Hit a pothole in Los Angeles and blew out a tire? Mayor Karen Bass says the city’s battered roads are not a problem she created.
Bass pushed back on the idea that she should be blamed for LA’s deteriorating street infrastructure as she heads toward a reelection battle with socialist Councilwoman Nithya Raman.
“We have a crumbling infrastructure in this city that has been crumbling for about three decades and so, believe it or not, those potholes did not come, and those sidewalks did not break because I’m mayor,” Bass said in an interview with REAL 92.3 that was published Wednesday.
Asked directly whether the damage was her fault, Bass answered, “No. I promise I didn’t break those sidewalks.”
Still, the mayor acknowledged that fixing the problem now falls to her administration, adding, “The potholes are my responsibility to fill them up.”
Bass said city crews filled “over 20,000” potholes after the most recent rainfall.
Her comments, particularly her insistence that the potholes were not her fault, quickly drew criticism online.
“She literally won’t take responsibility for anything so if she’s not responsible for anything, why is she running? I just don’t get any of the logic from any of them,” political activist April Silverman wrote on social media. “They are both so embarrassing. They’re running that you’re the best person for the job, but you’re also pretending that you have nothing to do with any of the problems in LA. They both do that it’s beyond.”
Filmmaker and actress Justine Bateman piled on, saying she didn’t understand why Bass would not take responsibility.
“I have nothing but distain and disgust for politicians joking about detrimental conditions in their town,” Bateman said. “These conditions have existed for the entirety of @MayorOfLA’s time in office. Instead of fixing them, Karen Bass has saddled us citizens with obstacle course-type driving to avoid them, and the absorption of the cost of popped tires. It’s disgusting that she doesn’t instead say, ‘This is my responsibility and I will attend to it.’”
Pro-transportation and progressive group Streets for All released a statement blasting Bass for her budget decisions.
“It’s not @MayorOfLA @KarenBassLA fault that old infrastructure breaks,” they wrote. “It is her fault for cutting Street Services and LADOT so much that everything’s breaking faster than we’re fixing it. She seems disconnected between her budget decision making and the real world impacts.”
Former mayoral candidate and community advocate Spencer Pratt recently released a video blaming Bass for the city’s problems.
“Our neglected infrastructure is absolutely crumbling all around us,” he said in the video.
The mayor was recently mocked for her Zohran Mamdani-esque efforts to fix a pothole after Emmy-nominated journalist and comedy creator Simone Boyce pointed one out.
But the mayor said she could not fix the pothole after a car parked on it.
“So we couldn’t repair the pothole,” Bass said in a video posted to social media. “So you know what we did? We put up no parking signs so that hopefully there won’t be anybody parked here tomorrow morning.”
The pesky car sitting on top of the pothole was eventually moved, and the pothole was fixed the next day.
Bass is running for reelection against Raman, who has campaigned extensively on enhancing the city’s transportation system and infrastructure, this November.
The mayor is favored to win against Raman and keep her seat, according to a Polymarket betting market.
