March 25, 2026 • 44 mins
This week, Diosa and Mala interview LA City Councilmember and mayoral candidate, Nithya Raman about her sudden entry into the race, her approach to stronger disaster preparedness, and a more aggressive city response to ICE actions, including prosecutorial strategies and safeguards during the upcoming World Cup and Olympics. Councilmember Nithya Raman shares how she plans to lead and transform LA.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey, look, amotz. This is Diosa and you're listening to
look at Tora Radio. In this week's episode, we interview
mayoral race candidate Nythia Rahmen. She currently holds a seat
in La City Council and represents District four. Council Member
Nythia Rahmen filed her candidacy for the mayor's race on
(00:23):
the final day in February, shocking every politico across Los Angeles.
She's running against Democratic incumbent Mayor Karen Bass. In this interview,
council Member Nythia Ramen shares the days leading up to
her filing.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
I had felt this sense of increasing frustration with the
limitations that I was facing at city Hall, and I
thought we would have an opportunity during this mayoral race
to talk about it, to talk about the direction of
the city, to talk about whether people felt like things
were moving in the right direction in.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
LA, and her stance on leasing and the Feds in La.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Whether it's the World Cup or whether it's the Olympics,
we are actually inviting federal law enforcement here. How does
the Mayor's office ensure that these events are happening in
a way that's safe for Angelino's.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
The City of La is in a budget deficit. There's
a myriad of issues Angelino's are facing every day, like housing, affordability,
public safety, ice, kidnapping our neighbors, and the humanitarian crisis
that is homelessness. But amidst these concerns lies across roads,
(01:36):
a chance to stick to the status quo or enact
change and redefine the City of LA's future. In this race,
we find a diverse set of candidates. Even reality TV
star Spencer Pratt is running for LA mayor. Every candidate
demands our scrutiny, not just our support. Now is the
(01:58):
time to familiarize ourselves with these candidates, not just through
their campaign promises, but through their past actions and future potentials.
It's our collective responsibility to be informed, to ask questions,
and to make a voting plan with our friends and family.
It's a midterm electioneer and this is an important race
(02:19):
in Los Angeles. We know that not all of our
listeners are LA based, but we do think this mayoral
race is important because Los Angeles is often a test
ground for politics and policy. Here's our interview with council
member and mayoral candidate Nitthia Ramen.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
This is Nitia Raman candidate for mayor of Los Angeles,
and you're listening to look at the radio.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Thank you so much for joining us today. We're really
thrilled to be in conversation with you, and to start
us off, you know a little bit about us. We
are born and raised Angelina's. I'm a first generation Angelina.
My mom is from Mexico, my dad is from Peru.
Mu's family has been here for several generations. And I'll
let her chime in when she wants to. We want
(03:08):
to start by asking you what's the La story you
want to tell and what is it about Angelino's that
you love the most?
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Yeah, so I you know, I'm not a native Angelino.
I moved here as an adult, and I like to
say that I love Los Angeles with the fierceness that
only a transplant can have because I've lived in other
places and I know what the city offered me and
my family and the ways in which the opportunities that
(03:37):
it offered us were so different from what I had
seen in other places. And that's really what I love
about LA is that it has been and it is
a place that welcomes people into it, that allows for
people to seek out their ambition and their dreams and
doesn't ask you who your parents are, what your pa
(04:00):
degree is, you know what qualifies you to do it.
It really opens itself up to build your dreams here
in a way that I have not seen in any
other part of the world. And it is it for me.
It's so inspiring to live here.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Thank you for that. Yeah. I'm a third generation Angelina
if you count. My grandmother came here when she was sixteen,
and my mom is born and raised in the Los
Angeles and I'm born and raised in LA And I'm
wondering if you can name for us some of the
qualities that you think Angelina's have that motivate you to
lead us.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Yeah. So one of the things that inspired me the
most about Los Angeles is how generous people are to
others here. When I first ran for office, i ran
because I started this volunteer group in my neighborhood to
help people who are experiencing homelessness. And we were just
(04:55):
wandering from from tent to tent in on the street
and in the parks near my home, and we were
giving out breakfast burritos, hot cups of coffee, and trying
to connect people to resources like services or shelter when
it was available, and for that volunteer group, we had
(05:17):
to turn away people. There was such an incredible need
to give back and to respond to the crisis of homelessness,
not with anger, not with a desire to see, you know,
the visible signs of poverty immediately disappear from their neighborhood,
but from people to say, I want to help and
(05:40):
I want to do something about it in a way
that really helps people move indoors and get off the streets.
And that to me was so inspiring. It's one of
the reasons that I initially ran for office, and it's
one of those things that continues to inspire me about
Angelino's is their willingness to give and their willingness to
be generous to others. We've seen it over and over
again too in how we vote for, you know, for
(06:03):
new measures to help other people. So we've voted for
taxes for affordable housing, we've voted for taxes for people
who are experiencing homelessness, and we've done that more than once. Really,
I think because of that generosity of spirit, and one
of the reasons why I feel like I, you know,
I feel so lucky to be an elected official here
is because I want to honor that spirit of generosity
(06:26):
by delivering a government that really delivers on the outcomes
that people need, that really does show up and help people,
that really does get people indoors and off the streets
and you know, into shelters, that really does try and
lower the cost of living in this extraordinarily expensive city.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Thank you for that. Before we dive into the intricacies
of your campaign and why you're running, we want to
ask you to describe your perfect day in La, whether
that's doing something, going somewhere, dining somewhere. We would love
to know what's your perfect day in La.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
I have two little ones. I have ten year old
twins who are fourth graders, and I think my perfect
day in La really looks like spending the day with
them and my husband, going for a maybe a hike
in Griffith Park or in Deb's Park where you can
walk up the hill, walk past a pond and then
(07:25):
there's a swing where you can swing and you have
a beautiful view in front of you, and then maybe
going for a brunch afterwards. But everything about the light
in La, watching my children walk up and down these
incredible mountains that go through this city. I have so
many memories of doing this with my children that in
(07:49):
my mind feel magical because of the quality of the
light and the way in which I remember those occasions
and remembering them at different ages doing the same walks fabulous.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Yes, we love our hikes in LA It's one of
my favorite ways to spend a day here as well.
And if you can hit a hike and the beach
at the same time, that's like peak Los Angeles.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Peak Los Angeles.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Doing the stairs in Santa Monica maybe, and then cutting
down to the.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Water, yes, a movement in our beautiful city. Well, we
just want to thank you for joining us here at
look at LA Radio. It was big news when you
filed your mayoral candidacy. You filed on the last day
possible to file, and we were curious if this was
strategic or did something specifically happen that inspired you to run.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
I've been feeling it was not pre planned or wasn't
something that I had been kind of contemplating for months.
For me, I had been struggling with in my role.
So I've been a city council member now for five years,
a little over five years I have you know, I
finished my first term and I'm in my second term.
(09:04):
And I will say that, especially over the last couple
of years, I felt a real sense of frustration with
the way that things are moving in the city of
Los Angeles, a real sense of after when I first started,
it was right after COVID and or you know, we
(09:25):
were still in the middle of pre vaccine COVID, and
then vaccine started coming and things were opening up again.
And my first couple of years in office really felt
like moments of positive change in LA. We were able
to get out there and do work for residents, for
constituents that felt like we were making real progress in
the district. That what felt like we were addressing some
(09:46):
of the biggest needs that people were facing, whether it
was addressing basic services, or whether it was providing people
a chance to have more security in their rental units
by passing expanded tenant protections, whatever it was, it felt
like a time of building, of possibility and of positive change,
(10:07):
and of being able to deliver results for constituents. But
I will say over the last couple of years, it
does not feel like I have been able to deliver
for my constituents in the same way, partly because of
decisions made by our current mayor and some of our
city leadership that have left us with really depleted resources
(10:28):
to be able to serve residents of Los Angeles at
a time when the city is facing enormous needs, and
that has been really frustrating. Those frustrations really deepened during
the fires watching those play out, realizing that the city
could have done more to be prepared in advance of
them and to respond better with accountability, with urgency, with
(10:49):
being present for residents after them during the ice raids,
feeling like the city wasn't doing enough to meet that moment.
