{"id":281874,"date":"2026-04-23T11:16:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T11:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/281874\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T11:16:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T11:16:07","slug":"op-ed-passing-bass-and-the-free-fall-of-los-angeles-columns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/281874\/","title":{"rendered":"Op-Ed: “Passing Bass” and the Free Fall of Los Angeles | Columns"},"content":{"rendered":"

LOS ANGELES – As millions of Angelenos and Californians struggle to keep roofs over their heads and food on their families\u2019 plates, state and local governments continue to spend the people\u2019s money like drunken sailors. Actually, that\u2019s an insult to drunk sailors, who at least work for a living after they sober up.<\/p>\n

In contrast, political hacks like Karen Bass \u2014 who like so many modern politicians has never had a real job in her life \u2014 live in a thoroughly free world in which taxpayer dollars aren\u2019t spent to make taxpayers\u2019 lives better, but to ensure the state\u2019s dominant Democrat Party retains the political support of unions, the Housing and Homeless Industrial Complex, and other special interests who could not possibly care less about the people their decisions affect every day.<\/p>\n

Two years ago, L.A.\u2019s budget was just over $13 billion. Bass\u2019s proposed 2026-27 budget is a hair under $15 billion. For the mathematically inclined that\u2019s a 15% increase.<\/p>\n

What possible justification can there be? Bass can\u2019t even keep the decorative water fountains running in front of her own City Hall! Vagrants literally use the bathroom in the bushes and on the grass around City Hall, and she can\u2019t or won\u2019t stop them. Now she wants $2 billion more to continue not doing her job.<\/p>\n

For good measure, Bass is spitting in everyone\u2019s face. On her watch, copper thieves are having a field day. As a result, on any given night, 40% of the city\u2019s street lights are dark. That has major implications for public safety. The wealthiest city in the wealthiest state in the wealthiest nation in human history literally cannot keep the lights on.<\/p>\n

So Bass and some other city \u2014 oh, let\u2019s call them \u201cleaders\u201d \u2014 are asking voters to approve a ballot measure<\/a> in the June primary that would increase street light assessments for property owners by 150%, from an average of around $50 to $125, so that the city can fix the vandalized streetlights and start installing solar powered new ones.<\/p>\n

Let that sink in for a minute. Let it really sink in: Bass and her administration, despite seeking to fleece Angelenos for that extra $2 billion, are failing one of the most rudimentary duties of city government, and it\u2019s beyond their capabilities.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been to a lot of cities in developing countries in Africa and Central and South Asia. You know one thing they all had in common? Functional public lighting. Along the mostly dirt streets and roads of Arusha, Tanzania, the lights were on. A quarter century ago, when I visited villages in central and western China before the country went into economic hyperdrive, the lights were on. Three decades ago when I visited remote islands in southern Thailand, the lights were on. In the seaside village of Tarfaya in southern Morocco, in the ancient town of Kars in Turkey near the Armenian border \u2014 lights. Hell, in news footage from Iran the lights seem to be on at night after six weeks of relentless aerial bombardment.<\/p>\n

In Los Angeles in 2026? Not so much.<\/p>\n

The degree of failure is stupefying.<\/p>\n

And now Bass literally wants home and property owners to pay for her failure. She expects them to.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s grotesque. \u201cIncompetent\u201d doesn\u2019t even begin to describe it. We have to come up with a new word in the English language to describe the level of Bass\u2019s failure.<\/p>\n

Heck, let\u2019s just call it \u201cBassing.\u201d Or \u201cpassing Bass.\u201d As in, \u201cL.A.\u2019s really passing Bass these days, you know?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you think about Lenny, the new guy in HR?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOof, he\u2019s only been here a week and he\u2019s already passing Bass.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s got a nice ring to it. Let\u2019s work it into the lexicon.<\/p>\n

Somehow, it gets even more perverse. You can bet your last dollar that, should Angelenos not approve Bass\u2019s streetlight fee increase, she\u2019ll let swaths of the city continue to languish in darkness. This is how sick politicians like her are. It\u2019s a goddamn protection racket. \u201cReal shame about them streetlights. If you pay up, I\u2019ll see to it they get fixed. Otherwise, well, there ain\u2019t much I\u2019m gonna be able to do, you know?\u201d<\/p>\n

Passing Bass already cost us the Pacific Palisades. An entire community wiped off the map, a dozen people dead, a hundred thousand or more displaced, lives upended or destroyed, countless family treasures, pictures, and heirlooms vaporized, tens of billions in damages.<\/p>\n

And Karen Bass had never once taken responsibility. Never once apologized for going on a literal ego trip overseas as historic natural threats bore down on the city she allegedly governs.<\/p>\n

And now she wants more money, in order to fail even harder.<\/p>\n

If you told me, four years ago, that I\u2019d miss Eric Garcetti one day, I\u2019d have laughed you out of the room.<\/p>\n

