Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts, radio, news. Mayor Bass, thank you so much for joining us. I do want to start with gas prices, obviously a hot topic across the country. When I take a look at California, AAA tells me right now that the average gas price is pushing about $6 per gallon. You think about Los Angeles, obviously it's a city that loves its cars.
So what are you doing as mayor, if anything, to try and help reduce the impact of those higher gas prices?
Well, let me just tell you that we are a city that loves our cars. However, we have spent the last three or four decades building out our public transportation system and so encouraging people to use public transit, encouraging people to carpool. We certainly hope that this ends soon enough because gas prices were already high here.
because we have chosen to tax ourselves to improve our environment. So adding on the international events and just the uncertainty from Washington, you can only imagine the concern that has when affordability is the number one issue we're dealing with here, period.
Let me stick with affordability if I can. I know that permits for new construction have fallen every year since you took office back in 2022. Curious why that is. Also curious what you can do as mayor to reverse that trend in Los Angeles.
absolutely number one is making it easier to build and so i did that within my first couple of weeks in office i signed an executive directive to fast track the building especially of housing and we have 40 000 units that are currently going through that process now with several thousand actively under construction but once we applied those lessons to affordable housing
Then we began to apply those lessons in terms of cutting red tape to other types of building, whether it's commercial, residential, etc. And so that has helped. Now, of course, the other thing that is creating a lot of difficulty is just the larger macro economic issues.
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Chapter 2: What impact do rising gas prices have on Los Angeles?
I was involved when I was speaker of the assembly there. many years ago in creating the first tax credits. But I meet with the industry regularly and they came up with a variety of things that the city could do to make filming easier. I put all of those into policy, put them into action, And we do have filming increasing in our city. Of course, I'm concerned about the merger.
I think what a lot of people don't think about are all of the jobs that are associated either directly or indirectly with the industry and making sure that filming can be easier. We have over 119 new projects that have started in L.A. since the tax credits and these other initiatives have been put into place.
You're preparing for two big sporting events. Let's start with the first. That's the World Cup. And I'm curious if you could describe the amount of investment you're having to make in security and, indeed, who's going to be footing the bill for all of that.
Sure. Well, we certainly are anticipating reimbursement from the federal government. You know, we got the consideration for a national security event very early on. And so that unleashes a lot of support. But what we're doing as a city, the game actually takes place in an adjacent city, Inglewood. But we are preparing for tens of thousands, if not more, of visitors traveling throughout our city.
And we're planning festivals and watch parties all throughout our city. We anticipate having 100 different events. And you know, the World Cup lasts over 30 days. So we're really seeing it as an economic boom to our area.
It's a similar situation when you think about what's happening in New York, of course. The actual games are happening in New Jersey, but of course, New York City is going to sort of see the benefit of that. I do want to talk about the Olympics, of course. That is the other big sporting event. You have called for the ouster of Casey Wasserman as the L.A. 28.
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Chapter 3: How is Los Angeles adapting its public transportation system?
Olympic chair. You looked at his past ties to Jeffrey Epstein. He's staying put. So with that in mind, given that history, how do you anticipate working together now?
Well, we'll continue to work together. I'm in conversation regularly. LA 28 is the independent nonprofit that is putting on the games. It's located nearby City Hall. We collaborate on a daily basis. I set up an office of major events to handle all of the events. The culmination, of course, is the Olympics and the Paralympics. But we have the World Cup, the U.S. Open for golf for women.
We have the Super Bowl. All of those things are happening before we get to the Olympics. And so we continue to work together. The decision whether Casey Wasserman stays was up to the board. They've made their decision. My role is to make sure that the city of Los Angeles is ready to welcome
thousands, tens of thousands of visitors from around the world, and that all of the venues that take place in the city of LA are prepared.
I want to ask you for some comparison, if I could. So Dan Lurie in San Francisco has kind of shepherded that city from what was called a doom loop into a bit of a boom environment, thanks in part to AI. I'm curious how one mayor looks at another and the work that he or she does.
Is there anything in his leadership that you admire or think might be transferable to your leadership of Los Angeles in this term and if you're reelected to a second one?
Well, let me just tell you that one thing that has been very enjoyable about being mayor is that we are all in conversation and collaborate with each other and look at each other's experience. So actually, my view of San Francisco started with the former mayor,
london breed who really focused on ai she said she wanted it to be the ai capital of the world and i see how he has continued that and i'm sure he will expand it even further looking at his ties in the business community now you know san francisco is a much much much smaller city than Los Angeles is. We are so big, 500 square miles, that we don't have one big industry.
I mean, the entertainment industry, of course, is a rock, but so are several other industries as well.
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Chapter 4: What strategies is Mayor Bass implementing to address housing affordability?
This is a dysfunctional system that has been dysfunctional for at least the last three decades. And so what I hope to accomplish by the end of my second term is establishing and creating a functional system that we get people off the street. We know how to do that, but we have to keep them off the street permanently, and we have to prevent more people from falling into homelessness.
So public safety is another key issue, and crime has been reduced to levels going back to the 1960s. And then basic city services. So when you think of public safety, basic things like street lights. We've had a rash, like many other cities, of copper theft. And so now pushing that furthers our environmental goals of changing from copper to solar.
And I just announced a program a couple of days ago to replace 60,000 copper wire lights with solar lights. What the city had been doing for years and years is just replacing copper lights with copper lights that continue to be stolen. So basic quality of life, basic city services, homelessness, public safety, the things that I have worked on that we have made absolute objective progress in.
I want to continue and take it across the finish line.
All right. The 43rd mayor of the city of Los Angeles, Karen Bass. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
Thank you for having me on.
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