Karen Bass finally shows flashes of common sense

After a rough four years as mayor, Karen Bass showed flashes of common sense on Friday in an exclusive interview with The California Post.

It was a welcome acknowledgment by LA’s top elected official that she’ll need to do better — and address some issues differently — if she wins a second term.

Bass told The Post that if reelected, she plans improvements in two key areas. 

First, she’ll push to expand the undermanned LA Police Department. Second, she’ll work to revamp the city’s failing approach to homelessness.

Good: Admitting the need for change — obvious though it may be — is the first step toward a safer, stronger, more livable LA. 

And the mayor’s right to focus on public safety and homelessness, even if she might have done so sooner. 

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LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell told The Post in July that his department needs 12,500 officers to keep Angelenos safe. The city has about 8,550 — and a radical-left City Council that wants to cut further, or at best let the PD atrophy.

“Staffing up the department after years of decline is one of my top priorities,” Bass said on Friday, adding that she fully supports McDonnell.

That’s as it should be: Public safety is the most fundamental responsibility of any municipal government.

Bass said she’d slice red tape to accelerate hiring, with a goal of reaching 9,500 officers before the 2028 LA Olympics.

By contrast: Bass’ opponent, Nithya Raman, called McDonnell a fascist and vowed to fire him before walking back both statements. That kind of erratic “leadership” would leave LA in chaos on the world stage in ’28.

Raman has also voted repeatedly to cut funding for LA police. 

Meanwhile, on homelessness, Bass’ admissions were even more striking. 

“I knew the system was broken, but how profoundly broken it was, I did not know,’ she told The Post. “The system was never designed to end homelessness. It was only set up to manage.”

That’s correct; as The Post has said repeatedly, the city supports a homeless industrial complex of nonprofits and agencies that have a taxpayer-funded incentive to entrench — not eliminate — homelessness.

That is one reason the city’s homeless population climbed by 3.4% in this year’s official count, and squalid encampments continue to plague large swaths of LA.

Bass’ Inside Safe initiative, which tucks homeless people into hotel rooms, has failed — as has the housing-focused approach of the City Council. And Raman was such a failure leading the council’s housing and homelessness committee that her colleagues booted her from the role.

Bass said a tentative city-county agreement would give the city more control over homeless housing placements — and perhaps get more Angelenos off the streets. This shift, she added, could mean more homeless housing for Angelenos, rather than ceding some LA beds to non-city residents. 

The mayor also shared support for expanding mental health and addiction treatment for homeless people. 

As she told The Post: ”If you just take people randomly off the street and put them in an apartment and just expect them to magically heal … it’s naive.”

Naive is right. Bass’ comment may reflect a belated recognition of reality, but it’s a welcome shift away from the city’s fairy-tale thinking and “housing first” mantra on homelessness. 

In all, Bass’ latest admissions — and pledges to do better in a second term — are encouraging.

As we wrote in our reluctant endorsement of Bass the other day, she does have the capacity to learn from her experience. And now we can add to that: Of the two candidates for mayor on the Nov. 3 ballot, she’s the only one who’s shown any common sense at all.