On Hot Seat for the Fires in LA: Rally Around Karen Bass

Vantage Point Vignette
Comments and Commentary by Dr. Ron Daniels

Earl Ofari Hutchinson, Host of the influential Hutchinson Report and Founder of the Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable was a Special Guest Vantage Point, my radio show on WBAI, 99.7 FM, yesterday to discuss the impact of the wildfires on Altadena, CA, a town built by Black people. Earl likened the devastation to a bombed-out warzone, like the German city of Dresden after the relentless bombing by the U.S. and allied armed forces in World War II. He said it was like nothing he had ever seen before.

Because of his knowledge of L.A. politics, I asked him about how Karen Bass, the City’s first female Mayor is being viewed. Earl essentially said Mayor Bass is on the hot-seat, besieged by foes and some friends on all-fronts; likely a one-term Mayor. However, I was delighted with Earl’s assessment that no Mayor could have been prepared for the unprecedented conflagration of wildfires that exploded simultaneously in multiple neighborhoods in LA County. Therefore, despite the unfortunate optics of being abroad when the fire struck and some minor missteps in reducing the budget for the Fire Department, Mayor Karen Bass should not be maligned and punished politically for climate change, global warming induced disaster that no-one could have predicted or managed flawlessly.

I was comforted by Earl’s perspective because I know Mayor Karen Bass. I was introduced to her by Baba Akili, an IBW board member and leading member of Black Lives Matter LA, when she was a community organizer who gained the reputation as a people-oriented, solution-driven, servant leader. Karen Bass is a people-oriented, community organizer at heart. That is how she viewed her role as a Congresswoman from LA who had global responsibilities as Chairperson and Ranking Member of the powerful House Sub-Committee on Africa and that’s how she views her role as Mayor of Los Angeles.

I site and say all of this to emphatically urge friends and allies to stand with Mayor Karen Bass in this unprecedented hour of crisis. In that regard, it was encouraging to see Marc Morial, President of the National Urban League standing side-by side with Mayor Bass during a recent press conference. In that same vein, I am calling all of us to unapologetically stand by and protect our Sister Mayor Karen Bass. She should not be a one-term Mayor based on a crisis beyond her control. #RallyAroundKarenBass