Nithya Raman came into tonight’s debate with a big problem: The last two times she faced off against Karen Bass, the mayor beat her. Badly.
Before the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn. in May, the councilmember hemmed and hawed and stumbled around as Bass answered questions with ease. During a debate with Bass and then-candidate Spencer Pratt at the Skirball Cultural Center later that same week, Raman offered constant word salads when her opponents and even the moderators weren’t leaving her flustered.
Tonight, Raman came ready to fight.
Her voice was strong and steady in the first part of the debate as she kept her comments short and offered concrete answers to questions offered by moderator and Fox 11 reporter Phil Shuman. She kept unprovoked critiques against Bass to a minimum and didn’t take the mayor’s constant baiting, even though Bass was setting up lures like someone fishing off the Newport Beach Pier.
The best example of the new Raman came when Bass pointed out that Raman had missed the second-most council meetings of all councilmembers during her time in office. When Raman said that she had missed meetings because of her responsibility to other governmental boards, Bass responded that other councilmembers had done the same yet “they find their way to work,” drawing ooohs from the audience.
Raman cracked that if she was such a bad councilmember, “Why did you appoint me to all these external boards?
“Well, we need to work at that,” Bass said, before asking Raman if she was “getting ready to resign.”
“Excuse me?” Raman responded, and left it at that as Shuman moved on.