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"ICE Out of Boyle Heights!"

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Mayor-elect Raman joined protestors on Saturday (11/7) outside Adventist Health White Memorial Hospital over in East L.A.  She led protestors in an “ICE Out of Boyle Heights” chant and decried the previous evening’s episode wherein ICE brought a detainee to the emergency room and then blocked any further inpatient traffic to the facility; purportedly a tactical requirement.  Didn’t go over too well as protestors from around the neighborhood converged upon the emergency room dock.  The hospital is not in Raman’s council district so the intervention must be interpreted as that of a unique hybrid… the private citizen/mayor-elect.  This is an activist in public office bringing the force of that office to bear on the side of those tangling with federal law enforcement. A slight woman, Nithya appears as comfortable in the street as a lamppost, evincing the experience of street level work in the slums of Chennai, India and Silverlake’s homeless encampments.  There is p...

Nov. 8 Campaign Email

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  This came by email from the Nythia Raman for Mayor 2026 campaign. I subscribed. The link did not work, said "the typeform is closed." Nothing should ever be closed. Also, the "Washington Post" chose to share its reading of an electorate standing 3,000 miles away with a piece from the editorial board with the headlines, "Los Angelenos Voted Against Failure, Not for Socialism." 

Raman and the New Left-YIMBY Movement

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  "Politico" ran an article today about what it called the new "Left-YIMBY" movement.  Author Liam Dillon links Mayor-elect Raman with Washington D.C. Mayor-elect Janeese Lewis George - both members of Democratic Socialists of America - as member of what he considers to be a growing trend.  The political hybrid resolves a long-standing feud between the left and powerful developing interest by coupling its advocacy of renters rights with a "Yes-In-My-Backyard" approach to development; the calculus being you can't end homelessness without making more homes.  Here's an excerpt: " In Los Angeles, Raman, who will leave her current seat on the City Council to become mayor, has delighted or angered various camps — sometimes at the same time — as she led the charge to tighten LA’s rent control restrictions while also proposing to cut a tax on multifamily development. On the campaign trail, Raman promised to push for development in single-family-home n...

"And I am going to work so hard..."

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Nythia Raman met the public yesterday for the first time as mayor of Los Angeles. Here is a link to a segment of her  address.  "This city has given my family so much. And at a time when the federal government - over the past two years - we've seen a country that has rejected immigrants and in so many ways...I'm an immigrant to this country and this is a city of immigrants - in so many ways - whether they came from across American or they came from across the world. This city has opened its arms for people to come and build their dreams here. And the ideal the Angelenos voted for an immigrant to be their next mayor at this moment in American history is so deeply moving to me. And I want to tell every Angeleno out there that I am going to work so hard, and everyone behind me is going to work so hard to earn your trust." She took questions from the press, sidestepping a question about her plans to fire the police chief with a lot of words. The Mayor-elect was emotional ...

"The Days and Nights of Nythia" is Born

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City Councilwoman Nythia V. Raman was declared winner the mayoral contest in Los Angeles earlier today. She is a member of Democratic Socialists of America, a dark-horse candidate who first dispensed with Spencer Pratt, and then the much-weightier incumbent and career pol, Karen Bass.  This is going to be interesting and the idea is to do daily posts and, over time, become very in-tuned to what his happening in these upcoming Days of Nythia.  Two days ago, with her lead expanding, but the result still in doubt, "Politico" ran a worthwhile portrait of the insurgent candidate. Find it here. Her video message accepting the charge of being mayor can be found here .