.

>> Your time is up. Quick reply, Mayor

Bass. Let Let say that unfortunately, my colleague has contradicted herself because on the one hand, she says that if you pay officers what they need, then we're going to bankrupt the city. And then, on the other hand, she doesn't understand that, frankly, we have to pay the officers, had to give them a raise, had to expand recruitment because officers were going to other cities. We were not competitive. We have to make a decision, and frankly, my job as mayor, my number one job is to keep LA safe. And we can't keep LA safe with the size of the department we

have

now. We're going to talk about homelessness. Uh four years ago, when we did a debate, uh it was the number one topic. It is right This is an issue that continues to challenge the city. Homelessness, many residents say the homeless in their neighborhoods make them feel unsafe. They feel the homeless have more rights than the residents do. So, these are two yes or no questions for each of you. Right now, getting off the street is voluntary. Should that change if a bed or a shelter is available? Mr. Pratt, we're going to start with you. Yes or

no? It's illegal to live

yes, everyone needs to go inside.

Okay,

Mayor Bass. Everybody needs to go inside. Making it illegal and arresting people is not the way to solve this problem.

>> Ms.

Roman. Yes, that people people need to go inside. When they're offered shelter, they go inside. >> an opportunity to say no. So, it's

Next question. Do you support the ordinance that restricts encampments in front of schools or daycare centers? Mayor Bass, I'm going to start with you. Yes or no?

Ms. Roman, yes

or no? I I you know, I I support keeping our streets safe. I did vote against the structure of this particular ordinance. And it is because It's a yes or no. the way this ordinance was structured It's a yes or no. it does not keep it does not keep our children safe. It does not keep our

I

It doesn't keep our children safe enough.

>> It's a simple yes or no question, Mr.

What I was saying is she's fighting because she doesn't think there's a difference between 1 ft or 500 ft for kids safety with drug addicts with machetes in front of kids.

>> that.

Of

course, we do not want encampments in front of schools, parks, daycare. I

don't want vehicles >>

Mayor, you had talked about Inside Safe. Let's go into that a little bit. Um you have suggested that there has been progress made, but even the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, which the city contracts with, has said that upwards of 40% have left and gone back to the street. I mean, there's there's a concern that a lot of money is being spent. There's been some progress, certainly not enough. I'll you I'll have you defend

your program. So, Conan, I declared a state of emergency on day one because I know that what Angelenos want to see are their streets clear. Inside Safe is the only citywide program that we have had that has reduced homelessness 2 years in a row. Prior to that, there was no citywide strategy and homelessness was going up year after year. We need to have an entirely new system that is frankly independent in the city of Los Angeles because we need to build out services once we get people off the street. The same report also said that 60% of the people in Inside Safe stay inside. So, it is a program that is working. Absolutely does it need to be better? Does it need to be more cost-effective? And we're working on that right now by building temporary structures on city-owned property. We can do this, Los Angeles. We have been doing it for the last 3 years and it's the first time homelessness has gone

Councilmember Raman, so you promised us to clear half of the encampments by the Olympics and by the end of your term if you get elected. My question to you, you've been in the city council for 5 years. Why are we barely seeing this plan? Yesterday, I think it was posted on your Instagram and

this realistic? Absolutely, it's realistic and it's realistic because I've done it in my own district. This is exactly the plan that I've operationalized in my district to get a 54% reduction in tents and encampments in my district in in 3 years encampments in my district in in 3 years >> Yes. And I am one council member and proposing a plan for an entire city at this time. It is absolutely realistic. But I what I want to go back to is the idea that we are satisfied with our homelessness system right now. I don't think anybody in Los Angeles right now can say that we are satisfied with spending extraordinary amounts of money on our homelessness response and getting only incremental progress in response. I want to change that. Let's use the dollars that we're spending. Let's actually build out a real system that can get as many people indoors as possible. Let's not put them into a $100,000 a year motel rooms for a year or more per person. This system is not fiscally sustainable and we must work to end this crisis with urgency and with accountability right now. So you'll make a commitment you'll make

a commitment to clear all the encampments by the end of your term if you get elected. >> Yes, that's correct. Absolutely. Can Yes,

ma'am. >> I have to respond because I know the statistics she's talking about in her district, but the statistics are there because of Inside Safe. Because she has called on Inside Safe repeatedly. I took the initiative to go into her district to make sure that that encampments were cleared. We absolutely need a new system and it has to have a comprehensive approach. And there's no rooms for $100,000.

We need to move on here. Mr.

Pratt You have been critical of what

you consider failures of the current administration on this issue. You advocate for what some have called get

What is that and how do you do it? I don't know who made up that name. First off, let's I just want to say Councilwoman Raman acts like she doesn't have any authority with this homelessness. She was the third most powerful person in the City Council. She runs the homeless housing thing. She acts like this is just Mayor Bass. First off, inside safe, I like to say inside safe makes all of us outside unsafe. The reality is no matter how many beds you give these people, they are on super meth. They are on fentanyl. The DEA statistics says 93% of this is a drug addiction problem. Nithya Councilwoman Raman's plan for treatment first, I will go below the Harbor Freeway tomorrow with her and we can find some of these people she's going to offer treatment for. She's going to get stabbed in the neck. These people do not want a bed. They want fentanyl or super meth. These ideas cost us over 400 million dollars to house for 60 70 What did he say? 3,000 people for 400 million? It's an absolute failure for both of them.

So, Councilmember Raman, you have 30 seconds to respond.

