Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. Mayor Bass, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for joining us. I do want to start
Speaker 1: with gas prices, obviously hot topic across the country. When
Speaker 1: I take a look at California, TRIPLEA tells me right
Speaker 1: now that the average gas price is pushing about six
Speaker 1: dollars per gallon. You think about Los Angeles, Obviously, it's
Speaker 1: a city that loves its cars. So what are you doing,
Speaker 1: as mayor, if anything, to try and help reduce the
Speaker 1: impact of those higher gas prices.
Speaker 2: Well, let me just tell you that we are a
Speaker 2: city that loves our cars. However, we have spent the
Speaker 2: last three or four decades building out our public transportation
Speaker 2: system and so encouraging people to use public transit, encouraging
Speaker 2: people to carpool. We certainly hope that this ends soon enough,
Speaker 2: because gas prices were already high here because we have
Speaker 2: chosen to text ourselves to improve our environment. So adding
Speaker 2: on the international events and just the uncertainty from Washington,
Speaker 2: you can only imagine the concern that has when affordability
Speaker 2: is the number one issue we're dealing with here period.
Speaker 3: Let me stick with affordability if I can. I know
Speaker 3: that permits for new construction have fallen every year since
Speaker 3: you took office back in twenty twenty two. Curious why
Speaker 3: that is also curious what you can do as mayor
Speaker 3: to reverse that trend in Los Angeles.
Speaker 2: Well, absolutely, Number one is making it easier to build,
Speaker 2: and so I did that within my first couple of
Speaker 2: weeks in office. I signed an executive directive to fast
Speaker 2: track the building, especially of housing, and we have forty
Speaker 2: thousand units that are currently going through that process now,
Speaker 2: with several thousand actively under construction. But once we applied
Speaker 2: those lessons to affordable housing, then we began to apply
Speaker 2: those lessons in terms of cutting red tape to other
Speaker 2: types of building, whether it's commercial, show, residential, et cetera.
Speaker 2: And so that has helped now. Of course, the other
Speaker 2: thing that is creating a lot of difficulty is just
Speaker 2: the larger macro economic issues.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and you're seeing that across the country. I do
Speaker 1: want to talk specifically though about Hollywood, about the filmmaking industry.
Speaker 1: We learned earlier this year that we saw the consolidation
Speaker 1: of Paramount and Warner Brothers, a hard fought bidding war
Speaker 1: there on Paramount's part. The consensus is that this is
Speaker 1: likely going to lead to thousands of job cuts. You
Speaker 1: think about the unemployment rate in LA it already stands
Speaker 1: at about five point one percent, that was at the
Speaker 1: end of twenty twenty five. That is higher than US
Speaker 1: and state averages. So with this wave of job cuts
Speaker 1: seen as likely, what are you doing to prepare?
Speaker 2: Well, let me just tell you even before that the
Speaker 2: entertainment industry is one of our foundation industries, and so
Speaker 2: I have certainly been doing everything to make make sure
Speaker 2: that filming doesn't continue to leave and in fact increases
Speaker 2: in our city. And so the first thing, of course,
Speaker 2: was the advocacy on the tax credits on the state level,
Speaker 2: which did finally pass and get signed. I was involved
Speaker 2: when I was Speaker of the Assembly many years ago
Speaker 2: in creating the first tax credits. But I meet with
Speaker 2: the industry regularly and they came up with a variety
Speaker 2: of things that the city could do to make filming easier.
Speaker 2: I put all of those into policy, put them into action,
Speaker 2: and we do have filming increasing in our city. Of course,
Speaker 2: I'm concerned about the merger. I think what a lot
Speaker 2: of people don't think about are all of the jobs
Speaker 2: that are associated, either directly are indirectly with the industry
Speaker 2: and making sure that filming can be easier. We have
Speaker 2: over one hundred and nineteen new projects that have started
Speaker 2: in LA since the tax credits and these other initiatives
Speaker 2: have been put into place.
Speaker 3: Preparing for two big sporting events. Let's start with the first,
Speaker 3: that's the World Cup, And I'm curious if you could
Speaker 3: describe the amount of investment you're having to make in
Speaker 3: security and indeed who's going to be footing the bill
Speaker 3: for all that.
Speaker 2: Sure, well, we certainly are anticipating reimbursement from the federal government.
Speaker 2: You know, we were got the consideration for a national
Speaker 2: security event very early on, and so that unleashes a
Speaker 2: lot of support. But what we're doing as a city
Speaker 2: the game actually takes place in an adjacent city, Englewood,
Speaker 2: but we are preparing for tens of thousands, if not more,
Speaker 2: of visitors traveling throughout our city, and we're planning festivals
Speaker 2: and watch parties all throughout our city. We anticipate having
Speaker 2: one hundred different events, and you know, the World Cup
Speaker 2: lasts over thirty days, so we're really seeing it as
Speaker 2: an economic boom to our area.