But over the course of this last year also was
seeing that we weren't really able to deliver on some
of the most essential services that people need at these
times because of budget decisions that had been made by
(11:10):
the mayor and city leadership that left us with really
really depleted resources to be able to do things like
fixed potholes and turn on street lights thirty thousand of
which are off across the entire city. Really the essentials
of living in La we are not able to provide
at a time when we have much more complicated things
to do and to address here in LA, including addressing homelessness,
(11:32):
addressing the cost of living crisis, all of that, and
so I had felt this sense of increasing frustration with
the limitations that I was facing at city Hall, and
I thought we would have an opportunity during this mayoral
race to talk about it, to talk about the direction
of the city, to talk about whether people felt like
things were moving in the right direction in LA, whether
(11:54):
they felt like the city was responding to them with
the same urgency that they were feeling. I think that's
what really pushed me to get in at that very
last moment, seeing that there wasn't going to be a challenge,
that we were just going to move forward into the
next four years with the same situation that we were
in over the last couple of years.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
There's a really interesting arc that you shared about twenty twenty.
There was, of course the pandemic, which devastated Los Angeles
in other places, but then that energy of movement building
and getting vaccinated, and they're being a vaccine rollout and
people being outside again, and they're being this re energized
feeling of in the city. Right to now post twenty
(12:35):
twenty five post fire recovery and the ice rates. Right,
it was obviously a very challenging year for communities across
Los Angeles. So, if elected mayor, how would you handle
one disaster preparedness and two what would be your plan
to protect all LA residents from these unjust ice rates.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Yeah, so disaster preparedness, I think is something that you know,
we the Mayor's office is ultimately I know from my
time there, they are. You know, there's there's frontline agencies
that are public safety agencies that are designed to respond
to them to issues when we have them, But the
mayor's office is the executive authority, is ultimately the anchor
(13:20):
of those issues. And so when you have a situation
like unprecedented wins, you know that they're coming. When you
have as you're having today and tomorrow, extraordinary heat in
Los Angeles, extraordinary heat, these are all various kinds of
emergencies that the city is facing, and it is the
mayor's office's role to ensure that we're prepared to the
(13:41):
fullest extent possible before those emergencies and to make sure
that our city resources are being deployed appropriately. And I
think you know, if I'm mayor, My role will be
one that I have played in my district to a
lesser extent as the council member. But really trying to
(14:02):
make sure, Okay, there's torrential rains coming. Are we making
sure that our hillsides are protected, there's significant winds being predicted.
Are we making sure that we have contact with the
fire department, that they are absolutely ready to deploy as needed,
that they're keeping their staff in place in response to this,
(14:22):
and even more actually stepping back and saying, are we
planning for these emergencies? Because this kind of event in
Los Angeles is becoming more frequent because of climate change.
These are extreme weather events, but it's thirty five degrees
hotter today than it normally is in March, and this
(14:44):
is becoming increasingly the norm. These are all the kinds
of things that I feel like a resilient and a
robust emergency response need to be thinking about in the city,
and they have to be thinking about it in different
ways depending on who's impacted. There's a different response for
fire risk and for mudslide risk, which impacts primarily hillside neighborhoods,
(15:06):
versus extreme heat, which impacts neighborhoods in places like South
la that don't have a lot of tree cover, in Pacoima,
which is hotter, significantly hotter, up to ten degrees hotter
than the rest of the city, how do we make
sure that we have cooling centers in those places? How
do we make sure that we're activating transit for people
to get to cooling centers and to be safe, and
(15:28):
to make sure that they are safe in these kinds
of emergencies. The Mayor's office really has to anchor that
work and to drive it forward with the urgency that
this moment in Los Angeles, as we're facing increasing climate risk,
really demands. You asked also about ice response, and I
think that there is a role that the city can
(15:49):
play and that the Mayor's office can play that is
more robust than the one that we've taken on in
many ways so far. I think that we have regulations
and rules in place for how law enforcement should be
operating in our city. If they are not following those rules,
(16:10):
can we use our city attorney or work with the
state Attorney general to be able to prosecute harmful action
by the federal government locally? That to me is a
missed opportunity. What is our city doing with its own
prosecutorial authority to make sure that we're holding federal law
enforcement accountable for the rules that they should be following.
(16:32):
And what we've seen is that in some of those cases,
the courts have agreed and have actually limited federal actions
in cities. But the city has to step up and
take those actions. And I think that that's incredibly important.
We need to be pushing far more to be doing
that kind of prosecutorial work, and the city attorney, pushed
(16:52):
by the mayor, can do it. They just have to
take up that space and really press forward on it.
I also think that there are big unanswered questions about
major athletic events that are happening. Major world events are
happening in the city where we, by the design of
those events, are inviting federal law enforcement into our city,
(17:13):
including ice, whether it's the World Cup or whether it's
the Olympics, we are actually inviting federal law enforcement here.
So how does the mayor's office ensure that Angelino's So
many of us are immigrants. I'm an immigrant to America.
So many of us are immigrants, so many of us
have mixed status families here. How does the Mayor's office
(17:36):
ensure that these events are happening in a way that's
safe for Angelino's. What is our role, what is the
city's role in ensuring that safety? And I think I
would be doing two kinds of things. One is I
would be messaging to Angelino's every day that these events
would happen, but they would never happen at the expense
(17:57):
of the safety of Angelino's, and I would be very
up front and clear and vocal about that. And the
second is that I would be engaging proactively with FIFA,
the World Cup, and the federal government, and with the
LA twenty eight leadership and with the federal government to say,
how do we ensure that your presence here is not
(18:18):
going to endanger us as a city, is not going
to endanger the people of Los Angeles, who deserve nothing
more than ultimate protection that work needs to happen. We've
seen that proactive engagement with the federal government has resulted
in better outcomes for residents in other cities. We've seen
it in New York, We've seen it in Boston, We've
seen it in San Francisco. We should be doing the
same thing here. Particularly in Los Angeles, which is a
(18:40):
home to so many immigrants.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Don't go anywhere.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Look, Amorees, We'll be right back.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
I think that one of the pieces with regards to
safety of Angelino's has to do with a mass unidentifiable
ice agents essentially kidnapping Angelina's off of the streets. And
even though the state of California did pass a law
banning federal agents from wearing masks, our chief of police
(19:13):
here in La has said that he wouldn't enforce it. So,
if you are elected mayor, how would you hold the
LAPD accountable and would you demand that the chief of
police enforce the mask ban on ice agents.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
I mean, I just want to say I found those
comments incredibly disrespectful to Angelino's. The chief of police is
the embodiment of public safety for Angelinos, you know, he
is the person that really is the city's kind of
visible face of public safety. And for him to say
at a moment when so many Angelinos are feeling so
(19:47):
much fear, when these mask kidnappers are operating on our streets,
to kind of dismiss regulations and laws that were put
in at the state level to try and keep us
safer to say, oh, I'm not going to enforce that.
I thought that was completely unacceptable. That language was unacceptable.
And I don't think he gets to pick and choose
which laws he gets to implement. If laws are being
(20:09):
put in place to keep Angelino safe, I think you say,
I will uphold those law to all laws, to the
fullest of my ability, because I know that that's what
Angelina knows need. And so I found those comments to be,
I mean, you know, really unacceptable for the Again, the
kind of the key individual in public safety here in
(20:32):
the city of Los Angeles. I didn't hear from our
mayor a pushback on that, you know, I didn't hear
from her kind of a strong comment saying no, we're
here to keep Angelino safe. And I think that's really
what we need to be doing. And I think the
mayor has the authority to hold the chief of Police accountable.
(20:53):
She appoints him. She's the person who picks and chooses
who is in that role, and between her and the
police mission, that's really where primary accountability lies for operations
for LAPD, and the mayor really needs to use her role.