>> want to just say to everybody who's watching today, you're going to watch today as Mayor Bass and Spencer Pratt attack me because they want to run against each other in the general election. Each of them thinks that running against each other is what's going to help them win and they don't want to run against me because my ideas, which are based on real results in my district, which are based on real data, a real analysis of the system and a focus on accountability and using every dollar as effectively as possible, which we have done in my district. I want to take the citywide. This is why this is happening

today. Thank you Mr. Prang. We're out of time. I'm going to give each of you 30 seconds to respond to

this. Mr. Prang, we'll start with you and

then I'm going

to go to Mayor Bass. First off, Mayor Bass and I are definitely not working together. I blame this person for burning my house and my parents house and my town and all my neighbors down. I am not working with Mayor Bass. Second off, if I wanted to run against anybody, it would be the council member who is terrible. Mayor Bass has at least been a mayor for almost 4 years and has as she talked about earlier, the unions, all the unions endorse Mayor Bass. You think it's easier to run against the incumbent mayor with all the unions or a random city council member who's been a failure for 6 years. I would much rather run against councilwoman Raman. Thank

you very much Mr. Prang. So so Mayor, though let's specifically, there's a lot of money, billions that are spent on the on the homeless in downtown. A lot of that money goes to see 501c3s

and nonprofits. Now we're hearing the Department of Justice has a lawsuit against the director of Abundant Blessings, $23 million they allege that was siphoned. Project Homekey, I believe not a statewide project, two real estate developers accused of siphoning off 40 million. There's a perception that we don't know where the money's going and that we have legislative analysts in Sacramento said there $26 billion in state funds. We're not sure if that did any good. So how can we have confidence that the investment we are making in the future is not going into the pocket of some director who will end up in federal court?

>> First of all, I don't think it's shocking that you do find corruption in big programs like this and I think it is extremely important to hold them completely accountable. But I will just say that for the first time we've had a reduction of homelessness two years in a row because of policies that I have put in place. I also believe we need to have an overhaul of the system, but I can tell you that streets that we have cleared, crime is down, firefighters don't have to go out. Firefighters spend 30% of of their time putting out fires that are related to homelessness. Businesses are able to have customers. Kids are able to walk to school and parents without navigating tents. That's what what I would say. But I have to say about about my colleague here is that yes, she is a member of City Council. She chairs the homelessness committee, but she also, in order to get anything passed in City Council, she has to build an alliance with her colleagues, and she has not been successful in doing that, which is why she has not been able to pass the policies that she's talking about.

>> you. Council member Raman, so this also happened under your watch. Um your plan calls for fully staffing the Bureau of Homelessness Oversight, which the City Council established under your leadership. So the question is, why is it not fully staffed as we speak right now?

>> It's not So, uh I, as part of my efforts to create accountability on homelessness, I've been pushing for greater oversight within the city. Right now in the city, there is no one who is watching our dollars. There is no one, even as we're spending hundreds of millions of dollars every year, there is no accountability in the city. There's no staff at the city that are making sure that every single dollar that you are spending, your tax dollars, are going to the issue of homelessness. People are not watching to make sure those are going towards outcomes. They're not watching to make sure that every dollar is being spent appropriately. That is because the city has not invested in oversight. I've been pushing for exactly that oversight. I created the first data around performance at the city had because I pushed and it happened. I established the Bureau of Homelessness Oversight through my powers as a council member, but the mayor is the executive of the city. She has the power to move departments to hire and to build out the staffing. A year after this was established, no new staff members have been hired for this. No leadership has been hired.

No one has been

>> Mr. Pratt, this next question is for you and you have

60 seconds. Mayor Bass would like to respond. I don't know if

Do we

have the time? No, I'm just Yeah,

Uh let me just say that the bureau that the councilwoman is referring to is being staffed. Half the staff are there now, and we have been reducing homelessness again for the first time and building out a system that needs to be built. The problem with my colleagues though, and I appreciate your interest in data and all of that, that is important, but I believe it was important to act in this city. Angelenos do not want to see encampments on their

streets. >>

Okay, Mr. Pratt. Mr. Thank you for for directing traffic up here. We appreciate it. Um how does your professional experience qualify you to make sure and to oversee a budget the size of LA's $14 billion budget? Uh we know you're passionate about what you're doing. We know you're an entrepreneur. This is a $14 What kind of experience do you bring to

table for that? Well, thankfully I have common sense and I I'm humble. I have humility. I'm going to surround myself with the smartest people in the world cuz I actually don't have to balance the budget. The mayor doesn't but balance the budget. She has a CAO. She has a team and we're not going to say she has the best team, but she has a team and they balance the budget. My job is to be as crazy as this will sound, I'm the adult in the room here at Spencer Pratt. And that's what it's come to. And so, I plan on putting people that actually want to make sure all of our Councilwoman Raman was saying, is accounted for. Pure transparency, every dollar, all of our tax money. And to get back to what Councilwoman Raman was saying about that, in her own district, she let one of these NGOs, a building was on the market for 3 million, it sold for 8 million dollars to the NGO with that tax money that she's so concerned about. She was to watch it all. She can't even keep track of the NGOs in her own district stealing our tax money. So, when I'm doing the budget, we're going to make sure no one's stealing our

money. Council member Raman, do you have

a response for that? Um I'm I'm I'm not sure what specific building uh Spencer Pratt is referring to, but I will also just say

