Seven of the 15 seats on the Los Angeles Metropolis Council are up for election this yr. Voters within the even-numbered districts will solid ballots to find out their representatives on a robust council that oversees a $13 billion metropolis price range — and whose members each represent nearly 265,000 people in sprawling districts.
Incumbents are operating in all however one of many seven races. The open seat is Council District 2 the place Council President Paul Krekorian is being termed out. With seven candidates vying for Krekorian’s seat, District 2 is among the most hotly contested L.A. Metropolis Council races within the March 5 main election.
Incumbents often sail again into workplace. However with one incumbent going through allegations of ethics violations and one other extensively criticized for his involvement in a backroom dialog, the first is being watched carefully.
In Council District 12, incumbent John Lee is fighting allegations brought against him by the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission final fall that target a lavish 2017 journey he took to Las Vegas whereas chief of employees to then-Councilmember Mitch Englander. Lee faces challenger Serena Oberstein, who heads a nonprofit group and is the previous president of the L.A. Metropolis Ethics Fee.
In the meantime, seven challengers are jockeying for the Council District 14 seat, hoping to oust Councilmember Kevin de León who confronted public outcry over his function in an audio leak scandal that upended City Hall in late 2022.
Beneath is a abstract of the seven L.A. Metropolis Council races showing on the March 5 poll.
District 2
There are seven candidates and no incumbent in this race to represent San Fernando Valley voters in North Hollywood, Studio Metropolis, Solar Valley, Toluca Lake, Valley Glen, Valley Village and Van Nuys.
Jon-Paul Hen is a wedding and household therapist who desires extra mixed-use residential and business developments. To deal with the town’s housing wants, he recommended that the town purchase properties by means of the county’s default tax lien public sale system earlier than different consumers come alongside and dedicate the properties for makes use of comparable to social housing.
He additionally proposed that the town put money into extra psychological well being technicians and road medication groups and to guard public utilities from copper thefts that darken the city’s streetlights.
Jillian Burgos is a small enterprise proprietor and sits on the North Hollywood Neighborhood Council. She helped create a tenant rights workshop, labored on grants to feed homeless folks and helped carry psychological well being providers and mentorships to college students.
Burgos desires to transform empty business buildings into housing and to offer extra public housing, renter protections and homeless housing with wraparound providers. She desires protected bicycle lanes on closely traveled corridors and devoted bus lanes and helps making LA Metro free.
Marin Ghandilyan is an legal professional. Her web site says she’s operating to make L.A. a “smarter, safer, and wealthier” metropolis. Neighboring Burbank, Glendale and Beverly Hills are examples of how one can create extra fascinating environments for traders, enterprise homeowners and residents, and a nicely thought-out and executed plan may end up in “a sound property market and an enhanced place to stay and work,” her web site says.
Manny Gonez is coverage director on the environmental nonprofit TreePeople. He beforehand labored at LA Household Housing and the Weingart Middle, one other homeless providers supplier, and at Pals of the Los Angeles River.
He desires to assist these most prone to shedding their properties and hopes to offer wraparound providers to folks in shelters. He desires the town to transition to a “greener” economic system, create extra inexperienced house and parks, and construct sustainable public transit programs. He additionally desires to enhance the city’s response time to residents who call with service requests.
Sam Kbushyan is the principal of Sam Kbushyan Group (SKG), a public affairs agency. He serves on a number of boards together with the Respiratory Care Board of California and LA Neighborhood Alliance.
He desires to finish “violent sweeps” and to take away armed officers from common homeless encampment outreach efforts. He additionally desires to transform vacant or underutilized buildings into housing and to open 24/7 drop-in service facilities for the homeless. To deal with corruption, Kbushyan desires to scale back councilmembers’ affect on land-use selections, shut loopholes in marketing campaign donation restrictions and reform lobbying regulations.
Rudy Melendez works within the movie business and is a member of a Hollywood labor union. Apart from rooting out City Hall corruption, he’d prioritize public security and enhance the supply of fundamental metropolis providers like graffiti removing, litter abatement and upkeep of bus stops, parks, leisure areas and streetscapes.
He has referred to as homelessness the “disaster of our lifetime” and stated that after years of coverage failures, the town must “throw out the playbook and begin over.”
Adrin Nazarian is a former California state lawmaker who was elected to characterize the forty sixth Meeting District in 2012 and served until 2022. He was an aide to then-Rep. Brad Sherman and later served as chief of employees to Paul Krekorian when Krekorian was within the state Meeting, after which throughout the early a part of Krekorian’s time on the L.A. Metropolis Council.
