Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman was not at City Hall on February 18, 2025, when her colleagues took up a 40-item agenda loaded with post-fire recovery measures. The following day, February 19, she was on Hollywood Boulevard congratulating Mindy Kaling, who was receiving the 2,800th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. More than a year and a half later, that choice has become a talking point in her runoff campaign against Mayor Karen Bass for the city's top job.
Raman, now a candidate for Los Angeles mayor, has said she attended Kaling's ceremony to congratulate the actress and writer personally, according to the New York Post. Speaking at the event itself, Raman praised Kaling's career and said Kaling's success ensures young South Asian Americans, including Raman's own daughter Kaveri, see themselves represented on screen, according to Beverly Press & Park Labrea News.
The council session she missed that day included items tied directly to the aftermath of the January 2025 wildfires, including the Palisades Fire. Councilmember Traci Park had introduced measures seeking additional annual and visitor parking permits for residents displaced by the fires, and the council also considered waiving plan-check, permit, and other city fees for structures destroyed in the Palisades Fire. That fire ultimately burned over 23,000 acres and destroyed 6,845 structures, according to a prior Hoodline report on the scale of the disaster.
Four Council Members Were Absent, Not Just Raman
Raman was not the only councilmember missing from at least some of the fire-related votes that day. Traci Park, Bob Blumenfield, and Hugo Soto-Martínez were also absent for portions of the proceedings, and the measures ultimately passed unanimously among the members who were present, per the Post's reporting. Raman's campaign has said the absences did not change the outcome and that she wants to participate in Palisades recovery efforts, with spokesperson Liz Garcia saying the votes not cast by the four absent councilmembers did not affect the outcome.
According to campaign statements cited by the Post, Raman has introduced multiple council measures addressing fire response and recovery, released a detailed Palisades recovery plan, and says she plans to work with Park and the community to help residents rebuild and return home quickly. Park has pushed back on that characterization, criticizing Raman's involvement in Palisades recovery and saying Raman never offered to help.
Attendance Has Become a Runoff-Wide Weapon
The February 2025 absence is just one thread in a broader attendance fight that has consumed the mayoral race. Bass's campaign accused Raman of missing 2,966 of 20,973 council votes and launched a website, NoShowNithya.com, making that case; the site also alleges Raman canceled 40 Housing and Homelessness Committee meetings during her council tenure, according to Valley News Group. The site emerged after tense exchanges during an August mayoral debate in Sherman Oaks.
Raman has attributed the broader attendance criticism to scheduling conflicts with outside board assignments. A voting analysis of council records through August found Raman missed 85.8% of first-Friday council votes compared to just 12.9% on all other days, largely because of her required attendance at monthly Friday meetings of the South Coast Air Quality Management District board, according to The Basin. Former Mayor Eric Garcetti appointed Raman to the regional board in February 2022; her term ended January 15, 2026, and Adrin Nazarian succeeded her, according to The Basin.
Bass Faced Her Own Attendance Scrutiny
Bass Faced Her Own Attendance Scrutiny The attendance attacks have not run in only one direction. News reports in August scrutinized Bass's attendance at Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority Commission meetings, and she later stepped down from the panel, per Patch. Raman has also publicly criticized Bass for agreeing to only a single televised debate, on October 12, hosted by NBC4 and Telemundo 52, while declining invitations to several other joint broadcast debates, according to IndiaWest.
The dispute over Raman's Palisades-era absence lands amid new polling in an already tight race. A UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times and released September 23 showed Raman with 39% support to Bass's 28%, with 33% of likely voters still undecided. The Bass campaign has described that poll as an outlier compared with other recent surveys. The mayoral race is scheduled for the November 3 general election.
UNITE HERE Local 11 endorsed Raman on September 1, 2026, according to Patch. Bass, meanwhile, has continued touting her post-fire response, having issued a 2025 emergency order that removed more than 70% of single-family permit clearances; in March 2026, she introduced pre-approved home plans to speed reconstruction.