I will also just say that we have pushed extremely hard to build the oversight system. So much so that I had to go out and get philanthropic support to create the data for performance oversight and accountability at the city. The city was refusing to put our dollars and our people towards it. This is important. Your tax dollars deserve to be watched. You deserve a system that responds to you with responsibility and accountability. That's what I want to

establish. >> thank you. And Mr. Bass, do you have a

response to that as well? Sure. Again, what I have done on my watch is reduced homelessness for the first time, 2 years in a row. We absolutely need a system, a system that is able to provide services to people. It has been woefully unacceptable what has been happening so far. I feel we're moving in the right direction, and under my watch, we will continue to do that because we need to make comprehensive changes to what has been going on for so so years, before, frankly, either of us arrived in the

Thank you, Mayor. Uh we have a question from a student from the Harvard of the West, Loyola Marymount University. Uh your name, uh your major, and what year are you, and

your question. Good evening. My name is John Cassebian. I am a senior urban environmental studies major. My question for you is that Los Angeles remains one of the most unaffordable regions in the nation. If elected, what is one housing policy you would implement immediately

change? Mayor, we'll start

with you. >> Yes, the housing policy that I did implement immediately after I said it uh declared a state of emergency around homelessness, I expedited the building. 42,000 units are being fast-tracked for affordable housing. We have another 43,000 units that are potential with our adaptive reuse, which means you can change office buildings into housing. We also changed the zoning codes so we have the potential for another half million units. I know that one of the primary drivers for the lack of affordability in our city is housing and making sure that people can afford to live here. So that is how I have focused on addressing the affordability issue. Now, there's a lot of other factors that come into affordability that we can't control, such as the price of gas or what is happening 3,000 miles away. But every single thing we can do, rent stabilization, reducing the price of rent, eviction prevention. I started the Mayor's Fund that allows us to do that.

Councilwoman. Um thank you for that question. This is one of the driving factors behind my candidacy and the work that I want to do. The cost of housing is driving young families out of the city. It's driving young people out of the city. It is making this into a city that is no longer one of opportunity and it is not central to anyone else's the on this stage except for mine. The mayor has has not had a deputy mayor of housing during a housing crisis for the last 2 years. The ED1 program has entitled 42,000 units, but only 14% of them are actually under construction. What we need to do is make sure that the city gets out of the way. Right now, on average, the city takes over a year and a half to approve multi-family housing, apartments, exactly the kind of housing that we desperately need in order to bring prices down. Why is the city standing in the way? As mayor, I will take my executive authority over the departments and ensure that they respond to new apartment applications within 60 days if they are zoning compliant so that we can build exactly the kind of housing that will make this into a city of opportunity

again. >> thank you. Mr. Pratt, you have 60

seconds. mentioned me. She did.

I heard it. See how nice they are being

to each other? She's a nice person,

actually. That's good to know. What's

going on

here? Well, first of all, I disagree in terms of how much time it takes to go through the process. We have cut red tape so you can go through much quicker than that. The 42,000 units of housing that are being fast-tracked, 6,000 of those units are actively under construction, but there are definitely other factors that have weighed into that. And some of the factors are the price of construction materials, just the general economy, and we are doing everything we can to make sure that we are able to fast-track that housing. We want to see people moving right now, which is why we've come up with a variety of ways in addition to that.

>> Thank you very much. Mr. Pratt, are you

ready? I am. Thank you so much. You have

a

minute to respond. Well, the good news is when I enforce the law and clear the street of the drug addicts that have taken over 40 blocks of downtown LA, abandoned buildings that have drug addicts just lighting them on fire every other day, I will have potentially 20,000 units available to build. And thankfully, I spent lot of time in a in a town that has a lot of builders and I see all the new 3D printing and the potential of how fast we can do it. And with this ED1 that Mayor Bass talked about, I met with the developer this week, Carlos, and he said, "Yes, she did initiative where she fast-tracked it 6 months." It's been 2 and 1/2 years and he hasn't been able to get his permits. The best part is some of these developers that are taking over tax money are charging $750 a square foot for stuff that should be costing $250. And Councilwoman Raman, this plan that she's going to build all these units, guess what? She's going to sue all the people that actually rents to the tenants and then they're not going to even want to rent to anybody because she wants people to squat in there for a year and not pay. So, I don't know how her

plan's going to work. Council member Raman, you have 30 seconds to respond and then Conan has a question that that um um coincides with all of this.

Please. Great. I mean, I'm not sure how to respond to that vision of Los Angeles. This is a MAGA Republican's idea of what Los Angeles looks like. This is This is uh the city that that I love so much. We need to We need to make We need to make so We need to make the city so much better. Yeah. We have to work so hard to ensure that this city works for everyone who lives in it. And crucial to that Crucial to that is

I'm sorry. I was still speaking in those

30 seconds.

Okay, bonus time.

>> Okay, so so if if you don't mind, uh the governor the other day expressed frustration, Mayor, with with you. Uh it appears the city has delayed uh the uh implementation of Senate Bill 79, that is high density along transit

lines. Um I know that you wanted him to veto that uh law. He didn't. I know, Councilwoman, you supported that law. Uh Mr. Pratt, I'd like you to weigh in. Just I don't know if we need a minute for all of this, but can can can you just tell us with regard to building transit, a lot of neighborhoods are concerned about

this. High density up to nine stories at transit lines. Why did you want to

Mayor? Why did I want to

delay it?

Right. Well, first of all, I don't support Sacramento saying that this is what we need to do here in Los Angeles, especially our city where we are very much committed to building housing. And I feel especially after all of the units that I talked about, we are on track to build housing. We need absolutely more housing built, but SB 79 basically says you can build it in any residential area, and I don't believe that that is necessary. In some areas, and I always talk about Sherman Oaks, they don't want their individual neighborhoods disrupted, but they are very open to building housing on their commercial strips. Councilwoman Harris-Dawson is the perfect example where on Crenshaw Boulevard you see hundreds of units being built, but the single-family homes are not disrupted. There's ways to do it. We are on our road to do it. We did not need Sacramento to tell us what to do and to mandate what we were doing.