Nazarian has proposed changing present areas into emergency shelters. He’d additionally push for extra reasonably priced, low-income, market fee and middle-income housing; assist transit and corridor-oriented developments; and rezone business corridors to draw new companies and housing. Nazarian helps community-based policing and desires to develop the police pressure whereas reforming the police division.
District 4
Councilmember Nithya Raman represents District 4, which stretches from the San Fernando Valley to Silver Lake and consists of the Santa Monica Mountains, Los Feliz, the Hollywood Hills, Sherman Oaks, Encino and Van Nuys. The district was heavily impacted by the city’s 2021 redistricting process, when the District 4 boundaries have been redrawn and Raman misplaced many constituents who voted her into workplace in 2020.
Raman is hoping for one more 4 years, however first she should beat again two challengers.
When she ran for office in 2020, she pledged to deal with homeless encampments and road homelessness extra successfully – and he or she claims that she’s delivered. As chair of the Metropolis Council’s Housing and Homelessness Committee, Raman desires extra accountability from the Los Angeles Homeless Companies Authority (LAHSA), a countywide physique that coordinates housing and providers for homeless folks.
Raman says that one strategy to deal with the town ‘s scarcity of police is by dispatching educated employees to cope with non-violent points.
Ethan Weaver is a deputy metropolis legal professional who has labored as a neighborhood prosecutor in partnership with police stations, L.A.’s elected neighborhood councils and small companies. He was a part of the state initiative Neighborhood Prosecutor Program, resolving issues like loitering, drug exercise and unlawful dumping.
He desires the town to get out of LAHSA, and as a substitute he favors a city-controlled company that’s accountable to metropolis officers. To construct extra housing, he stated he desires to work with builders and residents, “bringing the group alongside” to be a part of the town approval course of.
Weaver additionally expressed concern over the scarcity of LAPD officers.
Levon (“Lev”) Baronian, a software program engineer, has labored for NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He interned in Rep. Brad Sherman’s workplace whereas in highschool and has served on the Sherman Oaks Neighborhood Council, in keeping with his marketing campaign web site.
District 6
Councilmember Imelda Padilla is searching for a full time period on the council, following her victory in a special election final June to characterize District 6. In 2023, she received the empty seat of former City Council President Nury Martinez who resigned over her racist backroom remarks that have been secretly taped and leaked to media, making headlines nationwide.
The sixth District consists of the San Fernando Valley communities of Arleta, Lake Balboa, North Hollywood, North Hills, Panorama Metropolis, Van Nuys and Solar Valley.
Since her particular election, Padilla stated she’s labored to deal with the unintended penalties of a metropolis code that pushed leisure autos out of neighborhoods and into industrial corridors, inflicting an absence of parking for enterprise homeowners, clients and employees.
Along with her priorities of sheltering the unhoused and financial growth, she desires to work with native LAPD stations to extend public security emergency response instances.
Ely De La Cruz Ayao, an actual property dealer, has emphasised the necessity to assist companies.
Ayao’s priorities embrace addressing crime, homelessness, clear and secure neighborhoods, instructional environments and small companies. He desires the town to deal with low-income housing by utilizing federal tax earnings to fund building. He says he has no criticism of Padilla however has higher concepts to scale back crime, together with an LAPD particular unit devoted to cleansing up streets and homeless encampments.
Carmenlina Minasova is a respiratory care practitioner who stated she’s a passionate advocate for the homeless, rescue animals and neighborhood security, and that she stands agency towards discrimination and advocates for the rights of all people no matter their background.
Minasova can be operating within the Assembly District 43 race.
District 8
Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson is searching for a last time period to characterize District 8. To try this, he’ll need to beat two challengers.
District 8 consists of components of South L.A. and spans from Baldwin Hills to the border of Watts. Neighborhoods embrace Vermont Knolls, King Estates, Canterbury Knolls, Park Mesa Heights, Baldwin Hills, Hyde Park, Chesterfield Sq., Vermont Vista, Inexperienced Meadows, View Heights and West Park Terrace.
Harris-Dawson chairs the council’s highly effective Planning and Land Use Administration Committee and became the council’s president pro tem final June, changing Councilmember Curren Worth who left the put up amid corruption expenses. (Worth has pled not guilty.) Earlier than becoming a member of the Metropolis Council, Harris-Dawson was president and CEO of Neighborhood Coalition, a grassroots group in South L.A. led by L.A. Mayor Karen Bass earlier than she entered politics.
