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Los Angeles voters aren’t the only ones having second thoughts about their mayoral options — one city councilwoman is backing Karen Bass at the ballot box despite refusing to endorse the embattled incumbent.
“I’m not endorsing Karen Bass, but I am voting for Karen Bass,” Councilwoman Traci Park said at a Pacific Palisades town hall Wednesday. “And I know that that is a very, very tough ask for some of you.”
Park made the stunning admission while sounding the alarm about the city’s future and blasting mayoral challenger Nithya Raman over her positions on policing and prosecution.
“I am very concerned about what the future of our city looks like.”
The councilwoman didn’t mince words about what she sees as the risks of Raman’s approach to law enforcement.
“This is someone that has been very clear that she wants to defund and abolish our police.”
“She is part of the coalition of people that will refuse to prosecute misdemeanors in the city of Los Angeles.”
The pointed remarks followed a tense mayoral debate between Raman and Bass, during which Raman repeatedly declined to commit to a timeline for replacing LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell before the 2028 Olympics. Bass accused her rival of being unprepared to lead the nation’s second-largest city.
Raman also raised eyebrows after the debate with an unusual explanation for her recollection of the event.
“I’m so sorry but I was in fugue state and I don’t remember very much of it at all,” Raman told NBC4 in a bizarre interview moments after Tuesday night’s debate in Universal City.
Bass is also facing legal pressure over her handling of the deadly Palisades Fire.
Former Fire Chief Kristin Crowley, whom Bass ousted after the blaze, filed a defamation lawsuit in June over allegedly “false” claims the mayor made during a May debate.
Crowley’s attorney, Mia Munro, wants to question Bass under oath about those statements.