What’s happening today?

There’s a bit of a fight going on over a housing project on the site of the Woodland Hills Country Club that could be taking place at today’s City Council meeting, with housing advocates saying that project needs to be handled through the city’s administrative planning process, and the council member for the area, Bob Blumenfield, trying to get the decision to be made by the City Council members.

And the Measure G task force will be meeting twice today to talk about the elected County Executive position (basically, get ready for an election in 2028 for a mayor-type leader at the County, which currently is led by a board of supervisors). The first meeting is at 12 p.m. and the second is at 5 p.m. The earlier meeting can be attended remotely and in person, while the evening one is only in person and is done in a roundtable format that is supposed to allow community members to be able to participate.

What just happened?

Turns out the fake poll was the product of a very online politics nerd, at least based on what he told The Guardian

The Guardian tracked down the 21-year-old recent college graduate who put out the fake poll that managed to get picked up by the California Post, a few online social media accounts, and then the Karen Bass campaign.

The LA Times’ Noah Goldberg had reported on Monday that the poll was fake. Sahil Prakash, the young man who was behind the fake poll, told the Guardian that he made the website for Median Strategies, the polling firm that claimed the fake poll, using artificial intelligence.

This revelation is not that far off from what USC professor Christian Grose predicted would be the case, with Grose telling the LA Times that he caught the vibe that this could be a stunt by a 23-year-old politics nerd type who likes to go on social media.

Mayor Karen Bass calls for a “quick resolution” on the Paramount Warner Brothers merger

There has been a divide lately on whether the lawsuit by state attorney generals, led by California’s Rob Bonta, to challenge the Paramount merger with Warner Brothers Discovery should be settled or be fought in court, and it now it looks like Mayor Karen Bass is calling for a “swift resolution” on the deal, which many are taking to mean she is siding with those who want to see a settlement.

As for Bonta, he has been saying that he’s focused on continuing with the litigation, according to Politico. Bass’ official statement on Thursday was that the “ongoing disputes over the proposed merger have stalled filming in our city — it’s time for all parties to come to table. Any resolution must put the long-term stability of LA-based entertainment jobs, productions and investments first. This is not about taking sides. This is about fighting for Los Angeles’ talented and unparalleled creative workforce.”

In the Hollywood Reporter article by Katie Kilkenny, Bass’s press office seems to be arguing that the mayor is also calling for Bonta to get a trial started sooner, not necessarily for a settlement.

LA County officials just released a report detailing their projections that the merger would lead to big job losses. Meanwhile, Paramount has been demanding that the attorney generals fighting the merger post up a bond to go toward the “ticking fees” that Paramount agreed to pay if the merger didn’t go through by September. And The Intercept today reported that an “astroturf” group, called Neighbor for Strong Communities, has been texting people to get more support for the merger.

Hay is being made about Nithya Raman hiring an ad firm that worked for Graham Platner (and Zohran Mamdani). Raman says she did it because she wants to win.

Nithya Raman’s campaign is planning to hire Fight Agency, the political ad agency that helped boost Zohran Mamdani into office. There’s been some controversy with that, though, as the firm worked for Graham Platner, who had been running to represent Maine in the U.S. Senate until dropping out after reporting on sexual assault accusations against him came out. Fight Agency also works for various other progressive and DSA candidates, and Raman’s campaign, as well as Fight Agency representatives, have pointed to interest from Bass’s side to also retain Fight Agency.

During Wednesday’s debate, Raman was asked about her plans to work with Fight Agency, and she responded that she aimed to win the race. “I wanted to make sure we were hiring good people to make our ads,“ she said. Raman quickly followed that up with some parries; among them was to point to Mayor Karen Bass having had a close adviser who was at the same time working for Lineage, which operates the massive cold storage warehouse that caught fire in Boyle Heights in June (Bass has said she’s stopped working with that adviser).

Mayor Karen Bass’s disrespect for street vendors gets the headline, rather than an attempt to fear-monger about unhoused people

Mayor Karen Bass’s response to a question about street vending during the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association debate, that was not very sympathetic to the street vendor, seems to have lit a fire under LA Times political columnist Gustavo Arellano, a veritable expert on taco culture who’s written books and numerous columns about the popular, multi-faceted street food. Arellano wrote a scathing assessment of Bass during Wednesday night’s debate that described her overall performance as “career suicide,” which has in turn prompted Raman’s campaign folks to go ham on it.

While some had been projecting that fear-mongering about our unhoused neighbors could be wielded as a political weapon in the mayoral race, Bass’s taco comment may have legs too. You can actually catch the whole exchange on street vending here. It’s a good, broad reflection of the state of the policy and politics around the subject — as various neighborhoods, such as those in the San Fernando Valley (but also in many other neighborhoods), as well as from the brick-and-mortar faction of the culinary world, can still be quite resistant to street vending.

LA Squawk Box for Friday, August 21, 2026