Los Angeles residents will hear Mayor‑elect Nithya Raman’s detailed agenda next month as she prepares to take office as the city’s 44th mayor. Raman, who secured roughly 481,000 votes in the recent election, presented a series of proposals aimed at improving public safety, reducing homelessness and tightening city liability costs.
Anti‑homelessness initiative
Raman’s centerpiece is an ambitious anti‑homelessness plan that would allocate about $98 million from the city’s general fund for the first three years of her term, followed by $49 million in the fourth year. She highlighted a nearly 50 % drop in homelessness within her council district during her tenure on the City Council and argued that the new funding would expand existing resources rather than create new programs.
Unarmed response teams and police workload
While Raman once supported the “defund the police” platform promoted by the Democratic Socialists of America, her current proposal calls for the creation of unarmed response teams that would be integrated into the 911 dispatch system. The goal is to reduce LAPD officers’ workloads by assigning non‑violent calls to these teams, without decreasing overall police staffing. Raman said she will work with the LAPD to ensure rapid response to emergency and public‑safety calls, though she has not detailed the financing mechanism for the expanded operations.
Liability‑risk oversight for city departments
Identifying the LAPD as the city’s largest source of liability payouts, Raman plans to adopt recommendations from City Administrative Officer Matthew Szabo. Those recommendations include centralizing liability‑risk oversight and offering financial incentives for departments that lower their risk exposure. Under the proposal, the LAPD could be required to cover its own liability payouts rather than relying on the general fund, which spent about $150 million on settlements in fiscal year 2025‑26.
Immigration enforcement stance
Raman affirmed that the LAPD has been cooperating with the Trump administration and the Department of Homeland Security, but she wants to prohibit the department from working with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). California’s sanctuary law already limits cooperation with federal immigration enforcement, and Raman’s plan would further ban ICE operations on all city properties. She also pledged to fully staff the Office of Immigrant Affairs, expand the city’s investment in RepresentLA – a program that provides free deportation defense – and create an emergency utility‑fee waiver for families affected by federal immigration raids.
Next steps
Raman’s proposals will be scrutinized by the Los Angeles City Council and various community groups over the coming weeks. With a new administration set to begin in January, the city’s 426,000 residents who voted for former Mayor Karen Bass or abstained will be watching closely to see how these policies impact daily life, public safety and the city’s fiscal health.
Original reporting: NBC4 Los Angeles — read the source article.