And that's what I would do if I were in
that role. To use my role as mayor to push
for accountability, to make sure that LAPD is doing everything
(21:15):
that they can do to keep Angelino safe, to implement
laws that are designed to protect us in these incredibly
dangerous and scary times, and to underscore that our law enforcement,
our local law enforcement, is here for the protection of
Angelino's Thank you.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
You mentioned that when you started campaigning in twenty twenty,
when you were running for election for city count the
very first time that you started by volunteering. Obviously, homelessness
is a huge issue here in the City of La
and La County, and according to the Los Angeles Homeless
Service Authority, homelessness has gone down by three point four percent,
(21:56):
but it's still a stigering forty three thousand population in
the city LA. And I know that in your position
in city Council you have worked on legislation and initiatives
for homelessness. So I'm wondering how that would differ as mayor,
if elected, and how you would continue to address this
homelessness crisis in the City of Los Angeles.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
So we have expended a huge amount more on homelessness
over the last few years than we have in previous years.
During a time when homelessness has risen by significant numbers,
and I think our increased expenditures are increased investments in
things like building more shelter beds and bringing more resources
(22:39):
to the table have resulted in people moving indoors and
off the streets, which is really exciting. But what we've
done is to spend an extraordinary amount of money and
not create a system that's really working as effectively as
possible to get as many people indoors and into safety
as possible, as quickly as possible. And I've pushed for
(23:02):
that at the city and met Resistance and actually creating
that system, but I think it's really important to do it.
The way in which the city is responding right now
to homelessness is among the most expensive and not the
most effective way to respond to this issue. Some of
the hotel and motel rooms that are funded through the
(23:24):
Inside Safe program can cost eighty to one hundred thousand
dollars a year per person per bed, and that is
an enormous expenditure. We can actually spend significantly less than
that and still bring people indoors and bring them into
safety and actually have better outcomes. Almost half of people
who are coming into shelters right now, are actually returning
(23:46):
to the streets. We need to actually have oversight and
information about the way that our system is working in
order to ensure that the money that we're spending is
actually going towards what we want, which is helping the
largest number of people possible and making sure that they're
getting the services they need to succeed indoors and in safety.
(24:07):
I've tried to build out that system over the last
couple of years in City Hall. I pushed for and
secured through legislative action, Homelessness Oversight Office within the city,
identifying for the first time a place in city Hall
that would be overseeing this massive amount of money that
(24:28):
we're spending. We're spending five thousand percent more on homelessness
than we did just a few years ago, and we
have no staff at the city to really oversee those
dollars and make sure it's working. A year after we
have created that office, that office still has no staff,
so we still don't have people who are managing these dollars,
who are making sure that it's working, And to me,
(24:49):
that is an unacceptable lack of urgency on what I
think is the humanitarian crisis of you know, of Los
Angeles over the last years, one that has grown so much,
one that has sadly defined Los Angeles in kind of
our public perception, and I think we absolutely need to
(25:12):
make progress on it.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
I completely agree in what you're saying about the public
perception and how that has come to define Los Angeles.
And you mentioned that there's so much money being spent
on very expensive measures or band aid solutions, right like
the hotels and the motel contracts. What would be the
alternative if you were elected. Would it be permanent support
of housing, would it be more shelters? How do we
(25:36):
get the buy in from the council districts that may
not want these types of hands on solutions in their neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
So yeah, and I think it's really important to make
sure that we're investing in what works, because I think,
you know, when I first started this conversation with you,
I talked about ensuring that we are honoring the generosity
of Angelina's with a government that really works to deliver
on outcomes. And I really believe in that if you
trust the city with your dollars, with your tax dollars,
(26:08):
we should be making sure that we're really working for you,
that we're serving you to the greatest extent possible, and
that trust is really important to me. There are interventions
that you can put in place for homelessness that cost
a third or less of what some of our more
expensive interventions cost. One of the most effective is a
(26:28):
short term voucher. So this is a two year voucher
that can cover your rent in an apartment that also
has attached case management. The outcomes from that relatively cost effective,
and it's also incredibly effective at keeping people indoors. Most
(26:49):
of the people who are funded through these voucher programs
stay in their apartments, they stay housed, and over time
they're able to transition to either being able to get
a job and pay their rent themselves through reunification with
family members and maybe moving back in with cousins or
(27:10):
other family or they're able to actually move into permit
support of housing that they may need over the long term.
But whatever the option is, these short term voucher programs
are very very effective at keeping people indoors, and they're
relatively cost effective, and they don't face the same kind
of resistance from neighborhoods that other kinds of interventions do
(27:32):
because it's just a voucher in an apartment building that
may already exist, and the case management services are really
there to help people succeed in those situations. So for me,
that's the kind of intervention where it promotes dignity for
people who are experiencing homelessness. You have privacy, you have independence,
and you're able to succeed because you have the tools
(27:53):
you need to succeed.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
Thank you so much for explaining that further, I think
helps contextualize the different options that the city can provide.
I want to because we've kind of dancing around the
talk of budget right and how it's being allocated, I
want to ask you now about the budget. As we
all know, the City of la is in a deficit,
and there's a lot of criticism of how the budget
(28:18):
is allocated here after year with parks, Breck and Parks
being at the bottom, lighting and public transportation, all those
budgets being reduced while other budgets are increased. And so
I'm wondering what your approach would be and how you
would prioritize what gets funded.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
So much of our budgeting at the city has been
really frustrating for me. Because so much our budgeting has
been politically motivated. It's been about funding those groups that
fund local elections, and in LA the most powerful player
in our local elections is our police union. And so
in twenty twenty three, when our new contract was written
with LAPD, the mayor approved a contract that actually provided
(29:01):
the LAPD more money than they had asked for, knowing
that that contract would cause us to have hundreds of
millions of dollars in shortfalls in the years ahead. And
that's exactly what has happened. I voted against that contract.
I voted against that budget, and now we are facing
Last year, we faced a billion dollar budget deficit where
(29:23):
we're paying an absolutely enormous amount for a smaller number
of officers than we had before, so less able to
deliver on some of the public safety outcomes that some
people may have wanted with that investment, and significantly less
able to deliver on so many of the other services
that Angelina is considered to be essential. Street Lighting is
(29:45):
a huge part of public safety. Potholes, safe streets, investments
in sidewalks, investments in parks, investments in after school programs,
investments by the way we are fund now in this
Trump administration, which is so much harsher, so much more
(30:07):
aggressive towards immigrants than the last Trump administration. We're actually
funding less in immigration defense than we did during his
last time in office because we have less money to
do that because we paid so much for this contract.
So for me, my priorities would be very different. I
think we can fund a city where we're funding these
(30:31):
different parts of our city infrastructure appropriately, where we fund
public safety, but we fund holistic public safety, so we
fund we have armed officers responding when you need armed officers,
and a fully fleshed out system of unarmed response that
can come when you need help when you don't need
an armed officer to come, when you're having a mental
(30:53):
health crisis, when you're having when you want to help
somebody who is going through something but it needs immediate
support but does not need an armed officer. You can
fund that for the entire city. You can fund enough
nine to one to one call takers to pick up
calls and be responsive at those moments, and you can
fund all of the other services that the city is
(31:14):
supposed to provide and that Angelinos depend on the city
to provide. And that to me is a vision of
Los Angeles that feels, i don't know, really beautiful and generative.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Yeah, it does feel within reach, right because we know
that city budgets, especially with a city like Los Angeles,
that the budget can is there if it's allocated correctly,
so it can provide those essentials that a lot of
Angelinos want and just make living in La is such
a better place. Don't go anywhere, look, amorees, We'll be
(31:50):
right back. I want to go back to something that
you mentioned earlier, which is the Olympics and the World Cup.
It seems like such a superfose event to be having,
(32:11):
considering everything that's going on with the federal administration. However,
I do know that there are so many opportunities for
local businesses and how it will bring a lot of
dollars to the LA economy. So I'm wondering how you
ad mitigate those two things.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
Yeah, I think there's there's two kinds of things that
we can do with the Olympics to make it us.
You know, it is happening, We've signed the contract, it's
going to be here in two years. So how do
you make sure that La City is not on the
hook for overruns in the budget for LA twenty eight,
which is how the contract was written. This is not
(32:50):
how I would have written the contract, but this deal,
which was cut you know, ten years ago, essentially said
that for any expenditures over the budget that they didn't make,
that the City of Los Angeles would be on the
hook for the first two hundred and seventy million of
cost overruns, that the state would be on the hook
(33:10):
for the next two hundred and seventy million, and then
anything above that is all back on the City of LA.