>> Thank thank you, Mayor. Councilwoman.

Here here's why here's why SB 79 and other state laws keep coming down on us. Because the city of Los Angeles is not taking responsibility for the demand for housing. We are not building housing at the level that we need to address our housing shortage. And when we don't build that housing responsibly, when we don't take responsibility for it from the very top, including from this mayor who's pushed back against these state mandates, >> Yes. they come in and impose these mandates on us. Here's what I would do instead. Let's actually plan for the housing that we need. Let's build out the neighborhoods that we want to build. Let's make them beautiful. Let's actually solve for the kind of density and affordability that the state is asking us to do. We can do it if we plan for it, and as mayor, that's exactly what I would do. I would ensure that I would use the executive authority in the mayoralty to make sure that every department was planning for density in ways that Angelinos welcomed so that Sacramento didn't have to intervene. In the absence of that This is what happens.

>> Thank you, Mayor. We'll get to you in Mr. Pratt, it would seem to me you agree with the mayor on this topic, but I just want you to asking you about density development imposed

state. Yeah, to be clear, I just said I'm going to have 40 blocks when I get rid of all the drug addicts that are sleeping on the sides of all these empty buildings. So, we will have so much high-density. I'll have so many bike lanes for Mayor or or excuse me, Councilwoman Raman to have all her bike lanes. We're going to have all that. We have plenty of places to build. We don't need to put a seven-story cement structure in a single-family neighborhood with no parking. I actually lived the the consequences of high-density on small streets, and it's people can burn alive in an emergency or in an earthquake or any type of evacuation situation. Adding these high-density buildings on these teeny, tiny streets doesn't make sense. Of course, I'm fine with building where they make sense. I love building. I think it's great. I think they should look a little better than what Councilwoman Raman wants, like prison-like boxes, but I think they should have some style, not to mention the fact that Councilwoman Raman is fighting Mayor Bass on Sacramento. Where she just was telling me, "This is LA. Where's

her LA pride? Okay, Mr. Pratt, listen, you can answer this next question cuz it relates to it. Downtown Los Angeles seems to be in a state of crisis. The high-rises there, the office buildings are worth a fraction of what they used to be. That will impact the budget, by the way. You have a graffiti tower. You have a half a billion dollar bridge, the 6th Street Bridge, where somebody ripped out 38,000 ft of copper, so it's in the dark. You have uh restaurants um uh Cole's at 6th and Main, uh Clifton's at Broadway and 8th, that survived the depression, prohibition, and World War II, but they can't survive the uh human feces outside their front door. They're closed. What is your plan for downtown? Can we afford to let it die? Uh and and uh Ms. Ramon, we'll start with you. Uh would you agree to bring city workers back full-time to the office in order to help some of

the businesses? I think we we do definitely need to bring city and county workers back. I We bring in our office, we have people in the office 3 days a week in order to be able to address issues. There are some workers that should be in the office much more, and there's others that that can be there 3 days a week, but absolutely, that is not the only intervention that downtown needs. And right now, the lack of care that's being demonstrated in downtown LA is part of our broken status quo. Downtown LA needs attention, and it needs real care. It needs more public safety officials on the streets. It needs work with businesses to ensure that businesses aren't just fleeing downtown LA, that they're actually staying there. It needs regular cleanups. It needs real maintenance. It needs a strategy. Instead, what Mayor Bass has done is to dismantle our economic development department. We don't have a strategy to keep businesses here in Los Angeles, and we're watching as they walk away from this city instead of investing in it. That's the kind of investment that I want to encourage people to make by actually investing in a real economic development strategy for

LA. >> Brett, how do we solve this? Are you want to bring workers back into the city full on? I mean, what's the solution for this problem? He mentioned a lot of What's your What's your plan? Thank

you, sir. Well, first off, I was just talking to my friend Rachel who works in downtown LA. Downtown is so unsafe now that they have to serve the food all the employees have to eat inside. They they can't risk going out. That's why all these beautiful restaurants are closing cuz it's so unsafe. So before we require city workers to go back into any buildings, we need to enforce the laws of the street. Councilwoman Raman is talking about safety yet when animal rescue activist Rebecca Corey came in and said the dogs are being tortured and abused on the streets of downtown and she walked out of the hearing. She doesn't care about safety. She doesn't care about any of these things she's talking about. At least Mayor Bass

Mayor Bass, can we afford and you've got a minute to answer this question. Can we afford to let downtown LA die as a city?

>> No, we absolutely cannot afford

>> a crisis situation at this point. >> Absolutely. It seems to be going the wrong way.

>> So let me just tell you that we absolutely cannot. Downtown is the center of our city and it is an economic engine that absolutely needs to be attended to. We have a strategy that is working. We are working with the downtown business associations. We are increasing public safety there. That's why I did the adaptive reuse ordinance which allows for the office buildings that are vacant to be converted into housing and those conversions are taking place right now. That is why we have to deal with the street homelessness that is there. There needs to be massive intervention there. And then of course there is the convention center and the convention center is a long-term investment that we have to make in our city because the more people you have downtown whether it's a convention or people coming downtown for concerts is the way to make the city more safe and downtown more safe. And my number one obligation is to keep our city safe. So downtown is absolutely critical.

uh uh Council Member Raman, would you like to

respond to that?

the mayor and what she's talking about there.

