Karen Bass sets tone for re-election year in early and unconventional State of the City

Mayor Karen Bass used a celebratory State of the City address on Monday to project unity and optimism as Los Angeles prepares to host a series of global sporting events, while also highlighting her work on homelessness and sharply condemning federal immigration enforcement actions she said are harming local communities.

Delivered at the Expo Center, near the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, the address marked an early, unconventional take on the traditional speech, which is usually delivered in April alongside the release of the mayor’s proposed budget. The timing also places the speech just a few months ahead of the June 2 mayoral election.

The address drew a standing-room-only crowd that included city officials and City Council members, Los Angeles County supervisors Janice Hahn and Holly Mitchell, leaders from the Los Angeles Unified School District, and mayors from neighboring cities, including Paramount. Members of Bass’ family were also in attendance, along with community, business, nonprofit and labor leaders.

The mayor’s office framed Monday’s remarks as a forward-looking, unifying address, with Bass still expected to deliver a more traditional State of the City later this spring.

Bass devoted a significant portion of the address to Los Angeles’ preparations for an unprecedented stretch of major international sporting events, including the 2026 FIFA World Cup, the 2027 Super Bowl, and the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

“When the world looks at Los Angeles, they won’t just see venues,” the mayor said. “They will see our values, the diversity of our people, and all that our neighborhoods offer, including our restaurants, the food trucks, our stores and our cultural richness.”

Framing the moment as a test of the city’s value as much as its logistics, Bass said the upcoming events should be accessible to residents across Los Angeles, not just ticket-holders.

“Let me be clear: these moments will not belong only to those who can afford stadium seats,” she said. “They will belong to all of us.”

As part of that effort, Bass announced the city will host more than 100 free, publicly accessible World Cup watch parties in public parks across every City Council district, with all 34 tournament days broadcast on large, mobile LED screens. The events will also include soccer clinics, food and cultural programming.

Building on the city’s global sports push, Bass highlighted new and expanded youth investments tied to the upcoming events.

She announced a new partnership between the city and Angel City Football Club, which aims to expand access to sports for young people across Los Angeles.

Under the initiative, City Angel Football Club will invest $3 million over three years to serve more than 43,000 girls across Los Angeles, Bass said. The city’s Department of Recreation and Parks will also launch Golf for Girls clinics at public golf courses during the U.S. Women’s Open in June.

Bass also said the city will launch a new Clean Corridors Initiative to clean up major streets, particularly around World Cup watch party sites, with more trash pickup, graffiti removal and landscaping.

In addition to focusing on the city’s global moment, Bass also turned to a more personal and painful chapter, reflecting on last year’s Palisades fire and its impact on residents and first responders.

“I have heard your anger, your exhaustion, I have sat with Palisade families who lost their homes, your livelihoods,” Bass said. “I’m going to take a moment to thank you, for your honesty, for your resilience, and for making me a stronger mayor.”

Bass said the city has worked to speed rebuilding and brought new leadership to overhaul systems related to fire preparedness and emergency response, with more than 400 homes under construction and hundreds more ready to rebuild. She added that she would travel to Sacramento next week with Councilmember Traci Park to press for continued state support for recovery efforts.

The comments also marked one of Bass’ most direct public acknowledgements of the fire in recent months. While she has met privately with affected families and marked the anniversary in smaller settings, she did not attend last month’s public anniversary events.

The mayor’s remarks came amid ongoing debate over the pace and handling of the Palisades recovery. Some residents and local officials have criticized the city’s response, citing rebuilding delays and permitting concerns, even as the city has moved to streamline approval processes since the fire.

Bass also addressed homelessness, calling it one of the defining challenges of her administration.

“Since I became Mayor, we began moving with urgency,” she said. “We broke down silos, we challenged policies that kept people trapped on our streets, and we began building a system with one clear goal, and that’s ending homelessness, especially street homelessness.”

Bass said her administration has accelerated affordable housing production and increased placements into permanent housing, pointing to what the city has described as its first consecutive year-over-year decrease in the number of people experiencing homelessness, including veterans.

She highlighted her Inside Safe initiative, which she said has cleared nearly 120 encampments, moving thousands of Angelenos into interim and permanent housing, with an 85% retention rate in permanent placements.

Bass also cited the city’s House Our Vets initiative, which she said has housed nearly 600 veterans, and said more than 42,000 units of affordable housing are currently in the pipeline under Executive Directive 1. She added that more than $14 million in rental assistance will be provided to seniors and people with disabilities through Measure ULA.

At the same time, homelessness programs remain under scrutiny. Oversight reports and critics have raised questions about the cost and effectiveness of city efforts, including audits that have flagged weaknesses in tracking how homelessness dollars are spent, as well as ongoing tension between the city and Los Angeles County over funding and governance of the region’s homeless services program.

The speech took a sharper turn as Bass addressed federal immigration enforcement actions in Los Angeles, using some of her strongest language of the afternoon to condemn ongoing raids and what she described as their human toll.

“Staying silent or minimizing what is happening is not an option,” she said. “This Administration does not care about safety. They do not care about order. And they certainly don’t care about the law.”

Bass cited several individuals who were killed during federal enforcement operations, including Keith Porter, Renée Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, arguing the deaths underscored the consequences of continued raids in and beyond Los Angeles.

“This senseless death, lawnessness, and violence must end. And so must the presence of ICE in Los Angeles,” she said.

This comment landed with the roomful of attendees rising to their feet in resounding applause.

Bass has repeatedly clashed with federal officials over immigration enforcement, positioning Los Angeles as a sanctuary city and framing opposition to ICE raids as both a moral stance and a matter of public safety. During the speech, she cast the issue as part of Los Angeles’ broader political identity, saying the city has a long history of organizing and protesting in defense of immigrants and others she described as being targeted by federal policies.

“We always stand up for our people, on the same moral high grounds as those who came before us,” she said. “We protest for what is right—peacefully and nonviolently. We stand up for everyone who calls this city home. No amount of intimidation, bullying or oppression from Washington will ever change that.”

Political analysts said the early timing of the address appeared designed to set the tone for the year and allow Bass to define her priorities ahead of the campaign season, months before many of her challengers have fully rolled out their platforms.

Zev Yaroslavsky, a longtime political analyst and former county supervisor, called the address “a very good speech,” saying Bass leaned into her strengths and emphasized forward-looking themes typical of re-election campaigns.

“What most politicians do when they are running for reelection is they don’t look back exclusively, but they look forward, and I think she played to her strong suits,” Yaroslavsky said, pointing in particular to immigration and ICE.

Yaroslavsky said he did not view the timing as accidental, noting that the address coincided with the opening of the filing period for the mayoral race.

“I don’t think that was an accident,” he said. “I think she wanted to define her message, her objectives, her aspirations, before everybody else tries to define her themselves.”

Others were more critical. Mihran Kalaydjian, president of the Winnetka Neighborhood Council, said the speech focused too heavily on narrative and global events while overlooking what he described as basic needs facing many Angelenos.

“Many in the room, and other residents dealing with homelessness, public safety, infrastructure decay, and the street conditions, felt sidelined,” he said.