CONSIDER THIS - Los Angeles City Hall has found its scapegoat. Her name is Nithya Raman.
Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson has restructured the City Council’s Housing and Homelessness Committee, ending Raman’s tenure as chair. Harris-Dawson says the change is intended to make the Council’s committee structure more effective. Raman, who is challenging Mayor Karen Bass, says the move amounts to political punishment.
Whatever the motivation, the decision establishes an important standard: if persistent failure can cost Raman her leadership position, then the same standard must apply to everyone responsible for governing Los Angeles.
Accountability cannot stop with Nithya Raman.
Raman Did Not Govern Alone
Let’s dispense with the convenient fiction that one committee chair is responsible for Los Angeles’ homelessness crisis.
Raman did not control the Mayor’s office, administer every homelessness contract, operate shelters, or control every dollar flowing through the homelessness system. The City Council has 15 members, while LAHSA, city and county agencies, contractors and nonprofit organizations all participate in a sprawling system that has consumed enormous public resources.
Yet basic questions about accountability remain difficult to answer.
A court-ordered independent audit examining approximately $2.4 billion in city homelessness funding identified serious deficiencies involving financial controls, data collection, contract monitoring, and the ability to connect spending with services and results.
That is not merely a Nithya Raman problem.
That is a Los Angeles government problem.
Raman’s record deserves scrutiny. Examine her votes, policies, and programs. Where she failed, hold her accountable. But don’t turn one councilmember into City Hall’s designated scapegoat for a system built, funded, and governed by many.
The Timing Cannot Be Ignored
There is also an obvious political reality.
Raman is challenging Mayor Karen Bass, and Harris-Dawson is an ally of the Mayor. Raman’s loss of the chairmanship therefore comes during a consequential political contest.
Harris-Dawson denies the restructuring was punishment and says housing and homelessness require separate committees.
Perhaps so. Then demonstrate that this is about good government by applying the accountability standard consistently.
If leadership means accepting consequences when government fails, that principle cannot apply to one committee chair and disappear when the spotlight moves higher.
The same standard must reach the top.
Look at Los Angeles
Angelenos don’t need another City Hall report to understand the condition of their city. They experience it every day.
They drive over deteriorating streets and navigate damaged sidewalks. They encounter darkened streetlights, aging infrastructure and public spaces needing maintenance. Police, fire and other departments face staffing, equipment and budget pressures while residents are told basic services must compete for limited resources.
Then there is homelessness a crisis that has consumed billions of dollars, years of political attention and enormous public patience.
Residents should not need an accounting degree, a court order, or a federal judge to determine what their government accomplished with their money.
Los Angeles has a massive budget, thousands of employees, a Mayor, 15 councilmembers and an army of departments, commissions, consultants, contractors and nonprofit partners.
With that enormous government comes an equally enormous obligation:
Produce results.
Who Owns the Failure?
When something succeeds, politicians rarely struggle to find the cameras. When something fails, responsibility suddenly becomes difficult to locate.
Departments blame staffing. Contractors blame funding. Councilmembers blame the Mayor. The Mayor can blame the Council. City Hall blames Sacramento.
Everyone has an explanation.
The taxpayer gets the bill.
Leadership cannot mean claiming credit when government succeeds and distributing responsibility everywhere else when it fails.
If Raman is accountable for the performance of the committee she chaired, Harris-Dawson must be prepared to answer for the performance of the legislative institution he leads.
You cannot demand accountability from others while granting immunity to yourself.
Apply the Raman Standard
Perhaps City Hall has unintentionally created a useful principle.
Call it the Raman Standard.
If persistent failure under your leadership can cost you your leadership position, every powerful official at City Hall should be prepared to live under the same rule.
Apply it to committee chairs. Apply it to department heads. Apply it to the Mayor. Apply it to the Council President.
Then ask each one:
What actually got better under your watch?
Forget the press releases, appropriations, consultants, studies, and programs announced.
Are the streets better maintained? Are sidewalks being repaired faster? Are public spaces cleaner? Is homelessness declining through programs with independently verifiable results? Is City Hall more transparent? Can taxpayers follow their money from appropriation to outcome?
Those are measurements of government performance.
Everything else is process.
Accountability Cannot Be Selective
None of this absolves Raman.
If she failed, say so. If her policies produced poor results, expose them. If taxpayer dollars were wasted under programs she championed, demand answers.
But then turn the same spotlight around.
When accountability falls heavily on a councilmember challenging the incumbent Mayor but becomes less urgent for everyone else presiding over the same government, Angelenos are entitled to ask whether they are witnessing accountability or politics.
Residents see the condition of Los Angeles every day. They drive the streets, encounter encampments, use the parks, wait for city services and pay the taxes financing this government.
They have every right to ask:
With all the money Los Angeles spends, why are acceptable results still so difficult to deliver?
The Standard Must Reach the Top
If Marqueece Harris-Dawson believes leadership requires change when government fails to produce acceptable results, his leadership should be subjected to the same test.
The Council President leads the legislative body that approves budgets, establishes policies, organizes committees, and exercises oversight over city government.
No, Harris-Dawson did not personally create every pothole, damage every sidewalk, or cause the homelessness crisis.
Neither did Nithya Raman.
That is precisely the point.
Leadership means accepting responsibility for the direction and performance of the institution you have been entrusted to lead.
Los Angeles is struggling on too many fronts for City Hall to pretend that changing one committee chair constitutes meaningful accountability.
If Harris-Dawson has established the principle that leadership must change when government fails to deliver, embrace it.
Make it permanent. Make it citywide. Make it politically blind.
And apply it at the top.
Marqueece Harris-Dawson should step down as President of the Los Angeles City Council.
Not because he alone created Los Angeles’ problems, but because a leader who demands accountability from others must be willing to accept accountability himself.
City Hall cannot describe homelessness as a collective challenge when asking taxpayers for billions and then transform it into an individual failure when assigning responsibility.
It cannot preach accountability downward while practicing immunity upward.
For years, Los Angeles has answered failure with another program, another appropriation, another consultant, another committee, another study, and another promise.
Now City Hall has changed the leadership.
Fine.
Then live by the standard you just created.
If failure is grounds for losing your chair in Los Angeles, don’t stop with Nithya Raman. Apply the same standard to the man sitting in the biggest chair on the City Council.
(Mihran Kalaydjian is a seasoned public affairs and government relations professional with more than twenty years of experience in legislative affairs, public policy, community relations, and strategic communications. A respected civic leader and education advocate, he has spearheaded numerous academic and community initiatives, shaping dialogue and driving reform in local and regional political forums. His career reflects a steadfast commitment to transparency, accountability, and public service across Los Angeles and beyond.)
(Jay Handal is a veteran community advocate and longtime CityWatch contributor who plays a central role in holding Los Angeles City Hall accountable. He serves as treasurer of the West LA–Sawtelle Neighborhood Council. With decades of grassroots organizing and civic leadership, Jay is a relentless voice for transparency, fiscal reform, and empowering neighborhoods to challenge waste, mismanagement, and backroom decision-making at City Hall.)
