Bass, Caruso discuss the LA City Hall scandal and antisemitic hate crimes in latest forum
Candidates Karen Bass and Rick Caruso took discussed the recent City Hall scandal and antisemitic hate during the mayoral forum hosted by several Jewish organizations.
"I think the work of the city needs to move forward," said Bass. "I do think that Kevin de León and Gil Cedillo should step down. But if they are not, the work of the city still needs to go on."
The forum took place in the wake of Kanye West's antisemitic posts on social media which sparked public stunts such as the one over the 405 Freeway where several people presented the Nazi salute while displaying antisemitic banners.
"I am especially concerned about antisemitism because the statistic in Los Angeles is incredibly troubling," said Caruso.
While candidates appeared separately, both of them addressed West's recent actions.
"I called immediately for the contracts to be canceled with Kanye," said Bass. "His behavior is what it is, but the fact that the banner said 'Kanye was right' is a perfect example of how his speech led to that act. It gave license to that act."
Caruso said has led by example, always rejecting hate during his time in the private sector.
"Leadership has to not only take a very strong voice in condemning it; it has to give the resources to prevent it from happening," he said. "We have to have more officers on the street that are preventing hate crimes from happening."
The forum occurred as voting is underway and less than two weeks before Election Day. Sarah Sadhwani, a politics professor at Pomona College, said that the forum showed that the race is clearly tightening.
"Certainly, we've seen the polling show that the two are neck-and-neck in this race," she said. "It's anyone's game at this point. Karen has been in the lead throughout most of this race but of course, we are in unprecedented times."
For the Jewish community leaders here, the message they wanted to put out was clear — hate should not have a home in L.A. and the next mayor needs to lead the charge on that.
"We urged tonight is that people use their own voice to speak up," said ADL regional director Jeffrey Abrams. "Democracy is not a spectator sport. The way to address so much of what's going on right now is to speak up."
AJC regional director Richard Hirschaut echoed Abrams' sentiment.
"We are in crisis and LA is a better place than has been reflected globally," he said.
