Beutner, Former School Supertindent, Businessman and Civic Leader Enters Mayor’s Race

(Editor’s note: This story appeared October 13 in the Westside Current and is reprinted with permission.)

Austin Beutner is running for Mayor.

By JON REGARDIE

By many counts, 2025 qualifies as the worst, most dispiriting year in the history of Los Angeles. Consider: The January wildfires\ decimated the Pacific Palisades and the rebuild is a slog. Spring brought a $1 billion budget deficit that leaders struggled to patch. The Police Department is shrinking. The Fire Department needs serious reorganization. The wave of cruel ICE raids, and the battles with the Trump administration, continue.

Then there’s homelessness, and although numbers are no longer rising, the city still counts nearly 44,000 unhoused individuals. We can’t build enough housing and Governor Gavin Newsom just big-footed L.A. by signing SB 79, a bill that determines where in city limits large projects can rise.

Given all these challenges, why would anyone want to be mayor?

That’s what I asked Austin Beutner, the longtime civic player, who today shook up the mayor’s race by announcing his challenge to Karen Bass. The primary is next June.

His answer had two parts.

“I’m blessed,” he told me in a Sunday afternoon phone call, describing how his father came to the United States as a child and worked in factories, and his mother taught in the public schools he attended. “I found good-paying work, started my own business.”

But he thinks Bass has been an ineffective leader, and describes Los Angeles as “a city that’s adrift.”

“It’s become too expensive, less safe, way too difficult to live here. And everybody in Los Angeles sees that,” he said. “Well, we’ve got to turn things around.”

Beutner’s entry ignites a contest that has been more about speculation than competition. Bass launched her campaign for a second term more than a year ago, but her fundraising has been tepid (to be fair, the wildfires and the raids made for a difficult environment in which to ask for cash).

Seven people have filed papers to raise money to run against her, but all are political unknowns. The biggest topic of conversation until now has been whether businessman Rick Caruso will run again after losing to Bass in 2022. Caruso continues to leave open the possibility of running for mayor, for governor, or neither.

But if you’re in certain circles, there has also been ample discussion about whether Beutner would run. Now, that’s been answered, and Beutner, whose family was among those displaced by the Palisades fire, is taking aim.

“Unfortunately, the city government we pay for does not live up to the high standards of the people who live here,” he said. “So, I’m prepared to lead Los Angeles and get us back on track.”

Naturally, Team Bass disagrees with that outlook. This morning, Doug Herman, a spokesman for Bass’ campaign, pointed to advances seen in L.A. since she took office.

“Thousands of people have been moved off our streets and into housing,” he said. “Violent crime is down across the city. Homicides have decreased to their lowest levels in 60 years.”

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In 2022, Bass struck many chords. Her roots founding the South L.A. organization the Community Coalition, and her time as Speaker of the State Assembly and then her decade in Congress, appealed to those who wanted political experience and connections to money in Washington, D.C.

Beutner has never held elected office, but if you had a lab engineer the perfect political resume for 2026 Los Angeles, it would probably read like his CV.

The Michigan native is a self-made man who attended Dartmouth and then entered the financial services world. He made partner at the firm Blackstone at the age of 29, and spent time in post-Soviet Russia, working for President Clinton to help establish a market economy. Later he co-founded the venture capital firm Evercore.

A serious mountain biking accident in the Santa Monica Mountains caused him to re-examine his priorities, setting him on a path to public service. In 2010 he became First Deputy Mayor under Antonio Villaraigosa. Though few knew his name, Beutner was soon overseeing 13 city departments. His 16 months in the post was by far the most effective portion of Villaraigosa’s second term; in one column I suggested Villaraigosa try to clone him.

He ran for mayor in 2011, but abandoned the bid after failing to gain traction in a large field. A few years later, he became publisher of the Los Angeles Times, where he focused on going digital and reconnecting the newspaper with the city; he also gets credit for rebranding the horribly named “LatExtra” section as “California.” But a dispute with the out-of-state ownership resulted in his being fired.

Beutner became an unofficial advisor to LAUSD chief Michelle King, but after King fell tragically fell, Beutner in 2018 was named superintendent.

He had a series of scores, including launching the lauded reading program Primary Promise, and partnering with Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre (yes, that Dr. Dre) to opena high school in South Los Angeles focused on design, business and technology. But his greatest achievement occurred in March 2020 when COVID forced the halt of in-person instruction. Beutner utilized his connections to ensure that all students received computers and, if needed, home Internet hot spots. He also turned the district into a massive food provider, dispensing tens of millions of meals—and not asking if those in line were students.

“Nobody said schools should feed everybody, but we did,” he said.

He stepped down in 2021, but later powered the passage of Proposition 28, the state measure that allocates nearly $1 billion annually for arts and music education in public schools. He also has long run Vision to Learn, a nonprofit that has provided free eyeglasses to 600,000 students around the country, including 200,000 in Los Angeles

Put it all together and he checks boxes for business, City Hall, education, civic affairs and charity, as well as running big systems, including through periods of crisis. He pointed to a through-line, stating, “It’s a demonstration of what leadership looks like.”

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Despite the achievements, Beutner is not widely known by the electorate. And while Bass was harshly criticized  for her handing of the wildfires, including being in Ghana when they started, she has earned credit for leading a united front against the ICE raids.

She won’t be easy to beat. In 2022, Caruso spent $109 million between the primary and general election and still lost by 10%. Bass has many staunch supporters, including from across the Democratic party, and is likely to secure endorsements from a bevy of unions. With Beutner in the race, her fundraising will likely pick up.

Despite his wealth, Beutner said he will not be using personal funds and plans to raise money from donors. So that raises another question: How can he make headway in a city of 4 million people who, even in the best of times, pay only casual attention to local politics?

“Very straightforward actually,” responds Beutner. “You be visible in every community across L.A. I intend to do that.”

He also thinks he can make an impact by getting people to pay attention to the aforementioned challenges. That includes homelessness, which was a driving issue in the 2022 campaign. Beutner intends to make it a focal point again.

Bass will point to Homeless Count numbers that declined for two years in a row, and a drop in unsheltered individuals in the city. Beutner said he’ll be asking about annual spending in the vicinity of $1 billion and asking what L.A. gets for its money. He wants more transparency in how the cash is spent.

Toppling a sitting mayor, especially one who was elected three years ago, is no simple feat. In fact, Beutner said he voted for Bass in 2022. But he feels she has underperformed, and that this has cost the city.

“I think she did a great job in Congress. She was great in the Assembly,” he said. “The job of the mayor is different. And I think it’s time we talk about are we making progress, or not? And if we’re not, I think we need a change.”