The City Council welcomed Los Angeles Mayor-elect Nithya Raman at Tuesday’s City Council meeting. Raman pledged to work closely with the City Council, saying the city’s challenges are too big for the mayor and council members to solve alone.
“Each of you has taught me how to be a better council member, and each of you has taught me — you may not know that you were doing that then, but you taught me how to be a better mayor,” Raman said during the City Council meeting.
It was her first City Council meeting since being elected mayor. She will take office on Dec. 14.
None of Raman’s City Council colleagues endorsed her during the mayoral campaign. In her remarks to the council, Raman stood up and addressed her colleagues one by one, mentioning their work on issues ranging from public safety and homelessness to transportation and workers’ rights. She thanked them for what she had learned during her nearly six years as a council member.
“Today, what you saw in council chambers was a commitment from every single person, including myself, to work together for the betterment of Los Angeles,” Raman told reporters during a brief media availability outside the council chambers while the meeting was underway.
Council members stood to congratulate her on her election victory. They took turns praising her work and expressing their willingness to work together for Los Angeles.
City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson welcomed his colleague Raman as Los Angeles’ 44th mayor-elect.
“We are the first major big city in the country to pass the mayor’s baton from one woman to another woman, from one woman of color to another woman of color,” Harris-Dawson said, standing beside Raman as they spoke to reporters outside the council chambers.
Raman said homelessness remains the city’s biggest challenge and will be her top priority.
She promised to bring “order, accountability and transparency” to the city’s homelessness response on her first day in office.
Raman said she would first focus on filling unused shelter beds and housing units across the city. She also plans to help homeless people move from temporary shelters, including expensive hotels and motels, into more stable and affordable housing.
“I will ensure, beginning on day one, that we’re offering people the case management and access to vouchers that will help them move on to a more cost-effective next step,” she said.
Raman said the city’s Inside Safe program, launched under Mayor Karen Bass to move people from homeless encampments into temporary housing, could change its name and structure under her administration.
“In a more fiscally sustainable way, motels and hotels will continue to be a part of our arsenal. But they will be a smaller part as we transition people more quickly into long-term stable housing, which is more cost-efficient,” she said.
Raman promised to visit council members’ districts with them after taking office to better understand their communities’ concerns and priorities.
Many people attended Tuesday’s City Council meeting to see Mayor-elect Nithya Raman. The public seating area was packed to the back row, with some visitors standing to catch a glimpse of her. Others took photos of the mayor-elect.
“I think that her work is going to represent her demeanor, her purpose, and it’ll really show us who she is as a leader and what she entails in her position. So we’ll see,” said Pedro Onofre, junior vice commander of Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1013, who attended Tuesday’s City Council meeting.
Edited by Ally Nakamura and Andriana Yatsyshyn