>> I mean, look, I I feel like we're having a theoretical conversation here about

the direction of our city, which is being led currently by our mayor. Our mayor is the CEO of the city. She sets the direction of this city. Right. >> And if you are satisfied with the status

quo, then I've got great news for you. The incumbent is on the ballot. What I'm here to say is that we need more urgency to respond to the issues right now. We need real plans. We need real efforts to make sure that we're keeping businesses here, that we're keeping workers here, that we're keeping residents in downtown LA. That is the strategy and effort that I want to bring to this role. >> Council Member Raman

endorsed Mayor

Bass 2 weeks before she ran for election. 2 hours before the candidacy closed, she endorsed Mayor Bass. So, all of a sudden now, she's has all these problems with Mayor Bass. They do photos together.

>>

you, Mr. President. >>

We have so many more topics, and you know what? I'll say I know we're passionate. You're passionate about what we're talking about. But voters really want some concrete evidence here, and they want people to be direct.

So, she referenced me >> Moving along. I need to respond to that. That's supposed to be part of the rules.

>> Yeah, go go ahead, ma'am. I I haven't been offered that that in a lot of this debate. >> Well, I I I think I'm I'm joining

you there. Absolutely, the status quo and breaking up the status quo and dealing with the bureaucracy is exactly why I ran. And I started doing that by addressing homelessness, but also by bringing coalitions together to make sure that we can deal with downtown. Did you know that we are the only major city that does not have a comprehensive infrastructure plan? So, it's been haphazard up until now, left to the wishes of the every single council member. I have instituted and started a comprehensive infrastructure plan and moving right away into replacing 60,000 solar lights. >> Thank you, Mayor. Oh, you're good on

this topic now because a viewers um when we put up the QR code wanted to know about this. It has to do with a film and television industry. Um a lot of people think we're nowhere close to where we should be. I know it bounced back the first part of this year, but it's at least 30% below what it was pre-COVID um pre-COVID time. So, the question becomes and Mayor, I'm going to start with you. Um do we do enough to keep production in Southern California? >> Well, let

me just Let me just tell you what I have done. In working with the industry, we have expedited permits. I established one person who is a czar to provide concierge services for the industry. We also lowered the cost to do filming in in Los Angeles. So, for example, the observatory, we reduced those amounts by 70%. We are beginning to bring uh the industry back and I'll tell you this has been a long-standing issue of mine. When I was in Sacramento and served as speaker, I did the first tax credits and also promoted and advocated for those tax credits here in uh Sacramento. We have a long way to go, but we are absolutely making headway because of policies that I put

place. Mr. Pratt, are we doing enough to bring

Absolutely not. And that's great Mayor Bass did those uh credits back in the day, but we don't have tax credits that even Massachusetts has better tax credits than Hollywood. We needed a mayor 3 years ago that was going to Sacramento and fighting the governor to get uncapped tax credits. We need post-production tax credits and Councilwoman Raman will tell you, "My husband's a producer, blah, blah, blah." The reality is she's been in power for 5 years. Now all of a sudden she has these tweets and these posts, she's doing substacks. Both of these people have been the reason why there's no more Hollywood. Not to mention, even if they do, you know, these things, we're still going to have drug addicts all over the street because their treatment first, open beds mandatory treatment. Do you know I talked to producers? They have to pay gang members right now to keep the streets safe to go film anything on the streets of LA. So, absolutely no, these two politicians have failed Hollywood

Councilmember Raman, if elected, what would you do >> Yes. uh differently here? Is enough being

done? I would say you know, this issue is very personal to me. My husband has been a long-time writer in the industry and we desperately need to keep Hollywood here. And I feel like the mayor's role is really to be the loudest advocate for the best possible version of the policies that we need, including a tax credit that has no cap, that is guaranteed years into the future so that productions, so that studios can actually invest here and they know that they can invest here. We need to make sure that we're reducing red tape in City Hall to make sure that productions have no bar to being able to film here. I also would create a real film office here. We don't have enough people at the city to make sure that filming can happen quickly and efficiently. We need people who know the industry and know the city and can make sure that we're working across county jurisdictions. That's what happened in Baywatch. City and county weren't talking to each other. Let's make it possible for us to actually do the work. I feel so strongly about this and Angelinos in the industry need a fighter. I will be that fighter.

>> Excuse me. you. >> Excuse me. We have to move on. Really quick, 30 seconds. >> I In her time in there, she feels very strongly about it, but never offered one motion. And when motions came up on the industry, she either recused herself or

got up and walked out. We have a very important topic, so let's talk about immigration. Immigration after what happened last year, that was a really big deal. So, I want to ask you

three. This is a yes or no question and answer. So, there's an LA council member, he wants voters to decide. He is saying that non-citizens, should they be allowed to vote in local elections? Is this a

yes or no,

Mayor Bass? It depends. It's not a yes

or no.

on what? Well, first of all, when you say non-citizens, it doesn't mean they're here illegal. It doesn't mean they're undocumented. They could have green cards, they could be here perfectly legal, and there's a lot of states and cities that do that on very, very local elections. We have to see what the councilman is

proposing. >>

Councilman Ramon? Yeah, I'd say again, it it does depend. In other places, school boards have

Mr. Fred, I have a question for you. You told NBC News a few months ago that you want LAPD to take care of So, if you don't want ICE to be here in the city, so is the question is you want LAPD to do

as ICE? No, that's not what I said. What I said is when I'm mayor, I want to enforce all the laws and get all the drug dealers, the murderers, the child traffickers, the rapists. And if they're legal or illegal, if they are a danger to our city, I want them off our streets. So, that's what I said, ICE won't be coming here because I'm going to end up Everybody they're supposedly looking for, they're going to be in jail when I'm

That's not what ICE was doing. ICE was chasing people in car washes, ICE was chasing people in Home Depots and picking up a vendors selling fruit, they majority of them over 70% had no record, no police record whatsoever. That is not what was going on in here. I was against it. I physically went out and did everything I could to stop it and will

do that again. Was that that phone call

when you were like,

"Hello,

please don't come here." >> just to be clear, I didn't say what what she said. I said I'm going to target all criminals. So, she just put words in my mouth. >>

what I said.

