Los Angeles man is stunned by comically botched pothole job as Mayor Karen Bass is mocked for cringe street repair fails
A Los Angeles resident has shared photos of a badly bungled pothole repair outside his home, in which fresh asphalt was left spilling over the pavement and onto cracked tiles. The incident, posted to Reddit, comes just days after Mayor Karen Bass was widely mocked for a botched attempt at a "Mamdani-style" pothole fix elsewhere in the city, adding to public frustration over the state of Los Angeles's road maintenance and municipal competence more broadly.
The resident said he first requested the repair on 9 May 2025, but city workers only turned up more than 14 months later, spending roughly 30 minutes on a job he described as "the worst pothole filling I've ever seen." The Bureau of Street Services, which handles pothole repairs, had a $208 million budget in 2025, with $89.2 million earmarked for pavement preservation; the department reported fixing 71,865 potholes that year, working out at roughly $620 each before staffing and equipment costs. Mayoral rival Nithya Raman has claimed the city only operates 12 of its 28 pothole repair trucks because of a $1 billion budget deficit, while Bass's office has been approached for comment on both the repair job and average repair costs.
- LA resident's pothole fix left asphalt splashed across pavement and tiles
- Repair took over 14 months after being requested in May 2025
- Comes days after Mayor Bass mocked over separate botched pothole video
- City reportedly uses just 12 of 28 pothole trucks amid budget deficit
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Los Angeles has long faced criticism over the state of its roads, with potholes a persistent complaint from residents. Repairs are handled by the city's Bureau of Street Services, a public agency funded through the municipal budget, which is responsible for filling potholes and maintaining pavement across the city.
Karen Bass is the Mayor of Los Angeles, and her administration has recently come under scrutiny over the speed and quality of pothole repairs, including one attempt that drew widespread ridicule online. This has fed into a broader public debate about whether the city is spending its road maintenance budget effectively, with critics, including at least one political rival, pointing to reported shortfalls in staffing, equipment and funding.
The issue matters because it touches on everyday quality of life and trust in local government's ability to deliver basic services. Complaints about slow or poorly executed repairs, shared publicly on social media, have become a flashpoint for wider frustration over municipal competence and spending in Los Angeles.
Both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
Critics argue this episode is a legitimate flashpoint for public accountability: a resident waited over fourteen months for a straightforward repair, only to receive a rushed, visibly shoddy job that damaged nearby tiles, and such lapses are a fair basis for scrutinising the Bureau of Street Services' management, staffing decisions and spending priorities. They contend that with a $208 million budget and figures suggesting barely half the pothole fleet is operational, residents are entitled to ask hard questions about efficiency and to hold elected officials, including the Mayor, responsible for outcomes on the ground. Highlighting botched repairs, they say, is not mere mockery but a legitimate way of pressing for transparency and improved services.
The case against
Defenders of the city's position would argue that judging an entire department, or the Mayor personally, on the basis of one poorly executed repair and a viral Reddit post is disproportionate and risks caricaturing a genuinely difficult budgetary situation. They would point out that Los Angeles is managing a reported $1 billion deficit, that street repair crews are stretched thin as a result, and that isolated field errors by individual workers do not necessarily reflect systemic incompetence or a lack of care at the top. On this view, public officials deserve a fair opportunity to respond and context to be weighed – such as overall repair volumes and cost-per-fix – before being subjected to ridicule that can overshadow genuine constraints and ongoing efforts to improve service delivery.