Kare Bass stood stone faced and silent when confronted by a reporter upon her belated return to Los Angeles during the January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is fast running out of friends in the city she runs. Even before her catastrophic failure of leadership during the January 2025 firestorms there were significant issues with the first two years of her first term. After declaring a state of emergency for the city’s homelessness crisis as one of her first acts, her policies have been little more than regurgitations of past failures. Her signature “Inside Safe” housing initiative is more of the same “housing first” that has cost taxpayers billions with nothing to show. If anything, Inside Safe is even worse than previous efforts.

Homelessness: More of the (staggeringly expensive) same

According to independent audits the program is costing between $17,000 and $22,000 per month per homeless person, or between $204,000 and $264,000 per year. For comparison, the average annual individual income in the city is $60,091. Conditions inside some of the properties are little better than life on the streets. At a “protest encampment” outside an Inside Safe motel in West Adams, several former residents described neglectful staff who tolerated drug use, inappropriate sexual activity, and physical violence among other residents. At the same time, staff used what those former residents described as pretexts to kick them out. In an act of defiance, they set up their tents and parked their cars in front of the motel.

According to the Mayor’s Inside Safe website, the program’s ultimate goal is permanent housing. As such, it counts as perhaps the biggest failure yet. Overall, according to data compiled by the City Controller’s office, Inside Safe has cost L.A. taxpayers $368 million and “served” 3,896 people. Of those, 878 have moved into housing – though 349 of them are housed via “time limited subsidies.” Just 529 people are in permanent supportive housing or other long-term housing. That means the program has spent a staggering $695,652 per housed individual. Moreover, past experience strongly suggests many of the permanently housed will eventually fall back into homelessness.

In a recent press release, the Mayor boasted that between January 1 and March 13 of this year the program had brought “more than 250 people” indoors (as an aside, 250 people isn’t that many, yet they don’t have an exact count?). That time period represents 20% of the year. In 2025 the City is allocating $184 million to Inside Safe. Therefore, as of March 13 presumably $36.4 million of the program’s budget has been spent (the figure is likely higher, as public programs are notoriously front-loaded when it comes to spending). That works out to $147,200 per person temporarily sheltered — many of whom, again, according to the City’s own figures, eventually will relapse into homelessness.

A consistent lack of accountability

One of the most frustrating aspects of Bass’s tenure has been her obstinateness. This was one of her predecessor Eric Garcetti’s worst qualities as well. Inside Safe’s crushing expense and limited results are plain for all to see. Rather than pivot, rather than acknowledge what hasn’t worked, Bass always doubles down.

Similarly, it took her nearly two months to finally acknowledge, albeit obliquely, that it was a mistake for her to have left the country in the face of severe fire warnings during the first week of January. Some observers contend her presence wouldn’t have made a practical difference. That’s wrong. She could have activated the City’s Office of Emergency Management and ordered the highest degree of readiness. She could have coordinated with LAFD Chief Kristin Crowley to pre-deploy resources in particularly vulnerable areas, like Pacific Palisades. She could have gone on a media tour urging Angelnos to be prepared and vigilant. Instead, the lasting image will be her dressed to the nines and grinning with a cocktail in her hand at a diplomatic reception 8,000 miles away as her city began to burn.

On her watch the City is confronting an unprecedented financial crisis, with a projected shortfall of $1 billion in its $13 billion budget. In response, Bass is sounding downright DOGE-y. In a letter to City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo last week, she wrote, “We must leave no stone unturned. We must consider no program or department too precious to consider for reductions or reorganization.” Elon Musk couldn’t have said it better.

While the budget crisis isn’t strictly Bass’s fault – it’s been years in the making — it nevertheless adds to the sense that she’s lost control. She’s a career legislator. The last two years are the first time she’s been in charge of a budget. Her inexperience shows.

Whiffs of corruption and scandal

While Bass has so far avoided any major ethics scandals, she’s been uncomfortably close to several. She was implicated, though not charged, in the USC pay-for-play scandal that took down Mark Ridley-Thomas. The university awarded her a scholarship worth more than $100,000 to complete her Master’s in Social Work (which, given the woeful performance of Inside Safe, doesn’t seem to have helped her much).

In September 2022, when she was still a candidate, the Los Angeles Times reported, “By awarding free tuition to Bass in 2011, [Dean of the USC School of Social Work Marilyn] Flynn hoped to obtain [then Congresswoman Bass’s] assistance in passing coveted legislation, prosecutors wrote in a July court filing. Bass later sponsored a bill in Congress that would have expanded USC’s and other private universities’ access to federal funding for social work — ‘just as defendant Flynn wanted,’ the filing states.”

Well, then.

