Overview
- At a forum Thursday at Los Angeles Trade‑Technical College, Mayor Karen Bass defended a record of concrete projects while Councilmember Nithya Raman argued the city has slowed and underinvested in climate and environmental justice.
- Both candidates laid out many of the same policy goals, including electrifying city vehicles, expanding charging infrastructure, boosting transit and bike lanes, increasing green space, and strengthening local water resilience.
- The candidates focused heavily on emergency preparedness after recent disasters, criticizing communication and recovery around the Palisades fire and the Lineage warehouse fire and calling for stronger enforcement of industrial safety.
- Bass answered questions about her budget proposal to cut the Climate Emergency Mobilization Office and about firing and replacing its director, while Raman used those decisions to argue for renewed priority and funding for climate staff.
- The forum, hosted by LAist and organized by local environmental and environmental justice groups, sharpened contrasts on leadership and implementation even as it underlined broad policy overlap ahead of the Nov. 3 runoff.