So the City of Los Angeles is potentially liable for
hundreds of millions of dollars in cost overruns if LA
twenty eight doesn't make its budget or if it goes
over its budget, and so I think, you know, as mayor,
I would work extraordinarily hard. It would be laser focused
(33:31):
on making sure that LA twenty eight is meeting its budget,
and that if it is not, that we are working
to ensure that we're actually making changes to the budget
so that the City of LA and residents of Los
Angeles aren't paying for overages for an event that was
planned really without considering them. As part of the contract
(33:52):
that we signed with LA twenty eight. The second is
making sure that business opportunities that are coming in, investments
that are coming in are linked to Angelino's I was
very happy in my first couple of years on the council.
I supported a new effort, a kind of a business
procurement system, an update to it that was designed to
(34:15):
make it easier for small businesses to apply for city dollars.
And that system, which is called ramp. It is kind
of a mechanism through which we can ensure that local
businesses are getting access to these opportunities. And I have
been pushing over the last few years to ensure that
we're signing up small and local women own minority owned
(34:39):
businesses into the system, that they're aware of opportunities, that
we're doing trainings, and there have been a number of
trainings across the city to make sure that people understand
how to use it and how to get access to
those procurement opportunities, and making sure that our procurement process
is really focused on giving money back to Angelinos from
these events. I think, you know, I think there's a
(35:01):
big opportunity here. We have more work to do, but
I think there's a pathway to ensure that these dollars
are actually coming back to our local economy.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
Okay, I appreciate that breakdown. So you went to Harvard,
you went to MIT, you're an urban planner by trade,
and you're a city council member. The mayor is an
executive position, and how do you plan to govern and
how would you move the city forward?
Speaker 2 (35:28):
So the mayor's office has authority that you know, we
talk about a lot of people talk about the City
of Los Angeles as having a weak mayor system, but
the mayor's office actually has a significant amount of power,
and if used right, I think it can be a
situation through which the mayor's executive authority can be implemented
(35:49):
in ways that generate accountability and good outcomes for Angelina's
The mayor has the ability to appoint, to hire, and
fire every general manager of every department. The mayor has
the ability to set the priorities of every single department
because they have a lot of incoming priorities from different
council members and from the public. And it's the mayor's
(36:12):
role to say, these are the two or three most
important things that you have to do. You have to
make sure and do these two or three things this
is the absolute most important things for every single department.
The mayor has the ability to create accountability metrics through
which progress on those efforts will be measured, and whether
it's anything from delivering on kin, cleaning streets and turning
(36:38):
lights back on to more complicated things like issuing permits
for new affordable housing. You can clearly set out what
are the priorities that you need to deliver on for
Angelina's and general managers should be held accountable to those outcomes,
and if they're not, you replace them. And I think
using that executive authority is something that the mayor's office
(37:01):
has an obligation to do in order to make sure
that we can deliver for Angelinas. I would also say
that I think a good mayor and if I were mayor,
this is exactly what I would do. You would surround
yourself with support. You surround yourself with people who have
management experience, who are able to ensure with deputy mayors
(37:22):
who have that kind of executive experience in order to
make sure that the city is really functioning for the
people of Los Angeles. I think that's part of your
obligation as a leader to make sure that you have
the leadership in place in the city to make sure
it's functioning, and I feel like for too many people
the experience of working with the city or trying to
(37:42):
get something from the city is just frustration. You go
to a help center and no one is there. You
call three one one, or you try and use the
app and it doesn't work. Like every single time somebody
tries to lean on the city and it fails them,
they lose their faith in the power of the City
of Los Angeles to be able to serve them, and
(38:05):
I think again, we have to work to retain that
faith and to care for people.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
Thank you for that. So this question is both related
to you as a city council member and of course
if elected mayor, are you in support of expanding the council.
I know that that is a part of the conversation
right now. So I'm wondering, since you have the insight
of being on city council but then are also running
for mayor, what your perspective is on expanding the City
(38:31):
Council of Los Angeles.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
Yeah, I'm absolutely in support of expanding the city council.
I think that a more larger city council would be
more representative of different parts of Los Angeles. I'll take
my own district as an example. I represent a district
that goes right now from northern Silver Lake to Resida,
going through the southern San Fernando Valley, going through the
Hollywood Hills. Very different neighborhoods with very different needs, and
(38:57):
we do the best that we can and trying to
represent everyone and really trying to advocate and fight for everyone.
That there's two hundred and sixty thousand constituents in each
of these districts and often very large and disparate geographies.
I think smaller districts would enable council members to serve
their constituents better, would enable them to be present in
every single neighborhood of their district much more frequently, would
(39:20):
enable constituents to be able to be closer to their representatives,
and also for council members to be more representative of
the diversity of Los Angeles. It would enable, for example,
for there to be districts that could regularly elect an
Asian representative. There's a significant population of Asians here in LA.
Very few districts that are able to regularly elect representatives
(39:44):
that are really responsive to the diversity of those neighborhoods,
and I think having more districts would actually enable us
to draw the line such that we could do that.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
Thank you, I appreciate that perspective. So my final question
for you is about your twenty twenty campaign and how
it relates to your twenty twenty five campaign. So twenty twenty,
it was a grassroots campaign. You defeated the then incumbent,
and you just rose and there was a lot of
excitement around your win. And now you have five years
(40:16):
of experience and five years of being an elected official.
Yet I've noticed you don't exactly identify with the political establishment.
So can you tell me more about that stance.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
Still, I do feel like an outsider, even having been
in city hall for the last five years, And there
is a political culture in Los Angeles where I think
once you're in the in city hall that you don't
question the actions of other people that you vote in
(40:48):
unison all the time, there has been, and there continues
to be a pressure for everyone to vote together. When
I first got elected, I started changing that. I voted
no more times in my first year than my predecessor
had voted, I think in his entire time on Council
and since then, we you know, I think more new
(41:09):
voices have been elected and a lot of us have
been pushing back against what has often been never challenged
in city hall. In my run, right now, I feel
like I still feel very much like a you know,
a political outsider. The big kind of vested interests that
(41:32):
support local elections, all of them are supporting our current mayor.
But when I talk about the fact that I feel
like Los Angeles is not moving in the right direction,
that we lack urgency at city hall to address the
issues that are facing LA, whether it's the extraordinary cost
of housing or whether it's our response to homelessness. In
all of these cases, I feel like residents of LA
(41:57):
agree with that perspective, that they don't feel like they
have a city hall that's really fighting for them. I'm
not going to be a politician forever. I think whatever
job I hold in December will be my last political job.
I'm not here to maintain relationships in city hall. I'm
really here to serve the people of Los Angeles, and
those relationships are the ones that matter to me the most.
(42:19):
And I think right now I want to fight for LA.
I want to make La better. I want to make
sure that the city is responding to people in the
way that they need and I think we can do
better than what we've been doing.
Speaker 1 (42:31):
Thank you for that very thoughtful answer. So how can
people support your campaign if they want to learn more?
Speaker 2 (42:39):
Well, so you can learn more about me on my
social media accounts or on my website Nitia for the
City and it Hya, Nitia for Thecity dot com or
Nitia for the City, on Instagram and everywhere else that
you're online. And if you really want to support us,
come out, sign up to be a volunteer on the
(42:59):
website site, share our posts on social media, make sure
that we're being you know, this perspective, a new perspective
and outsider perspective is really being lifted up in conversations
around the mayor's race. We have an election on June second.
There's a lot of people who never vote in mayoral
primaries and then they wonder why the city stays the same.
(43:20):
And I would encourage everyone to get informed and to
vote on June second, to make sure that you're taking
an active choice in the future of the city. And
if you feel like you know my voice, my urgency,
my work ethics speaks to what you want to see
from the City of Los Angeles, how you want the
City of Los Angeles to serve you and to address
(43:42):
the most urgent needs that you're facing. Then vote for me.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
Thank you so much, Council Member Nathia Rahman, mayoral candidate
for the City of LA It's been a pleasure chatting
with you today.