He asked me what I said.

>> My final question for all three of them. I In another hour, there's going to be seven candidates for governor. The governor's going to be there at one point. Very quickly, just one line. What do you What do you need from the next governor to help this city? Ms.

Roman. We need support from We need financial support when our federal administration has abandoned us. We need to make sure that we are able to fund the programs that we need. We need to be able to make sure that we can ensure that the city is vibrant into the future. We absolutely need a governor who is going to fund that full film tax credit that we need. We need the support in the absence of support from the federal government.

What do we

need from the next governor? What would What do you need from that

person? Personally, the governor needs to clear all his dead fuels around our community so more communities don't burn down. All the dead brush is surrounding Sunland, Tujunga, Bel Air, Brentwood, the Valley. So, there's a lot of dead fuels that they leave cuz they care more about plants or people. So, I would start with there. Second, we need to make sure this Homekey, this homeless billions that's laundered through these NGOs, we need to have where you require treatment. Right now, they make it so someone like Mayor Bass has to fight, even if she wanted to require treatment, they have to fight fight Mayor Bass because they say, "No, you can do drugs inside of these million-dollar rooms." So, I would say we got to stop

the money

laundering. >> We need cooperation from the governor, for example, we need the governor to support us in cleaning up our highways, doing the landscaping. It looks a mess. We need the graffiti removed. We need the governor to restore the money for homelessness that was cut by 50%. We need the governor to front fund the money for FEMA because while we're waiting for it to come from DC, we need to do undergrounding in the Pacific Palisades. And there's a lot of things that we need from Sacramento. It is fortunate that I served there. I know how to work in Sacramento. I know how to make it work for us. I've had to change laws to help us here. I've also had to do the same thing in Washington, D.C. Need them to advocate for the insurance industry and the banking industry so that people can rebuild in the Pacific

Palisades. >> Thank you so much. Time flies. Special thanks to our candidates tonight, our partners at LMU, and of course the Skirball Cultural Center. Ballots for the second primary have been mailed out. You can submit your vote now. And we want to hear from you as well. Scan the QR code that you see on your screen to tell us your thoughts about the debate tonight. Stay with us though. We will be back here in 1 hour with more on the gubernatorial debate. And of course keep watching on our news at 6 for complete analysis of what went down. We'll also be broadcasting and streaming live right here on NBC 4 and Telemundo 52. We will see you back here

An NBC 4 debate doubleheader. You heard from the candidates who want to lead

term and I'm going to fight

for

that. Let's get real about how we actually deliver public safety outcomes.

>> I like to say inside safe makes all of

outside unsafe. Now, it's time to focus on the California governor's race, the issues that matter to you, and how the candidates say they will solve them from housing and crime to immigration and the economy. You ask the questions. Now, we will get answers for you before you cast your

NBC 4 and Telemundo 52 present Decision 2026. Good evening, everyone. I'm Carolyn Johnson.

And I'm Michael Brownlee. It's essentially halftime of our debate double header. Time to see how the mayoral candidates' comments landed.

>> And a look ahead as well to the gubernatorial debate coming up at 7:00 right here on NBC 4 and Telemundo 52. We have live team coverage from the Skirball Cultural Center. Lolita Lopez has highlights of the first debate. Keenan Willard and Makayla Medina are tracking reaction in real time for us.

>> We'll also take you behind the scenes as the candidates for governor prepare to make their case to the voters with Colleen

Yeah, Michael, some fiery moments in there, some candid responses, and really, even though they were warned, some name-calling in this debate. It had it all as they talked about different issues like affordable housing, homelessness, public safety, police officers, and hiring more or not hiring more at all. And then there was a little bit of a presumption that two of the candidates were actually trying to push the other one

You're going to watch today as Mayor Bass and Spencer Pratt attack me because they want to run against each other in the general election. Each of them thinks that running against each other is what's going to help

them win. Uh, Mayor Bass and I are definitely not working together. I blame this person for burning my house and my parents' house and my town and all my neighbors down. I am not working with Mayor Bass. Second off, if I wanted to run against anybody, it would be the council member who is terrible. Mayor Bass has at least been a mayor for almost 4 years and has as she talked about earlier, the unions, all the unions endorse Mayor Bass. You think it's easy to run against the incumbent mayor with all the unions or a random city council member who's been a failure for 6 years. I would much rather

Yeah, and that is just a part of the hour-long debate between the three candidates there. Mayor Bass did get to answer some questions as well, and I want to bring in Dustin Gardner here, co-author of Politico's California Playbook. And wow, what we just heard there was this name a little bit of name-calling between Pratt and Nithya Raman. I just wanted to get So, first time we've seen Pratt on stage with these two political kind of powerhouses here for this city. What did

hear? What really surprised me was just how rough of a night Nithya Raman had. I mean, she was struggling with some of her answers. The moderators were struggling to get her to answer some of the yes and no questions. And then I was surprised how much it kind of felt like Spencer Pratt was teaming up with Mayor Karen Bass a little bit. He was, you know, kind of piling on Nithya Raman. And at some point at one point even said that at least Mayor Bass pretends to care. And we hadn't seen Spencer Pratt in this type of a public venue before. You know, he's got most mostly known as a reality TV villain, social media entrepreneur. And this is really his first sort of debut. And I have to say that people that thought he would totally just face-plant in this, I think they were wrong. I mean, he did better than I think a lot of people thought he might do. Of course, there were some moments that that stood out where he called people, you know, called the mayor a liar or said some kind of incendiary things. But on the whole, I think Nithya Raman had a rougher night

than anyone. And how did the mayor do in

10 seconds? I I think the mayor held her own, and the fact that Nithya became the target of so much incoming helped the mayor avoid a lot of that.

