Covering housing in Los Angeles and California @politico. DMs open; https://xitter.twitterapi.xyz/t.co/L88aHkveAi
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ALT It lacked, put simply, “the most basic things,” said Ian Manheimer, Raman’s campaign manager, who joined the team after a 10 p.m. call from Raman the night before the filing deadline. There would be a meeting the next day in Raman’s backyard accessory dwelling unit to get things rolling. “For anyone who suspected Nithya had designs on this for a long time, you could just come to the ADU and that would dispel those notions,” Manheimer said. Those unassuming beginnings in Raman’s backyard, with her parents and her husband’s parents taking turns cooking vegetarian Indian lunches for the small staff, evolved into a disciplined campaign that overcame initial struggles to unseat incumbent Mayor Karen Bass, a veteran politician who had racked up endorsements from most of L.A.’s traditional power brokers.
ALT Raman and Lewis George’s ascendance follows that of Zohran Mamdani in New York last year who similarly married socialist and YIMBY perspectives during his successful mayoral campaign. All three politicians were endorsed by local chapters of the Democratic Socialists of America and have moved past the far left’s deep-seated skepticism that private developers can play a role in making housing more affordable. “It’s thrilling,” said Paul Williams, who served on Mamdani’s transition team and is executive director of the New York-based think tank Center for Public Enterprise. “When Mamdani got elected, there was almost an only-Nixon-could-go-to-China attitude that some people had about this. But then Janeese ran on it. And Nithya ran on it. Now it’s just, this is what’s happening in America now.”
ALT “Here in Los Angeles, this election is about change too. A city that was engineered over the last few decades to resist change. And the people right here who said enough is enough. Because for too long our broken and unjust status quo has convinced Angelinos that this is the best that we can do. Our city became a place where we became so used to saying no, we forgot how to say yes. The result: LA stopped being a place where we could build things, where we could open things, where we could film things, where we could create things. We stopped asking when the sidewalk would be fixed and started planning our commute around it. We stopped asking why the permit took two years to get approved and started assuming that's just how it works here. We watched friend after friend, family after family leave because they couldn't afford to stay here anymore. And we all talked about it as if these things were completely out of City Hall's control. That's the cynicism that started to take over this c
ALT Exploding brain meme
ALT LOS ANGELES — For Airbnb, the gold medal game in the 2028 Summer Olympics is on Tuesday. Since last year, the home-sharing giant and its nonprofit arm have spent at least $12.6 million building influence in Los Angeles and becoming one of the city’s top political contributors — backing Mayor Karen Bass and other candidates, lobbying City Hall and making charitable contributions at the behest of politicians. The company is pushing for friendlier regulation of vacation rentals in the games’ host city, and Election Day is its last chance to sway who’s in charge before the Olympics begin.
ALT The stakes are enormous. Airbnb executives have told investors they expect the Olympics to spur rapid and lasting expansion of its home-sharing business in Los Angeles. But should Airbnb’s candidates lose, the company may face a reckoning in one of its largest U.S. markets. Bass’ challenger, City Council member Nithya Raman, has cast Airbnb’s largesse toward the mayor as “pay-to-play” politics that hurts residents struggling with housing costs, and vowed to crack down on short-term rentals if elected. “Airbnb understands that the decisions made over the next few years could shape its business in Los Angeles for a long time,” said Jeremy Oberstein, a local Democratic political consultant. “The Olympics may be the immediate prize, but the bigger opportunity is influencing the rules of the game long after the torch goes out.”
ALT The agencies use different data systems, and even different Google spreadsheets, to produce their reports and often have different bureaus within them managing different housing programs
ALT For example, a senior director for Bass told the interviewers that the Inside Safe program uses an internal Google spreadsheet to manage its occupancy records and does not have access to the Homeless Management Information System, the countywide database that tracks street contacts with homeless people and housing placements.