I miss Eric Garcetti. At least he ran a marginally competent city government. Sure, he was performative, he blew with the political winds, and he had all the moral convictions of a dust mite. But the city still, more or less, functioned.<\/p>\n

Under Bass, L.A. is in free fall. The last time I went downtown, I met a buddy for lunch at a restaurant on Los Angeles Street between 7th and 8th. I arrived early, and had nearly half an hour to kill. I decided to do a little urban exploring.<\/p>\n

I made it precisely one block. It was broad daylight in the middle of a Wednesday, and it wasn\u2019t safe. Mind you, I\u2019m a big guy and I\u2019m reasonably competent when it comes to self-defense. I turned right around and booked it over to the food court, where I sat and scrolled on my phone until my friend arrived.<\/p>\n

Again, in all those cities in those developing countries, I never felt a similar level of threat. Walking the streets of Nairobi at night, I felt more safe than in downtown L.A. in broad daylight.<\/p>\n

This is life in passin\u2019 Bass\u2019s Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

The street lights aren\u2019t her only protection racket threat. Some members of the City Council, to their credit, recently have explored a ballot measure that would provide struggling local businesses with a modicum of relief by eliminating the city\u2019s business tax<\/a>. The measure, which is sponsored by the tourism, hospitality, and other business groups, secured enough signatures to qualify for the November ballot.<\/p>\n

The measure would cost around $800 million from the general fund, an amount supporters say would be compensated for by increased sales tax revenues from revived and expanding businesses.<\/p>\n

Also, you know, Bass could cut $800 million from the $2 billion in new spending she wants.<\/p>\n

When the possibility of losing some of her extorted largesse was even broached, Bass immediately did her best John Gotti impression. She told reporters, \u201cEliminating the business tax would eliminate the Fire Department.\u201d<\/p>\n

Excuse my French, but the absolute f***g gall. This is a woman who unforgivably neglected her duty to protect the people of Los Angeles in January 2025, who failed to support the Fire Department, and who went to war with her own fire chief even as the Palisades burned. But when people propose maybe providing a bit of relief to the city\u2019s local businesses, she holds that same department hostage. \u201cNice fire department you have here. Would be a real shame if anything was to happen to it \u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n

I confess: I woefully underestimated Karen Bass. When I first met her, I fell for her kindly grandma routine. I fell for her political parlor tricks. I actually \u2014 God help me \u2014 thought she was decent, and that she cared about the City of Los Angeles. I had hope.<\/p>\n

I was suckered. I missed the absolute ruthlessness, the narcissism, the will to power. Karen Bass could run a South American or African military junta. At this point I\u2019m actually surprised she only made it as far as Congresswoman and Mayor.<\/p>\n

Then again, ruthlessness doesn\u2019t equal competence or intelligence. Just look at Gavin Newsom.<\/p>\n

Which is where we get to the core of the problem. Modern California is run by people of marginal abilities who seek power for power\u2019s sake, the likes of Bass, Newsom, Tod Gloria, Scott Wiener, Eric Swalwell, and a host of others. Like Bass, they\u2019ve never had real jobs. They\u2019ve never had to make payroll or provide actual services to customers or clients. Their lives are all about climbing the ladder, and pushing off anyone who gets in the way. It\u2019s ruthlessness decoupled from consequence.<\/p>\n

In a sense, they\u2019re the dogs that caught the cars. They don\u2019t know how to wield power for any purpose beyond sustaining and expanding power itself. That\u2019s how we end up spending $15 billion to not lay a single foot of high speed rail track and tens of billions to make the homelessness crisis worse. It\u2019s how we grew into arguably the national capital of fraud, where criminals siphoned tens and maybe hundreds of billions in taxpayer dollars over the last two decades. It\u2019s how we became the state with the worst roads in the country, some of the worst infrastructure, one of the highest poverty rates, and the worst income inequality.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also why they\u2019re particularly susceptible to trendy ideological fads, whether it\u2019s \u201cdemocratic socialism\u201d (a contradiction in terms if ever there was one) or a Green New Deal, BDS or BLM. When you believe in nothing, you\u2019ll believe anything. Bass just rolled out another version of the Green New Deal last week, because of course she did. She bought into the failed \u201chousing first\u201d homelessness ideology because she had no ideas of her own on the subject.<\/p>\n

All of which raises the most important question of all: How much longer are voters in L.A. and throughout California going to tolerate politicians who do nothing but pass Bass?<\/p>\n

Editor’s Note: The views and opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Westside Current.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES – As millions of Angelenos and Californians struggle to keep roofs over their heads and food…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":281875,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[1919,48,52,51,47,50,49,975],"class_list":{"0":"post-281874","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-columns","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-opinion"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281874","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=281874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281874\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}