Speaker 2 (43:52):
Thank you so much for having me. This was such
a wonderful conversation.
Speaker 3 (44:16):
Look at all already, go
Speaker 2 (44:22):
Look Alandia
Hey, look, amotz. This is Diosa and you're listening to
look at Tora Radio. In this week's episode, we interview
mayoral race candidate Nythia Rahmen. She currently holds a seat
in La City Council and represents District four. Council Member
Nythia Rahmen filed her candidacy for the mayor's race on
(00:23):
the final day in February, shocking every politico across Los Angeles.
She's running against Democratic incumbent Mayor Karen Bass. In this interview,
council Member Nythia Ramen shares the days leading up to
her filing.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
I had felt this sense of increasing frustration with the
limitations that I was facing at city Hall, and I
thought we would have an opportunity during this mayoral race
to talk about it, to talk about the direction of
the city, to talk about whether people felt like things
were moving in the right direction in.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
LA, and her stance on leasing and the Feds in La.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Whether it's the World Cup or whether it's the Olympics,
we are actually inviting federal law enforcement here. How does
the Mayor's office ensure that these events are happening in
a way that's safe for Angelino's.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
The City of La is in a budget deficit. There's
a myriad of issues Angelino's are facing every day, like housing, affordability,
public safety, ice, kidnapping our neighbors, and the humanitarian crisis
that is homelessness. But amidst these concerns lies across roads,
(01:36):
a chance to stick to the status quo or enact
change and redefine the City of LA's future. In this race,
we find a diverse set of candidates. Even reality TV
star Spencer Pratt is running for LA mayor. Every candidate
demands our scrutiny, not just our support. Now is the
(01:58):
time to familiarize ourselves with these candidates, not just through
their campaign promises, but through their past actions and future potentials.
It's our collective responsibility to be informed, to ask questions,
and to make a voting plan with our friends and family.
It's a midterm electioneer and this is an important race
(02:19):
in Los Angeles. We know that not all of our
listeners are LA based, but we do think this mayoral
race is important because Los Angeles is often a test
ground for politics and policy. Here's our interview with council
member and mayoral candidate Nitthia Ramen.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
This is Nitia Raman candidate for mayor of Los Angeles,
and you're listening to look at the radio.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Thank you so much for joining us today. We're really
thrilled to be in conversation with you, and to start
us off, you know a little bit about us. We
are born and raised Angelina's. I'm a first generation Angelina.
My mom is from Mexico, my dad is from Peru.
Mu's family has been here for several generations. And I'll
let her chime in when she wants to. We want
(03:08):
to start by asking you what's the La story you
want to tell and what is it about Angelino's that
you love the most?
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Yeah, so I you know, I'm not a native Angelino.
I moved here as an adult, and I like to
say that I love Los Angeles with the fierceness that
only a transplant can have because I've lived in other
places and I know what the city offered me and
my family and the ways in which the opportunities that
(03:37):
it offered us were so different from what I had
seen in other places. And that's really what I love
about LA is that it has been and it is
a place that welcomes people into it, that allows for
people to seek out their ambition and their dreams and
doesn't ask you who your parents are, what your pa
(04:00):
degree is, you know what qualifies you to do it.
It really opens itself up to build your dreams here
in a way that I have not seen in any
other part of the world. And it is it for me.
It's so inspiring to live here.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Thank you for that. Yeah. I'm a third generation Angelina
if you count. My grandmother came here when she was sixteen,
and my mom is born and raised in the Los
Angeles and I'm born and raised in LA And I'm
wondering if you can name for us some of the
qualities that you think Angelina's have that motivate you to
lead us.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Yeah. So one of the things that inspired me the
most about Los Angeles is how generous people are to
others here. When I first ran for office, i ran
because I started this volunteer group in my neighborhood to
help people who are experiencing homelessness. And we were just
(04:55):
wandering from from tent to tent in on the street
and in the parks near my home, and we were
giving out breakfast burritos, hot cups of coffee, and trying
to connect people to resources like services or shelter when
it was available, and for that volunteer group, we had
(05:17):
to turn away people. There was such an incredible need
to give back and to respond to the crisis of homelessness,
not with anger, not with a desire to see, you know,
the visible signs of poverty immediately disappear from their neighborhood,
but from people to say, I want to help and
(05:40):
I want to do something about it in a way
that really helps people move indoors and get off the streets.
And that to me was so inspiring. It's one of
the reasons that I initially ran for office, and it's
one of those things that continues to inspire me about
Angelino's is their willingness to give and their willingness to
be generous to others. We've seen it over and over
again too in how we vote for, you know, for
(06:03):
new measures to help other people. So we've voted for
taxes for affordable housing, we've voted for taxes for people
who are experiencing homelessness, and we've done that more than once. Really,
I think because of that generosity of spirit, and one
of the reasons why I feel like I, you know,
I feel so lucky to be an elected official here
is because I want to honor that spirit of generosity
(06:26):
by delivering a government that really delivers on the outcomes
that people need, that really does show up and help people,
that really does get people indoors and off the streets
and you know, into shelters, that really does try and
lower the cost of living in this extraordinarily expensive city.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Thank you for that. Before we dive into the intricacies
of your campaign and why you're running, we want to
ask you to describe your perfect day in La, whether
that's doing something, going somewhere, dining somewhere. We would love
to know what's your perfect day in La.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
I have two little ones. I have ten year old
twins who are fourth graders, and I think my perfect
day in La really looks like spending the day with
them and my husband, going for a maybe a hike
in Griffith Park or in Deb's Park where you can
walk up the hill, walk past a pond and then
(07:25):
there's a swing where you can swing and you have
a beautiful view in front of you, and then maybe
going for a brunch afterwards. But everything about the light
in La, watching my children walk up and down these
incredible mountains that go through this city. I have so
many memories of doing this with my children that in
(07:49):
my mind feel magical because of the quality of the
light and the way in which I remember those occasions
and remembering them at different ages doing the same walks fabulous.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Yes, we love our hikes in LA It's one of
my favorite ways to spend a day here as well.
And if you can hit a hike and the beach
at the same time, that's like peak Los Angeles.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Peak Los Angeles.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Doing the stairs in Santa Monica maybe, and then cutting
down to the.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Water, yes, a movement in our beautiful city. Well, we
just want to thank you for joining us here at
look at LA Radio. It was big news when you
filed your mayoral candidacy. You filed on the last day
possible to file, and we were curious if this was
strategic or did something specifically happen that inspired you to run.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
I've been feeling it was not pre planned or wasn't
something that I had been kind of contemplating for months.
For me, I had been struggling with in my role.
So I've been a city council member now for five years,
a little over five years I have you know, I
finished my first term and I'm in my second term.
(09:04):
And I will say that, especially over the last couple
of years, I felt a real sense of frustration with
the way that things are moving in the city of
Los Angeles, a real sense of after when I first started,
it was right after COVID and or you know, we
(09:25):
were still in the middle of pre vaccine COVID, and
then vaccine started coming and things were opening up again.
And my first couple of years in office really felt
like moments of positive change in LA. We were able
to get out there and do work for residents, for
constituents that felt like we were making real progress in
the district. That what felt like we were addressing some
(09:46):
of the biggest needs that people were facing, whether it
was addressing basic services, or whether it was providing people
a chance to have more security in their rental units
by passing expanded tenant protections, whatever it was, it felt
like a time of building, of possibility and of positive change,
(10:07):
and of being able to deliver results for constituents. But
I will say over the last couple of years, it
does not feel like I have been able to deliver
for my constituents in the same way, partly because of
decisions made by our current mayor and some of our
city leadership that have left us with really depleted resources
(10:28):
to be able to serve residents of Los Angeles at
a time when the city is facing enormous needs, and
that has been really frustrating. Those frustrations really deepened during
the fires watching those play out, realizing that the city
could have done more to be prepared in advance of
them and to respond better with accountability, with urgency, with
(10:49):
being present for residents after them during the ice raids,
feeling like the city wasn't doing enough to meet that moment.