Speaker 1: It's a similar situation when you think about what's happening
Speaker 1: in New York. Of course, the actual games are happening
Speaker 1: in New Jersey, but of course New York City is
Speaker 1: going to same things sort of see the benefit of that.
Speaker 1: I do want to talk about the Olympics. Of course,
Speaker 1: that is the other big sporting event. You have called
Speaker 1: for the ouster of Casey Wasserman as the LA twenty
Speaker 1: eight Olympic chair. You looked at his past ties to
Speaker 1: Jeffrey Epstein. He's staying put. So with that in mind,
Speaker 1: given that history, how do you anticipate working together now?
Speaker 2: Well, we'll continue to work together. I'm in conversation regularly.
Speaker 2: LA twenty eight is the independent nonprofit that is putting
Speaker 2: on the games. It's located nearby City Hall. We collaborate
Speaker 2: on a daily basis. I set up an Office of
Speaker 2: Major Events to handle all of the events. The culmination,
Speaker 2: of course, is the Olympics and the Paralympics. But we
Speaker 2: have the World Cup, the US Open for Golf for women,
Speaker 2: we have the Super Bowl. All of those things are
Speaker 2: happening before we get to the Olympics, and so we
Speaker 2: continue to work together. The decision whether Casey Wasserman stays
Speaker 2: was up to the board. They've made their decision. My
Speaker 2: role is to make sure that the city of Los
Speaker 2: Angeles is ready to welcome thousands, tens of thousands of
Speaker 2: visitors from around the world, and that all of the
Speaker 2: venues that take place in the city of La are prepared.
Speaker 3: I want to ask you for some comparison, if I
Speaker 3: could so, Dan Lurie and San Francisco has kind of
Speaker 3: shepherded that city from what was called a doom loop
Speaker 3: into a bit of a boom environment, thanks in part
Speaker 3: to AI. I'm curious how one mayor looks at another
Speaker 3: and the work that he or she does. Is there
Speaker 3: anything in his leadership that you admire or think might
Speaker 3: be transferable to your leadership of Los Angeles in this term?
Speaker 3: And if you're re elected to a second.
Speaker 2: One, well, let me just tell you that one thing
Speaker 2: that has been very enjoyable about being mayor is that
Speaker 2: we are all in conversation and collaborate with each other
Speaker 2: and look at each other's experience. So actually, my view
Speaker 2: of San Francisco started with the former mayor, London Breed,
Speaker 2: who really focused on AI. She said she wanted it
Speaker 2: to be the AI capital of the world. And I
Speaker 2: see how he has continued that, and I'm sure he
Speaker 2: will expand it even further looking at his ties in
Speaker 2: the business community. Now, you know, San Francisco is a much, much,
Speaker 2: much smaller city than Los Angeles is. We are so big,
Speaker 2: five hundred square miles that we don't have one big industry.
Speaker 2: I mean, the entertainment industry, of course is our rock,
Speaker 2: but so are several other industries as well well.
Speaker 1: Mayor Bass. As David mentioned, you are up for reelection,
Speaker 1: so focusing explicitly on that, how would you say that
Speaker 1: Los Angeles is better off today than it was four
Speaker 1: years ago? And should you win that second term, what
Speaker 1: is your top goal?
Speaker 2: Absolutely well, I ran because Los Angeles was the epicenter
Speaker 2: for the country in homelessness, especially street homelessness, and I
Speaker 2: am proud to say that after year after year year
Speaker 2: of homelessness increasing, and the national trend, frankly was an
Speaker 2: increase in homelessness of eighteen percent, we've had the exact
Speaker 2: opposite in Los Angeles, where we've had a decrease in
Speaker 2: street homelessness of eighteen percent. This is a disfunctional system
Speaker 2: that has been dysfunctional for at least the last three decades,
Speaker 2: and so what I hope to accomplish by the end
Speaker 2: of my second term is establishing and creating a functional
Speaker 2: system that we get people off the street. We know
Speaker 2: how to do that, but we have to keep them
Speaker 2: off the street permanently, and we have to prevent more
Speaker 2: people from falling onto into homelessness. So public safety is
Speaker 2: another key issue, and crime has been reduced to levels
Speaker 2: going back to the nineteen sixties. And then basic city services.
Speaker 2: So when you think of public safety, basic things like
Speaker 2: street lights. We've had a rash, like many other cities
Speaker 2: of copper theft, and so now pushing that furthers our
Speaker 2: environmental goals of changing from copper to solar. And I
Speaker 2: just announced the program a couple of days ago to
Speaker 2: replace sixty thousand copper wire lights with solar lights. What
Speaker 2: the city had been doing for years and years is
Speaker 2: just replacing copper lights with copper lights that continued to
Speaker 2: be stolen. So basic quality of life, basic city services, homelessness,
Speaker 2: public safety, the things that I have worked on that
Speaker 2: we have made absolute objective progress in. I want to
Speaker 2: continue and take it across the finish line. All right.
Speaker 3: The forty third mayor of the city of Los Angeles,
Speaker 3: Karen Bass, thank you very much, appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me on