When will we see new Bass appointees?
Mayor has moved quickly on homeless problem but more slowly on nominees.
Since taking office, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has been laser focused on the crisis of homelessness, declaring a state of emergency and moving scores of homeless people out of encampments in Hollywood and Venice and into temporary housing.
Bass has pointed to those efforts as evidence that she is moving with great urgency. Still, there is another area of city government where her pace has been not quite as breakneck: choosing the citizens who will represent her, and the public, on the city and county’s many boards and commissions.
One of the most potent ways a new L.A. mayor can put their stamp on city government early in their term is by selecting a new slate of appointees to oversee the LAPD, the Department of Water and Power, the region’s transit system, city animal shelters, street repairs and many other services. For now, those panels remain filled with scores of commissioners selected by former Mayor Eric Garcetti.
Bass’ administration is about to enter its seventh week. By midday Friday, she had submitted three commission nominees, including one to the airport commission and another to the library board, according to the city clerk’s office.
That pace lags behind some of Bass’ predecessors at City Hall.
By his second week in office, Garcetti had announced a slate of new appointees to the five-member Board of Public Works, one of the city’s most powerful commissions — and the only one whose members earn a full-time salary. By his third week, he had picked three new appointees to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s board of directors.
Garcetti’s predecessors, Antonio Villaraigosa and James Hahn, moved even more rapidly.
In his first month, Villaraigosa nominated an array of new appointments to the police commission, the public works board, the airport commission and the Metro board. Hahn spent his first month filling commissions that oversee the LAPD, the DWP, LAX and the Port of Los Angeles.
All three mayors removed most, or even all, of a commission’s members during their first months in office.
Asked about the new mayor’s progress, Bass spokesperson Zach Seidl said she will replace commissioners eventually, at least in some instances. In others, she may only fill commission seats that are vacant due to a resignation or other causes.
New commissioners, Seidl added, will probably be announced next week.
“We look forward to many more commission appointments to come, and will continue moving at the rapid pace that we have taken with bold and unprecedented action on homelessness,” he said in an email.
The lack of commission appointments has created at least a couple of tricky situations.
The five-member police commission, made up entirely of holdovers from the Garcetti adminstration, embarked this month on a hugely significant task: deciding whether Police Chief Michel Moore deserves a second term.
If Bass nominates a new slate of police commissioners now, she could end up interrupting that process midstream. But if she holds off, her new appointees might not be seated until after the panel has cast its vote on Moore.
Vacancies are also becoming an issue for the citywide planning commission, which has seen three of its members resign in recent months.
That nine-member panel, which reviews major development projects, had to cancel next week’s meeting because it lacked enough members for a quorum.
It’s worth noting that Garcetti, Villaraigosa and Hahn had a key timing advantage over Bass. They took office on July 1, which allowed them to build their teams over the summer.
Bass took office Dec. 12, thanks to the change in the city election calendar, and had to set up her administration during the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.