But over the course of this last year also was
seeing that we weren't really able to deliver on some
of the most essential services that people need at these
times because of budget decisions that had been made by
(11:10):
the mayor and city leadership that left us with really
really depleted resources to be able to do things like
fixed potholes and turn on street lights thirty thousand of
which are off across the entire city. Really the essentials
of living in La we are not able to provide
at a time when we have much more complicated things
to do and to address here in LA, including addressing homelessness,
(11:32):
addressing the cost of living crisis, all of that, and
so I had felt this sense of increasing frustration with
the limitations that I was facing at city Hall, and
I thought we would have an opportunity during this mayoral
race to talk about it, to talk about the direction
of the city, to talk about whether people felt like
things were moving in the right direction in LA, whether
(11:54):
they felt like the city was responding to them with
the same urgency that they were feeling. I think that's
what really pushed me to get in at that very
last moment, seeing that there wasn't going to be a challenge,
that we were just going to move forward into the
next four years with the same situation that we were
in over the last couple of years.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
There's a really interesting arc that you shared about twenty twenty.
There was, of course the pandemic, which devastated Los Angeles
in other places, but then that energy of movement building
and getting vaccinated, and they're being a vaccine rollout and
people being outside again, and they're being this re energized
feeling of in the city. Right to now post twenty
(12:35):
twenty five post fire recovery and the ice rates. Right,
it was obviously a very challenging year for communities across
Los Angeles. So, if elected mayor, how would you handle
one disaster preparedness and two what would be your plan
to protect all LA residents from these unjust ice rates.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Yeah, so disaster preparedness, I think is something that you know,
we the Mayor's office is ultimately I know from my
time there, they are. You know, there's there's frontline agencies
that are public safety agencies that are designed to respond
to them to issues when we have them, But the
mayor's office is the executive authority, is ultimately the anchor
(13:20):
of those issues. And so when you have a situation
like unprecedented wins, you know that they're coming. When you
have as you're having today and tomorrow, extraordinary heat in
Los Angeles, extraordinary heat, these are all various kinds of
emergencies that the city is facing, and it is the
mayor's office's role to ensure that we're prepared to the
(13:41):
fullest extent possible before those emergencies and to make sure
that our city resources are being deployed appropriately. And I
think you know, if I'm mayor, My role will be
one that I have played in my district to a
lesser extent as the council member. But really trying to
(14:02):
make sure, Okay, there's torrential rains coming. Are we making
sure that our hillsides are protected, there's significant winds being predicted.
Are we making sure that we have contact with the
fire department, that they are absolutely ready to deploy as needed,
that they're keeping their staff in place in response to this,
(14:22):
and even more actually stepping back and saying, are we
planning for these emergencies? Because this kind of event in
Los Angeles is becoming more frequent because of climate change.
These are extreme weather events, but it's thirty five degrees
hotter today than it normally is in March, and this
(14:44):
is becoming increasingly the norm. These are all the kinds
of things that I feel like a resilient and a
robust emergency response need to be thinking about in the city,
and they have to be thinking about it in different
ways depending on who's impacted. There's a different response for
fire risk and for mudslide risk, which impacts primarily hillside neighborhoods,
(15:06):
versus extreme heat, which impacts neighborhoods in places like South
la that don't have a lot of tree cover, in Pacoima,
which is hotter, significantly hotter, up to ten degrees hotter
than the rest of the city, how do we make
sure that we have cooling centers in those places? How
do we make sure that we're activating transit for people
to get to cooling centers and to be safe, and
(15:28):
to make sure that they are safe in these kinds
of emergencies. The Mayor's office really has to anchor that
work and to drive it forward with the urgency that
this moment in Los Angeles, as we're facing increasing climate risk,
really demands. You asked also about ice response, and I
think that there is a role that the city can
(15:49):
play and that the Mayor's office can play that is
more robust than the one that we've taken on in
many ways so far. I think that we have regulations
and rules in place for how law enforcement should be
operating in our city. If they are not following those rules,
(16:10):
can we use our city attorney or work with the
state Attorney general to be able to prosecute harmful action
by the federal government locally? That to me is a
missed opportunity. What is our city doing with its own
prosecutorial authority to make sure that we're holding federal law
enforcement accountable for the rules that they should be following.
(16:32):
And what we've seen is that in some of those cases,
the courts have agreed and have actually limited federal actions
in cities. But the city has to step up and
take those actions. And I think that that's incredibly important.
We need to be pushing far more to be doing
that kind of prosecutorial work, and the city attorney, pushed
(16:52):
by the mayor, can do it. They just have to
take up that space and really press forward on it.
I also think that there are big unanswered questions about
major athletic events that are happening. Major world events are
happening in the city where we, by the design of
those events, are inviting federal law enforcement into our city,
(17:13):
including ice, whether it's the World Cup or whether it's
the Olympics, we are actually inviting federal law enforcement here.
So how does the mayor's office ensure that Angelino's So
many of us are immigrants. I'm an immigrant to America.
So many of us are immigrants, so many of us
have mixed status families here. How does the Mayor's office
(17:36):
ensure that these events are happening in a way that's
safe for Angelino's. What is our role, what is the
city's role in ensuring that safety? And I think I
would be doing two kinds of things. One is I
would be messaging to Angelino's every day that these events
would happen, but they would never happen at the expense
(17:57):
of the safety of Angelino's, and I would be very
up front and clear and vocal about that. And the
second is that I would be engaging proactively with FIFA,
the World Cup, and the federal government, and with the
LA twenty eight leadership and with the federal government to say,
how do we ensure that your presence here is not
(18:18):
going to endanger us as a city, is not going
to endanger the people of Los Angeles, who deserve nothing
more than ultimate protection that work needs to happen. We've
seen that proactive engagement with the federal government has resulted
in better outcomes for residents in other cities. We've seen
it in New York, We've seen it in Boston, We've
seen it in San Francisco. We should be doing the
same thing here. Particularly in Los Angeles, which is a
(18:40):
home to so many immigrants.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Don't go anywhere.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Look, Amorees, We'll be right back.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
I think that one of the pieces with regards to
safety of Angelino's has to do with a mass unidentifiable
ice agents essentially kidnapping Angelina's off of the streets. And
even though the state of California did pass a law
banning federal agents from wearing masks, our chief of police
(19:13):
here in La has said that he wouldn't enforce it. So,
if you are elected mayor, how would you hold the
LAPD accountable and would you demand that the chief of
police enforce the mask ban on ice agents.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
I mean, I just want to say I found those
comments incredibly disrespectful to Angelino's. The chief of police is
the embodiment of public safety for Angelinos, you know, he
is the person that really is the city's kind of
visible face of public safety. And for him to say
at a moment when so many Angelinos are feeling so
(19:47):
much fear, when these mask kidnappers are operating on our streets,
to kind of dismiss regulations and laws that were put
in at the state level to try and keep us
safer to say, oh, I'm not going to enforce that.
I thought that was completely unacceptable. That language was unacceptable.
And I don't think he gets to pick and choose
which laws he gets to implement. If laws are being
(20:09):
put in place to keep Angelino safe, I think you say,
I will uphold those law to all laws, to the
fullest of my ability, because I know that that's what
Angelina knows need. And so I found those comments to be,
I mean, you know, really unacceptable for the Again, the
kind of the key individual in public safety here in
(20:32):
the city of Los Angeles. I didn't hear from our
mayor a pushback on that, you know, I didn't hear
from her kind of a strong comment saying no, we're
here to keep Angelino safe. And I think that's really
what we need to be doing. And I think the
mayor has the authority to hold the chief of Police accountable.
(20:53):
She appoints him. She's the person who picks and chooses
who is in that role, and between her and the
police mission, that's really where primary accountability lies for operations
for LAPD, and the mayor really needs to use her role.
And that's what I would do if I were in
that role. To use my role as mayor to push
for accountability, to make sure that LAPD is doing everything
(21:15):
that they can do to keep Angelino safe, to implement
laws that are designed to protect us in these incredibly
dangerous and scary times, and to underscore that our law enforcement,
our local law enforcement, is here for the protection of
Angelino's Thank you.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
You mentioned that when you started campaigning in twenty twenty,
when you were running for election for city count the
very first time that you started by volunteering. Obviously, homelessness
is a huge issue here in the City of La
and La County, and according to the Los Angeles Homeless
Service Authority, homelessness has gone down by three point four percent,
(21:56):
but it's still a stigering forty three thousand population in
the city LA. And I know that in your position
in city Council you have worked on legislation and initiatives
for homelessness. So I'm wondering how that would differ as mayor,
if elected, and how you would continue to address this
homelessness crisis in the City of Los Angeles.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
So we have expended a huge amount more on homelessness
over the last few years than we have in previous years.