All right, Dustin, thank you so very much. That's the very latest here as we try to get some of those candidates after that debate. So, turning back to you in the studio.

>> All right, Lolita, thank you. Let's get to NBC 4's Robert Kovac live now with

Robert >> When we talk to Spencer Pratt, you know, there was a lot of conversation online that people were wondering here is a man who lost his home in the Palisades fire and people were wondering should the candidates next to you have apologized to you that you did lose your home that you basically lost everything in the Palisades fire. We start there because this is what brought you to this campaign

Spencer. I didn't come here looking for apologies. I've not gotten one from anybody in the city for what 16 months so it's not surprising. I didn't think they would if they apologize it admits their failures and I'm up here because of their failures. That's the only reason I'm running because I said enough of these failures. We need an outsider. No more politicians, no more lying. We need the truth. People are done

with the lies. Spencer our colleague Williams asked you a question which I think a lot of people are wondering. We know you're passionate but do you have the experience to lead a city the size

Los Angeles? Well, look at the city right now. Look at what their experience has done. They don't want to talk about their experience because that would bring up what your experience living under their leadership is. All I need to do is surround myself with people who don't call in bomb threats to city hall. The mayor's deputy mayor when she was in Ghana when my house was burning down he was under house arrest cuz he called in a bomb threat. I just got off the phone with my potential deputy mayor chief Bobby Garcia from the US Forest Service right before this debate cuz I didn't know if the question would come up about public safety. I said when you retire sir, you you ready to be my deputy mayor? He said let's talk. As in I'm bringing in experts. I'm my job as mayor is to just make sure our tax money is not being stolen and laundered to increase problems which is happening right now. Four more years these people? Another billion dollars, more drug addicts all over the streets.

>> Spencer just quickly did you do what you needed to

I mean I would have liked 3 more hours. We got a lot of failures to talk about that these people have. So, we should run it back. Part

two. Spencer

Pratt, thank Appreciate you. Don't forget to vote. Send your ballots in right now.

Spencer. And there you go from inside the room. I'm Robert Kovac. Carolyn and Michael, let's

go back to you. All right, Robert. Thank you for that. Now, some of the questions for the debate came from you, our viewers, and we're tracking the responses to the candidates' answers right now on social media. NBC 4's Keenan Willard joins us now, and Keenan,

A lot of fiery conversation, reaction on social media. Not a surprise considering that one of the candidates in particular, Spencer Pratt, has really galvanized a lot of response on social media. Turning to videos on sites like X, turning to Instagram to try and empower his base to power himself into the next mayor's position here in the city of Los Angeles. And some of the reactions came right off the jump with that back and forth between Spencer Pratt and Mayor Bass over the city's response to the Palisades fire last year. Specifically, Pratt claiming that one reservoir that was used for fighting was offline. The mayor denying that, but then Pratt calling her a liar, which prompted that rebuke from our moderator saying no name-calling would be allowed. We could see some of the responses on social media. Some people said they did feel like Mayor Bass was dishonest about the city's response to the Palisades fire. There were some other people who stand in support of Spencer Pratt largely because of his celebrity. Talking about his history as a reality TV star, and really that visibility pushing him to a higher profile as a candidate. That's some of what we've seen on social media today in the wake and during this debate. You can also see though some people not necessarily supporting Pratt and some of his comments during the debate. We saw one person saying in one of our Instagram comments on one of our posts, "This whole talking point with the campaign is wildfires with Spencer Pratt. They don't feel like he's providing substantive answers about other policies." So, that's a concern for some voters. That's some of the reaction we're also seeing in the commentary. When it comes to Councilman Councilmember Raman, we've seen some comments there concerned about one of the other big exchanges, the high points during the debate that took place about the free needle program for people on the streets, the city providing needles to people who are suffering from addiction. You heard Mayor Bass say that she would end that program. You heard Spencer Pratt say he would no longer support it, but a comment there saying that they're concerned this person that Nithya Raman would continue the free needle program saying that that makes her unfit to serve as mayor. But, there have also been some other comments in support of Raman's performance saying that they felt like she was really speaking to the issues during this debate, which in large part was filled with some name-calling. There were some personal attacks. There's one comment that we saw here in support of Nithya Raman saying that Spencer Pratt and Karen Bass aren't attacking each other. They only go after Nithya Raman, and Raman is the only one focusing on getting things done, yet she's the only one being singled out. Now, going through social media, a lot of the attention there, starting from the jump, like I said, was about the way that Mayor Bass's city administration handled the response to the fires. A lot of the commentary that we've seen on social media has not necessarily been positive. It's been hard to, whether you go across platforms like Instagram, the YouTube commentary, there's the live feed that we had from this live stream debate. You go on X, there was there was not a lot that we could find that was strongly in support of Mayor Bass's performance during this debate. We're going to continue tracking it obviously in the hours ahead and see if any more reactions are worth sharing with you all, but a lot more reaction pouring in from the community in the wake of this hotly contested debate here. For the moment, back to you all. Keenan Willard,

