LOS ANGELES \u2014 Billionaire developer and former unsuccessful mayoral candidate Rick Caruso decided Thursday not to pursue another potential challenge to Mayor Karen Bass, while another prominent candidate announced he was dropping out of the fray for personal reasons.<\/p>\n
Caruso\u2019s decision not to run for Los Angeles mayor in the June mayoral primary comes a day after contemplating a run in the wake of a bombshell story published Wednesday by the Los Angeles Times saying Bass directed the watering-down of an after-action report critical of the LA fire department\u2019s handling of the deadly Palisades Fire. Bass vehemently denied the accusation.<\/p>\n
\u201cRick is incredibly moved by outpouring of support but reached an earlier decision in a thoughtful process and it stands. He will not be a candidate for mayor,\u201d Mike Murphy, a political consultant for Caruso, told the Times Thursday.<\/p>\n
Caruso \u2014 who lost the 2022 election to Karen Bass \u2014 told KNX radio Wednesday evening that he needed time to process the news before he makes a decision on another possible mayoral run. But he did not rule out entering the 2026 race after all at the time.<\/p>\n
\u201cI need to spend some time thinking about this,\u201d Caruso said. \u201cIt\u2019s very fresh news. I\u2019ve gotten a lot of calls today, as you can imagine, and there\u2019s been a lot of posts on X and other places asking me to jump back in. I\u2019m honored by that, but let\u2019s give me some time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Caruso did not have much time to make such a decision \u2014 the deadline to file a declaration of intention for the June primary election is noon Saturday.<\/p>\n
The mayoral campaign took another turn Thursday morning when former Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Austin Beutner announced he was dropping out of the race.<\/p>\n
Beutner, whose 22-year-old daughter Emily died unexpectedly last month, was considered the top challenger to Bass in the upcoming election.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have made the difficult decision not to run for Mayor of Los Angeles,\u201d Beutner said in a statement Thursday morning. \u201cMy family has experienced the unimaginable loss of our beloved daughter Emily. She was a magical person, the light of our lives. We are still in mourning.<\/p>\n
\u201cA successful campaign, and more importantly the job of mayor, requires someone who is committed 24\/7 to the job,\u201d Beutner said. \u201cFamily has always come first for me. That is where I need to be at this time.\u201d<\/p>\n
His message concluded with the comment that Los Angeles is \u201ca special place, but every day it\u2019s becoming less affordable, less safe and a more difficult place to live. To solve these problems, new ideas are needed along with leadership capable of implementing them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beutner served as LAUSD superintendent from 2018 to 2021.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, another possible plot twist that might alter the landscape of the June mayoral primary was also simmering \u2014 with LA County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath potentially throwing her hat into the ring.<\/p>\n
Horvath was a vocal critic of the city\u2019s response to the Palisades Fire. The supervisor called on Gov. Gavin Newsom to fully investigate the true cause of the disaster.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe city\u2019s diluted report has lost all credibility,\u201d Horvath wrote on a social media.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES \u2014 Billionaire developer and former unsuccessful mayoral candidate Rick Caruso decided Thursday not to pursue another…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":169165,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[4132,48,52,51,47,50,49,20923],"class_list":{"0":"post-169164","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-karen-bass","9":"tag-la","10":"tag-la-headlines","11":"tag-la-news","12":"tag-los-angeles","13":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","14":"tag-los-angeles-news","15":"tag-rick-caruso"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169164\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}