During a time when homelessness has risen by significant numbers,
and I think our increased expenditures are increased investments in
things like building more shelter beds and bringing more resources
(22:39):
to the table have resulted in people moving indoors and
off the streets, which is really exciting. But what we've
done is to spend an extraordinary amount of money and
not create a system that's really working as effectively as
possible to get as many people indoors and into safety
as possible, as quickly as possible. And I've pushed for
(23:02):
that at the city and met Resistance and actually creating
that system, but I think it's really important to do it.
The way in which the city is responding right now
to homelessness is among the most expensive and not the
most effective way to respond to this issue. Some of
the hotel and motel rooms that are funded through the
(23:24):
Inside Safe program can cost eighty to one hundred thousand
dollars a year per person per bed, and that is
an enormous expenditure. We can actually spend significantly less than
that and still bring people indoors and bring them into
safety and actually have better outcomes. Almost half of people
who are coming into shelters right now, are actually returning
(23:46):
to the streets. We need to actually have oversight and
information about the way that our system is working in
order to ensure that the money that we're spending is
actually going towards what we want, which is helping the
largest number of people possible and making sure that they're
getting the services they need to succeed indoors and in safety.
(24:07):
I've tried to build out that system over the last
couple of years in City Hall. I pushed for and
secured through legislative action, Homelessness Oversight Office within the city,
identifying for the first time a place in city Hall
that would be overseeing this massive amount of money that
(24:28):
we're spending. We're spending five thousand percent more on homelessness
than we did just a few years ago, and we
have no staff at the city to really oversee those
dollars and make sure it's working. A year after we
have created that office, that office still has no staff,
so we still don't have people who are managing these dollars,
who are making sure that it's working, And to me,
(24:49):
that is an unacceptable lack of urgency on what I
think is the humanitarian crisis of you know, of Los
Angeles over the last years, one that has grown so much,
one that has sadly defined Los Angeles in kind of
our public perception, and I think we absolutely need to
(25:12):
make progress on it.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
I completely agree in what you're saying about the public
perception and how that has come to define Los Angeles.
And you mentioned that there's so much money being spent
on very expensive measures or band aid solutions, right like
the hotels and the motel contracts. What would be the
alternative if you were elected. Would it be permanent support
of housing, would it be more shelters? How do we
(25:36):
get the buy in from the council districts that may
not want these types of hands on solutions in their neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
So yeah, and I think it's really important to make
sure that we're investing in what works, because I think,
you know, when I first started this conversation with you,
I talked about ensuring that we are honoring the generosity
of Angelina's with a government that really works to deliver
on outcomes. And I really believe in that if you
trust the city with your dollars, with your tax dollars,
(26:08):
we should be making sure that we're really working for you,
that we're serving you to the greatest extent possible, and
that trust is really important to me. There are interventions
that you can put in place for homelessness that cost
a third or less of what some of our more
expensive interventions cost. One of the most effective is a
(26:28):
short term voucher. So this is a two year voucher
that can cover your rent in an apartment that also
has attached case management. The outcomes from that relatively cost effective,
and it's also incredibly effective at keeping people indoors. Most
(26:49):
of the people who are funded through these voucher programs
stay in their apartments, they stay housed, and over time
they're able to transition to either being able to get
a job and pay their rent themselves through reunification with
family members and maybe moving back in with cousins or
(27:10):
other family or they're able to actually move into permit
support of housing that they may need over the long term.
But whatever the option is, these short term voucher programs
are very very effective at keeping people indoors, and they're
relatively cost effective, and they don't face the same kind
of resistance from neighborhoods that other kinds of interventions do
(27:32):
because it's just a voucher in an apartment building that
may already exist, and the case management services are really
there to help people succeed in those situations. So for me,
that's the kind of intervention where it promotes dignity for
people who are experiencing homelessness. You have privacy, you have independence,
and you're able to succeed because you have the tools
(27:53):
you need to succeed.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
Thank you so much for explaining that further, I think
helps contextualize the different options that the city can provide.
I want to because we've kind of dancing around the
talk of budget right and how it's being allocated, I
want to ask you now about the budget. As we
all know, the City of la is in a deficit,
and there's a lot of criticism of how the budget
(28:18):
is allocated here after year with parks, Breck and Parks
being at the bottom, lighting and public transportation, all those
budgets being reduced while other budgets are increased. And so
I'm wondering what your approach would be and how you
would prioritize what gets funded.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
So much of our budgeting at the city has been
really frustrating for me. Because so much our budgeting has
been politically motivated. It's been about funding those groups that
fund local elections, and in LA the most powerful player
in our local elections is our police union. And so
in twenty twenty three, when our new contract was written
with LAPD, the mayor approved a contract that actually provided
(29:01):
the LAPD more money than they had asked for, knowing
that that contract would cause us to have hundreds of
millions of dollars in shortfalls in the years ahead. And
that's exactly what has happened. I voted against that contract.
I voted against that budget, and now we are facing
Last year, we faced a billion dollar budget deficit where
(29:23):
we're paying an absolutely enormous amount for a smaller number
of officers than we had before, so less able to
deliver on some of the public safety outcomes that some
people may have wanted with that investment, and significantly less
able to deliver on so many of the other services
that Angelina is considered to be essential. Street Lighting is
(29:45):
a huge part of public safety. Potholes, safe streets, investments
in sidewalks, investments in parks, investments in after school programs,
investments by the way we are fund now in this
Trump administration, which is so much harsher, so much more
(30:07):
aggressive towards immigrants than the last Trump administration. We're actually
funding less in immigration defense than we did during his
last time in office because we have less money to
do that because we paid so much for this contract.
So for me, my priorities would be very different. I
think we can fund a city where we're funding these
(30:31):
different parts of our city infrastructure appropriately, where we fund
public safety, but we fund holistic public safety, so we
fund we have armed officers responding when you need armed officers,
and a fully fleshed out system of unarmed response that
can come when you need help when you don't need
an armed officer to come, when you're having a mental
(30:53):
health crisis, when you're having when you want to help
somebody who is going through something but it needs immediate
support but does not need an armed officer. You can
fund that for the entire city. You can fund enough
nine to one to one call takers to pick up
calls and be responsive at those moments, and you can
fund all of the other services that the city is
(31:14):
supposed to provide and that Angelinos depend on the city
to provide. And that to me is a vision of
Los Angeles that feels, i don't know, really beautiful and generative.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Yeah, it does feel within reach, right because we know
that city budgets, especially with a city like Los Angeles,
that the budget can is there if it's allocated correctly,
so it can provide those essentials that a lot of
Angelinos want and just make living in La is such
a better place. Don't go anywhere, look, amorees, We'll be
(31:50):
right back. I want to go back to something that
you mentioned earlier, which is the Olympics and the World Cup.
It seems like such a superfose event to be having,
(32:11):
considering everything that's going on with the federal administration. However,
I do know that there are so many opportunities for
local businesses and how it will bring a lot of
dollars to the LA economy. So I'm wondering how you
ad mitigate those two things.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
Yeah, I think there's there's two kinds of things that
we can do with the Olympics to make it us.
You know, it is happening, We've signed the contract, it's
going to be here in two years. So how do
you make sure that La City is not on the
hook for overruns in the budget for LA twenty eight,
which is how the contract was written. This is not
(32:50):
how I would have written the contract, but this deal,
which was cut you know, ten years ago, essentially said
that for any expenditures over the budget that they didn't make,
that the City of Los Angeles would be on the
hook for the first two hundred and seventy million of
cost overruns, that the state would be on the hook
(33:10):
for the next two hundred and seventy million, and then
anything above that is all back on the City of LA.