Finally, from the You Can’t Make This Stuff Up file, last year Bass’s Deputy Mayor for Public Safety – who, among other things, oversees the LAPD — was accused of making a bomb threat to City Hall. The FBI raided his house in December, and he remains on administrative leave.

Her record is woeful, but she shouldn’t be recalled

I have written previously about Bass’s many missteps as Mayor. I write these posts with a sense of regret. I had reasonably high hopes when she assumed office two years ago. After a decade of Garcetti Angelenos were ready for a change. 

She was impressive the first time I encountered her. She attended a meeting of the Los Angeles Neighborhood Council Coalition (LANCC). She spoke of her belief in local democracy and grassroots representation. She promised the meeting would be the first of many with Neighborhood Councils in L.A. About 150 people attended the Zoom meeting. Some 40 people raised their virtual hands during the Q&A. LANCC President Terrence Gomes said he would get to as many as possible.

Bass said, “Let’s take them seven at a time.” Gomes was momentarily perplexed.

She repeated, “Take seven questions at a time.”

The next 45 minutes was a master class in politics. Without taking so much as a single note, Bass listened to seven questions at a time. Then she answered them in sequence, in detail. She remembered every questioner’s name and their neighborhood. It was a bravura performance. Alas, she has proven herself to be just another politician, albeit a particularly gifted one. Her impressive performance at LANCC proved to be just that, a performance. A political parlor trick. On virtually every issue of substance, she’s been on the wrong side.

Despite everything, a recall is the wrong move

She still shouldn’t be recalled. Right now and for the foreseeable future L.A. needs to focus laser-like on recovery from the January wildfires. A recall campaign would be the worst kind of distraction. Even if it were to succeed, it would accomplish little. Consider: Bass is more than halfway through her first term. By the time a recall could be qualified she’d have a year left, and possibly less. She’s politically wounded, perhaps mortally, and already a lame duck. There will be no more big ideas from Karen Bass, no more major moves. Some may argue that’s all the more reason to recall her and replace her with someone who can lead the city forward.

Which is another problem: Who would that someone be? So far no one has even emerged to challenge her in 2026. A recall would likely produce a frenzied clown car of candidates. That’s how we got Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2002. And while he proved to be a serviceable if unremarkable governor, there’s no guarantee that whoever might succeed Bass in the context of an abridged special election would be much of an improvement. It’s possible that someone even worse could slip through. Mayor Nithya Raman or Hugo Soto-Martinez are possibilities too horrifying to contemplate. It’s no secret that the far left Democratic Socialists of America and their allies in Black Lives Matter and Antifa are the best organized political force in the City these days. They excel at the kind of rapid response politics that would make them a force in a special election. They’re already the single biggest bloc in City Council: Raman, Soto-Martinez, Eunessis Hernandez, and Ysabel Jurado. Katy “I Used My Maiden Name Like a Good Feminist Until I Needed My Father in Law’s Name to Run for City Council” Yarovslavsky also received the DSA’s endorsement. Do we really want to take that risk?

Another argument in favor of recall is that, while she’s politically weak Bass is still the incumbent, giving her an edge in 2026. Fair enough. But that means she’s equally likely to survive a recall. Far better to find a high quality candidate and spend the next 20 months building an unstoppable campaign. At 71 years old Bass is at the end of her career. She’d be 77 at the end of a second term. Right now the Democratic Party is desperate for young blood (there’s even semi-serious yet nevertheless hilarious talk of Alexadria Ocasio-Cortez running for President in 2028). And despite the DSA’s influence in L.A. the party is also looking to shed the ultra left “woke” brand that everyone knows helped get Donald Trump reelected. It’s entirely possible that the party would endorse a younger, more moderate candidate in 2026. Someone along the lines of Daniel Lurie, the 48 year old Levi Strauss heir who San Franciscans elected Mayor last year. In light of Bass’s shameful treatment of LAFD Chief Kristin Crowley in the wake of the January wildfires, that candidate also would have the backing of the powerful firefighters and police unions.

In contrast, a recall would further divide the party. Not only would there be different loyalties among potential successors, there’d be internal division over the recall itself. That would make it all the more likely that Bass would survive.

Lastly, even if the recall were to succeed, that would just mean two mayor elections in less than two years. L.A. potentially could have three mayors in four years. Those would be absurd outcomes. As much as anytime in recent history, what L.A. needs right now is stability. A failed but familiar chief executive is far preferable to a carousel. Karen Bass may be incompetent, but at least she knows where the bathrooms are in City Hall. That counts for at least something.

Angelenos should spend the time between now and November 2026 finding the best possible candidate to run against her. Now is the time for unity, not a divisive recall. Just say no.