In the In Depth special Mayor Karen Bass: Lessons Learned, the mayor sat down with KNX News Chief Correspondent Charles Feldman to talk about the search for a new police chief, her beleaguered homelessness program Inside Safe, the 2028 Olympics, and more.
After former LAPD Chief Michel Moore announced his retirement in January, the L.A. Police Commission chose then-Assistant Chief Dominic Choi as his interim replacement. But the search for a permanent chief is still ongoing.
“What we were looking for [with the interim chief] was the type of leadership that would bring about stability,” Bass said. “But during this time when we're searching for a chief, we also wanna do assessments to see where the department needs to be improved, what's going well, so that when the new chief comes in, the new chief will have a series of recommendations to do.”
After Choi’s appointment, civil rights attorney Connie Rice slammed the interim chief as “a safe insider who is far more likely to protect the past problems than inspect them and report to the mayor." But Moore told KNX News that an internal candidate who’s familiar with the LAPD’s history of “successes as well as shortcomings” is best suited to step into leadership
Bass said she’s open to looking outside the department for the next chief, and she was surprised that a number of rank-and-file officers also expressed interest in bringing in an outsider who will change things up.
“They're looking for a better environment, you know, they're certainly looking for better working conditions … an improvement in the concern of the top command in terms of their well-being,” she said.
“After gathering all of the input, I'm definitely gonna look for a chief that is committed to community-based policing, that is committed to continuing the move toward reform, and also the working conditions of the officers, because I think that plays out in terms of community-officer interaction,” she added.
Bass’ signature homelessness initiative, Inside Safe, has come under fire recently, with city leaders questioning the price tag and a federal judge ordering an audit of the program.
The mayor says that a key, early step of the program is “too expensive.”
“Putting people in motels is not financially feasible to continue,” she said. “We're spending thousands of dollars per person per room every month. That's why you've heard me say that we need to come up with a less expensive system of long-term interim housing.”
Inside Safe has moved more than 2,100 people into motel rooms, but only 400 have gone on to permanent housing. Several hundred are back on the streets again, and at least 30 have died.
Critics have accused Bass of prioritizing the aesthetics of clearing encampments over getting people off the streets for good. New York Times reporter Jill Cowen said the mayor “has been open about the fact that it’s designed in part to satisfy voters” who want to see visible progress.
“The number one reason for this is to prevent people from dying because people die on the street,” Bass reiterated. But, she added, “It’s also about getting tents off the street to show voters something has been done so they’ll approve additional resources,” she said.
Bass said it’s been challenging to move people out of the motels into permanent housing for a variety of reasons, including the time it takes to build new units.
“What I don't think is acceptable is to leave people on the street while you're building buildings,” she said.
Bass and several other city leaders recently returned from Paris, where they learned about how the French city is preparing to host the 2024 Olympics. Bass said one of her main takeaways from the trip is that L.A. needs a point person in city leadership to focus entirely on the ‘28 Olympics.
“So now I'm looking at, what type of internal organization do we need in the city to make sure that financially we come out on top?” she said.
As for whether the Olympics will end up being a good financial investment for L.A., Bass said, “I am confident that I am going to be laser-focused on that. But to say that I'm confident today what's gonna happen at the end of 2028? No, I cannot say that.”
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