Mayor Karen Bass made a vow in a city speech Monday as Los Angeles was hit by multiple crises.

Bass, who appears at City Hall in front of an audience of around 250, threw a hopeful tone even as he admits the city is stressed in many ways.

Faced with a budget shortage of around $100 million, Bass is releasing the budget shortly after the speech, calling for the removal of more than 2,700 city positions. About 1,650 people are eligible for layoffs, with the rest already vacant, according to city budget officials.

“I want to be straight with you,” Bus said at one point in a statement that directly aims to city workers. “My proposed budget unfortunately includes layoffs. This is an absolute last resort decision.”

The bus portrayed her city as flexible and intense enough to take a hit and bounce hard.

After weathering civil unrest, recessions, earthquakes, pandemics and fires, Los Angeles “always rise,” she said in her speech. She comes 104 days after destroying the Pacific Pallisad, killing 12 people, and destroying homes of thousands.

Bus celebrated the speed of the fire recovery on Monday, saying the utility recovered to Pallisard in the Pacific much faster than after the previous California fire.

“It’s faster to rebuild, faster to heal. There’s still a long way to go, and for those who have lost their homes, every day is way too long,” Bass says.

She asked the city council to make it easier to rebuild residents by waiving the permit and fees to check building plans. Traci Park, a councillor representing Pallisard, has been featured. Such a policy for Januaryhowever, the council is awaiting reports from several city departments about its feasibility.

Stuart Waldman, president of Valley Industry and Commercial Assun, the San Fernando Valley Business Group, said he appreciated the bass statements about streamlining the city’s permitting process.

At the same time, he denounced city leaders for the management of their budgets, saying they were too generous when negotiating wages for their labor.

“They did it to themselves,” he said. “The city has started a bad deal to give city employees a massive salary increase. Now it’s back to bite us.”

During her speech, Bass trumpeted double digit reductions in murder and shooting.

She also highlighted the decline in street homelessness last year, falling by more than 10%. Public safety ultimately depends on whether people feel safe where they live, so cities still need to go further, she said.

“This is what our city is like. Homelessness is declining. Crime is declining,” Bass said. “These are tough challenges and they show us that we can do more.”

Bass used her address to call the landlord to accept housing vouchers from homeless veterans. And she praised the Los Angeles nonprofit fund, and praised Angelenos for the resources and evictions she faced to stay home.

The mayor also cited the decision of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, drawing hundreds of millions of dollars from the City and County Los Angeles Department of Homeless Services and launched his own agency. “Creating a new bureaucracy is not transformative in itself. ”

Standing up to homelessness is expensive, Bass said, “But leaving people on the streets comes at a huge human cost,” which affects not only individuals living outdoors, but also businesses and residents nearby.

“The cost of doing nothing is more than inhumane, and it’s economically unsustainable,” she continued.

The mayor’s annual speech came just before she announced her 2025/26 budget proposal. These reductions are intended to address the budget crisis caused by legal payments, weakening the economy, and rising HR costs.

The mayor still hopes to avoid cutting staff by securing it Financial relief By persuading Gov. Gavin Newsom and the state legislature, or by making financial concessions by persuading the city’s employee unions. However, neither route is guaranteed to succeed.

“Cities like us are experiencing challenging economic situations across the country,” Bass said, explaining that she plans to make the city function more efficiently by integrating and reorganizing the sectors more efficiently.

Under her budget proposal, Bass will eliminate urban commissions that address health dealing with climate change and efficiency and innovation. She also combined several of the city’s small institutions into a single entity.

Three sectors – aging, youth development, economic and labor development – ​​are integrated into the community and investments of the family sector.

Bass is seeking the elimination of over 1,000 unfilled “ghost” positions. She said she has already postponed several capital projects and cut funds for the mayor’s office.

Bass also highlighted the importance of competing to return tourism to downtown Los Angeles and regaining entertainment jobs after major departures to other cities and countries. She vowed to make it easier to shoot on city property and streamline the city’s film permitting process.

For bass, her speeches didn’t just reassure the uneasy people and the workforce. Her political future is looming from early January, when the most costly natural disasters in modern-day Los Angeles history broke out while she was on a diplomatic trip to Ghana. Her stopping initial reaction to the fire caused intense criticism, and she absent from her then fire chief and her own recovery emperor.

Bass is standing up for a relationship next year, and it remains unclear whether anyone will take on a serious challenge. Still, her favorite ratings have been seriously eroding over the past few months. A recent survey by the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs found that almost half of LA County residents who voted had a bass-favourable view compared to 32% last year.

She concludes her speech by promoting the 2028 Olympics hosted by Los Angeles, and says that cities owe it to the next generation to win on the world stage.

The city council will need to change the mayor’s budget until the end of May and approve it. By then, city officials should have a clearer idea of ​​whether the state will come to rescue.

“The speech is great, but the budget details are excellent,” said Councillor Monica Rodriguez, who has been sharply criticising the bass policy after the speech. “If you look at the budget details, you’ll see what the mayor’s priorities are and whether this is a city that supports all Angeleno’s interests or just a few.”