LA Mayor Bass kicks off week of events to highlight her first year in office

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass will be making multiple stops throughout the city this week to highlight work her administration has done or is embarking on, ahead of her one-year anniversary as the city’s chief executive on Dec. 12.

The mayor kicked things off on Monday, Dec. 4, with two press conferences to highlight progress in improving city services and addressing climate change. Later this week, she’s scheduled to discuss her administration’s work to promote businesses, address the housing and homelessness crises and to deal with public safety.

On Monday morning, Bass headed to San Pedro, where, standing next to a broken sidewalk scheduled for repairs this week, she spoke of efforts to improve city services, including fulfilling basic requests by Angelenos for things like fixing cracked sidewalks or potholes.

“The progress we’ve made is important, but there are still so much more to do,” Bass said. “Los Angeles is a world-class city that deserves world-class services, and that is what we are working to deliver.”

Among the issues that have not been fully resolved is the city’s widespread staffing shortage, an area elected officials on Monday acknowledged needs attention.

The mayor’s office released figures outlining what the city has undertaken in the roughly 12 months that Bass has been in office. According to her office:

• City departments fulfilled about 2.5 million “311” requests for non-emergency city services, about 100,000 more requests than in the previous year. Services included bulky trash pickups (601,730 requests filled), graffiti removal (317,546), pothole repairs (51,518), streetlight outages (15,765), street sweeping (13,727) and downed tree limbs (22,628).
• More than 2,500 Angelenos have been hired since December 2022 to fill city job vacancies, with the Board of Public Works hosting four career fairs to draw in applicants.
• LA Metro, the county’s public transportation system – Bass is the chair of its board – has seen improved safety and accessibility in the past year, with consistent growth in ridership, according to Metro CEO Stephanie Wiggins. In addition, Bass has called for adding more Metro Ambassadors to address public safety and led a call to train the ambassadors to use Narcan to save lives during opioid overdoses. Metro Ambassadors have saved 84 lives between April 17 and Nov. 24 by administering Narcan.
• The mayor’s office is working with Metro’s homeless services liaison to offer housing and other resources for homeless riders. Since July, when Bass took over as chair of the Metro board, Metro teams have helped place 527 people into housing.

Despite progress in reducing the city’s job vacancy rate, as highlighted by Bass’ office, it remains stubbornly in the double-digit range. L.A. City Councilmember Tim McOsker, who chairs the City Council’s personnel committee, said the city’s overall vacancy rate has dropped from 21% earlier this year to about 18% or 19%.

“We are chipping away at it. We do have the 2,500 folks that (were hired), but we also have attrition. … So we’re trying to catch up to that aging workforce,” said McOsker, whose council district includes San Pedro where the press conference took place.

Bass said that while job fairs have been publicized, more could be done to increase advertising the events locally through community newspapers and radio stations.

Following the San Pedro event, Bass spoke at a ceremony for graduates of the CleanLA jobs training program who have completed 1,000 or more hours of litter and weed abatement work and are eligible to work for the city’s sanitation or street services bureaus.

In the afternoon, the mayor held a second press conference, this time in the San Fernando Valley, to highlight city efforts to address climate change, including adopting greener, more sustainable practices.

The event took place at the Donald C. Tillman Water Reclamation Plant within the Sepulveda Basin — where wastewater will be purified to replenish the San Fernando Basin and its aquifers, providing new groundwater for up to 250,000 Valley customers, said Nancy Sutley, deputy mayor for the environment.

“This key project will enhance the city’s climate resilience by providing a sustainable local water drinking source to a drought-stressed region,” Sutley said.

Bass credited former Mayors Antonio Villaraigosa and Eric Garcetti for their leadership on environmental issues over the past decade, saying that because of their roles, “we are well on our way to building a greener Los Angeles.”

The mayor noted that, in the past year, the city has:

• Partnered with the state to secure up to $1.2 billion in federal funding to build a hydrogen ecosystem throughout California. A large part of that funding will go to green hydrogen projects in L.A.
• Secured $48 million from the U.S. Department of Energy to enhance the city’s grid flexibility and boost its resilience against increasing threats related to extreme weather and climate change.
• Launched the Comprehensive Affordable Multifamily Retrofits Program to help low-income, multifamily property owners and residents to identify ways to save energy and lower their bills, such as installing solar panels on rooftops.

Bass will continue to make stops throughout Los Angeles through Thursday this week.

On Tuesday, she is scheduled to highlight her administration’s efforts to promote and support local businesses, including making an announcement about a “major California business” moving to L.A., according to her office.

She’ll also participate in a fireside chat with business leaders and highlight LAX’s capital infrastructure improvement program.