So the City of Los Angeles is potentially liable for
hundreds of millions of dollars in cost overruns if LA
twenty eight doesn't make its budget or if it goes
over its budget, and so I think, you know, as mayor,
I would work extraordinarily hard. It would be laser focused
(33:31):
on making sure that LA twenty eight is meeting its budget,
and that if it is not, that we are working
to ensure that we're actually making changes to the budget
so that the City of LA and residents of Los
Angeles aren't paying for overages for an event that was
planned really without considering them. As part of the contract
(33:52):
that we signed with LA twenty eight. The second is
making sure that business opportunities that are coming in, investments
that are coming in are linked to Angelino's I was
very happy in my first couple of years on the council.
I supported a new effort, a kind of a business
procurement system, an update to it that was designed to
(34:15):
make it easier for small businesses to apply for city dollars.
And that system, which is called ramp. It is kind
of a mechanism through which we can ensure that local
businesses are getting access to these opportunities. And I have
been pushing over the last few years to ensure that
we're signing up small and local women own minority owned
(34:39):
businesses into the system, that they're aware of opportunities, that
we're doing trainings, and there have been a number of
trainings across the city to make sure that people understand
how to use it and how to get access to
those procurement opportunities, and making sure that our procurement process
is really focused on giving money back to Angelinos from
these events. I think, you know, I think there's a
(35:01):
big opportunity here. We have more work to do, but
I think there's a pathway to ensure that these dollars
are actually coming back to our local economy.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
Okay, I appreciate that breakdown. So you went to Harvard,
you went to MIT, you're an urban planner by trade,
and you're a city council member. The mayor is an
executive position, and how do you plan to govern and
how would you move the city forward?
Speaker 2 (35:28):
So the mayor's office has authority that you know, we
talk about a lot of people talk about the City
of Los Angeles as having a weak mayor system, but
the mayor's office actually has a significant amount of power,
and if used right, I think it can be a
situation through which the mayor's executive authority can be implemented
(35:49):
in ways that generate accountability and good outcomes for Angelina's
The mayor has the ability to appoint, to hire, and
fire every general manager of every department. The mayor has
the ability to set the priorities of every single department
because they have a lot of incoming priorities from different
council members and from the public. And it's the mayor's
(36:12):
role to say, these are the two or three most
important things that you have to do. You have to
make sure and do these two or three things this
is the absolute most important things for every single department.
The mayor has the ability to create accountability metrics through
which progress on those efforts will be measured, and whether
it's anything from delivering on kin, cleaning streets and turning
(36:38):
lights back on to more complicated things like issuing permits
for new affordable housing. You can clearly set out what
are the priorities that you need to deliver on for
Angelina's and general managers should be held accountable to those outcomes,
and if they're not, you replace them. And I think
using that executive authority is something that the mayor's office
(37:01):
has an obligation to do in order to make sure
that we can deliver for Angelinas. I would also say
that I think a good mayor and if I were mayor,
this is exactly what I would do. You would surround
yourself with support. You surround yourself with people who have
management experience, who are able to ensure with deputy mayors
(37:22):
who have that kind of executive experience in order to
make sure that the city is really functioning for the
people of Los Angeles. I think that's part of your
obligation as a leader to make sure that you have
the leadership in place in the city to make sure
it's functioning, and I feel like for too many people
the experience of working with the city or trying to
(37:42):
get something from the city is just frustration. You go
to a help center and no one is there. You
call three one one, or you try and use the
app and it doesn't work. Like every single time somebody
tries to lean on the city and it fails them,
they lose their faith in the power of the City
of Los Angeles to be able to serve them, and
(38:05):
I think again, we have to work to retain that
faith and to care for people.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
Thank you for that. So this question is both related
to you as a city council member and of course
if elected mayor, are you in support of expanding the council.
I know that that is a part of the conversation
right now. So I'm wondering, since you have the insight
of being on city council but then are also running
for mayor, what your perspective is on expanding the City
(38:31):
Council of Los Angeles.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
Yeah, I'm absolutely in support of expanding the city council.
I think that a more larger city council would be
more representative of different parts of Los Angeles. I'll take
my own district as an example. I represent a district
that goes right now from northern Silver Lake to Resida,
going through the southern San Fernando Valley, going through the
Hollywood Hills. Very different neighborhoods with very different needs, and
(38:57):
we do the best that we can and trying to
represent everyone and really trying to advocate and fight for everyone.
That there's two hundred and sixty thousand constituents in each
of these districts and often very large and disparate geographies.
I think smaller districts would enable council members to serve
their constituents better, would enable them to be present in
every single neighborhood of their district much more frequently, would
(39:20):
enable constituents to be able to be closer to their representatives,
and also for council members to be more representative of
the diversity of Los Angeles. It would enable, for example,
for there to be districts that could regularly elect an
Asian representative. There's a significant population of Asians here in LA.
Very few districts that are able to regularly elect representatives
(39:44):
that are really responsive to the diversity of those neighborhoods,
and I think having more districts would actually enable us
to draw the line such that we could do that.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
Thank you, I appreciate that perspective. So my final question
for you is about your twenty twenty campaign and how
it relates to your twenty twenty five campaign. So twenty twenty,
it was a grassroots campaign. You defeated the then incumbent,
and you just rose and there was a lot of
excitement around your win. And now you have five years
(40:16):
of experience and five years of being an elected official.
Yet I've noticed you don't exactly identify with the political establishment.
So can you tell me more about that stance.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
Still, I do feel like an outsider, even having been
in city hall for the last five years, And there
is a political culture in Los Angeles where I think
once you're in the in city hall that you don't
question the actions of other people that you vote in
(40:48):
unison all the time, there has been, and there continues
to be a pressure for everyone to vote together. When
I first got elected, I started changing that. I voted
no more times in my first year than my predecessor
had voted, I think in his entire time on Council
and since then, we you know, I think more new
(41:09):
voices have been elected and a lot of us have
been pushing back against what has often been never challenged
in city hall. In my run, right now, I feel
like I still feel very much like a you know,
a political outsider. The big kind of vested interests that
(41:32):
support local elections, all of them are supporting our current mayor.
But when I talk about the fact that I feel
like Los Angeles is not moving in the right direction,
that we lack urgency at city hall to address the
issues that are facing LA, whether it's the extraordinary cost
of housing or whether it's our response to homelessness. In
all of these cases, I feel like residents of LA
(41:57):
agree with that perspective, that they don't feel like they
have a city hall that's really fighting for them. I'm
not going to be a politician forever. I think whatever
job I hold in December will be my last political job.
I'm not here to maintain relationships in city hall. I'm
really here to serve the people of Los Angeles, and
those relationships are the ones that matter to me the most.
(42:19):
And I think right now I want to fight for LA.
I want to make La better. I want to make
sure that the city is responding to people in the
way that they need and I think we can do
better than what we've been doing.
Speaker 1 (42:31):
Thank you for that very thoughtful answer. So how can
people support your campaign if they want to learn more?
Speaker 2 (42:39):
Well, so you can learn more about me on my
social media accounts or on my website Nitia for the
City and it Hya, Nitia for Thecity dot com or
Nitia for the City, on Instagram and everywhere else that
you're online. And if you really want to support us,
come out, sign up to be a volunteer on the
(42:59):
website site, share our posts on social media, make sure
that we're being you know, this perspective, a new perspective
and outsider perspective is really being lifted up in conversations
around the mayor's race. We have an election on June second.
There's a lot of people who never vote in mayoral
primaries and then they wonder why the city stays the same.
(43:20):
And I would encourage everyone to get informed and to
vote on June second, to make sure that you're taking
an active choice in the future of the city. And
if you feel like you know my voice, my urgency,
my work ethics speaks to what you want to see
from the City of Los Angeles, how you want the
City of Los Angeles to serve you and to address
(43:42):
the most urgent needs that you're facing. Then vote for me.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
Thank you so much, Council Member Nathia Rahman, mayoral candidate
for the City of LA It's been a pleasure chatting
with you today.
Speaker 2 (43:52):
Thank you so much for having me. This was such
a wonderful conversation.
Speaker 3 (44:16):
Look at all already, go
Speaker 2 (44:22):
Look Alandia
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