NBC 4 News. All right, Keenan, thank you for that. So, you've heard from the mayoral candidates. Next up, the top seven contenders in the governor's race. Our second debate coming up at 7:00 right here on NBC 4. Colleen Williams, Conan Nolan, and Enrique Chiabra will moderate, followed by a live post-debate show on the NBC Los Angeles streaming

Basically, survival. You know, trying to make

day. Yeah, struggles in the Golden State, the cost of living, immigration enforcement, wildfire recovery. Coming up, the questions voters want the candidates to

These are the sights and the sounds of rebuilding, but homeowners who lost everything in the fires say it's not happening nearly as quickly as they imagined and as quickly as elected officials promised. Their nearly year and

We are counting down to the tonight's gubernatorial debate right here at NBC 4 and Telemundo 52. It starts at 7:00. We're going to check in with Colleen and Conan live at the Skirball Center, just

ahead. But first, we're talking with LA's mayoral candidates. Let's go live now to NBC 4's Lolita Lopez. She's with Councilwoman

Lolita. Uh yes, Carolyn, and we'll get right to it. Uh Councilwoman, um kind of got fiery there for a little bit. And one of the things that we played right at the top of our show was sort of an exchange where you felt like you were being sort of pinpointed by the other two candidates. Just tell me about your feelings on

that. >> You know, I think it was very clear to me that both Mayor Karen Bass and Spencer Pratt were attacking me because both of them want to face the other person in this general election. Uh and I believe that our choices in this election do not have to be the very broken status quo that is frustrating so many Angelenos or a MAGA Republican. I just don't believe that. My vision of Los Angeles is one that is hopeful. We can fix the problems that we have today. We can build a Los Angeles that works for people. We can build a Los Angeles that is more affordable. Uh we can do that, but we have to really try, and I have a positive, proactive vision that really wants to change this city. And I think they know that if I were facing them in the general election, that positive, proactive, hopeful vision of Los Angeles wins every time. I believe in this city.

One of the things that both candidates did bring up though was that your time as a council member and things just not happening in the way they should in terms of homelessness, affordable housing, and the like. How would that change if you were mayor?

>> In my district, we have made real strides. I've reduced tent encampments in the district by 54% in just 3 years. Our district is cleaner, brighter. We provide service with a smile for all of our constituents and we're proud to do it. That being said, the mayor is the executive of LA. She is the CEO of Los Angeles and if things are not happening, it is ultimately the mayor who runs every single department. And over and over again, I saw, "We're going to do this later. We're going to do this in 3 years. Now we're going to fix things." I want to take accountability for the way that Los Angeles is right now. I want to be the mayor because I want to run every department and push us all in the same direction to deliver better outcomes, to deliver more accountable outcomes, and to deliver a better Los Angeles for every single person who lives here. That's possible, but only if you take accountability of the power that the mayor has.

All right, and you can do that as mayor, maybe probably not as a councilwoman at the

>> council. I mean, council council office is a legislative body. We can push for change in the district, but it is the mayor who runs this city.

All right. All right, Councilwoman Nithya Raman here with me.

>> want

I want to And there you go. As she says, it's with a smile. All right, everyone. Back to you guys in the studio.

All right, Lolita, thank you and the audience tonight for the LA mayoral debate. Students from

LMU. Yeah, Omar Villa Medina watched the action with them and he joins us now with their

Yeah, we're not only talking to students, we're also talking to community members here watching the debate as well. I asked a lot of these folks, what were they looking for in this debate? A lot of them said they wanted details. They wanted to know exactly some of the programs that these candidates would actually institute and play out if they were elected mayor. And they were also looking for some moments. I want to talk to Angelica Salas. She's the executive director of CHIRLA, which of course has a big stake in the outcome of the, uh, mayoral election. Did you see anything during this election that was a standout for you that made you look at one of the candidates and say, "Yeah, this might be our

person." Um, so I'm here with the CHIRLA Action Fund, and I just feel that, um, I I think experience matters, and that's what I noticed. It's like so important, um, that we have competent and, uh, indivi- uh, competent individuals in these offices, uh, because their decisions impact our lives. Um, they, uh, the city of Los Angeles is an immigrant town. It's immigrants are LA. Um, we have such a high percentage of people who are suffering both because of the persecution, but also because of the high cost of, um, uh, living. I I feel, uh, the candidates need to speak more about wages and what's happening with wages, but also in terms of affordability. Yes, housing is a big piece, but also the cost of groceries, the cost of other things. And I And so it's important that they have very succinct plans moving forward. Um, I believe that our mayor is the choice, uh, for Los Angeles, um, because she has supported us when we needed her the most in some of our hardest times, and she has demonstrated that capacity. And I think, um, the other candidates, um, can have a lot of passion, care about the city, but that's not It's important that we have competent leaders who are going to get us across the

finish line, Molly. Did this debate get you to, uh, the mayor as your decision or was that made

beforehand? This was beforehand. The CHIRLA Action Fund actually endorsed, um, Karen Bass, and today I was really solidified in that

decision. Thanks so much, Angelica Salas. We really appreciate that. One of the, uh, uh, audience members really paying attention to the debate. Certainly, she believes what we heard today, uh, solidified her response or her endorsement of the current mayor for mayor of Long uh, mayor of Los Angeles.

Looking right now at the Skirball Cultural Center where NBC 4 and Telemundo 52's governor's debate will start in just minutes. Be sure to stay with us to watch the debate live