As a councilmember, Harris-Dawson labored on creating an unarmed disaster response to divert nonviolent 911 calls and launched a movement to finish the usage of armed personnel to implement site visitors violations.
Jahan Epps, certainly one of Harris-Dawson’s challengers, stated the incumbent hasn’t carried out sufficient. Epps, whose household has lived within the district 80 years, cited boarded-up buildings and companies relationship again to the Watts riots of 1965 alongside main corridors that he stated have grow to be a part of the “oblivious norm.”
Epps, an actual property dealer, stated District 8 wants an financial tax base and lacks alternatives for superb eating, bars, lounges, curler skating rinks and bowling alleys. He stated the district isn’t place for small companies, and such shortages are why youngsters can’t discover jobs.
Cliff Smith, the third candidate, is the enterprise supervisor with Roofers Union Native 36. He served two phrases on the South Central Neighborhood Council and was a delegate to the South L.A. Alliance of Neighborhood Councils.
He says he stands for employees’ rights and reasonably priced housing, and desires an elected civilian police board with full authority over the LAPD. Smith desires to deal with the scarcity of low-income housing and public housing in L.A. He says everybody who works deserves a dwelling wage, truthful labor situations and union protections, and desires equality for immigrant employees.
District 10
5 candidates – together with appointed Councilmember Heather Hutt – wish to characterize Angelenos in District 10.
The district encompasses Leimert Park, La Cienega Heights, Baldwin Hills, Mid-Metropolis and Koreatown and a part of the Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Space.
Hutt served as an interim councilmember for months earlier than she was appointed to the empty City Council seat final April after former Councilmember Mark Ridley-Thomas was convicted of bribery and fraud. Ridley-Thomas was just lately sentenced to 42 months in federal jail however is interesting his sentence.
Hutt was a senior advisor and statewide director for the workplace of Kamala Harris when Harris was a U.S. senator. Hutt was additionally the primary Black lady employed as a U.S. Senate state director in California. Earlier than that, she led environmental justice coverage modifications in Watts and South L.A.
Hutt stated her high precedence is to accommodate Angelenos going through homelessness. She stated that after her appointment to the council seat, her workplace housed greater than 900 folks. She additionally desires to ensure homeless folks aren’t hurting anybody, committing crimes or dwelling in “susceptible” locations comparable to close to colleges.
Eddie Anderson, senior pastor at McCarty Memorial Church in West Adams, is concerned with Black Lives Matter and is co-founder of Partnership for Progress L.A., a corporation that focuses on meals entry, jobs, financial safety and workforce growth.
He helps tenant protections, elevated dwelling wages, entry to employment and preservation of reasonably priced housing models. He desires to put money into psychological well being assets, group security ambassadors, youth and senior applications, road enhancements, wholesome meals entry and inexperienced areas.
Assemblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer was elected to the California legislature in Meeting District 59 in 2012. He’s chaired the Meeting Public Security Committee and has launched laws targeted on legal justice and corrections reform, ending the school-to-prison pipeline and creating jobs in South L.A. communities. Earlier than becoming a member of the Meeting, Jones-Sawyer was deputy to L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan within the Nineties.
His priorities embrace constructing extra everlasting reasonably priced housing and addressing crimes comparable to street racing and smash-and-grab robberies.
Aura Vásquez is a small enterprise proprietor, group organizer and environmental activist. She’s led the Sierra Membership’s “Past Coal” marketing campaign to finish L.A.’s reliance on coal, and was appointed by then-Mayor Eric Garcetti in 2017 to the Board of Water and Energy Commissioners.
Vásquez helps a “housing first” strategy to homelessness and stated she’d simplify new building pipelines and enhance psychological well being and dependancy assist for unhoused Angelenos. She would deal with neighborhood security, promising to maintain residential areas lit and to develop community-based policing methods.
Grace Yoo is a group advocate, legal professional and former metropolis commissioner. She’s lively within the L.A. County Democratic Get together and co-founded the Asian Jewish Initiative and the Environmental Justice Collaborative.
Whereas housing for the homeless is vital, Yoo stated it’s additionally important to deal with what causes homelessness — dependancy, psychological well being wants, the shortage of reasonably priced housing and monetary insecurity. She desires to incentivize builders to construct reasonably priced housing, make public transportation secure and dependable, and supply assets to first responders, social employees, psychological well being clinicians and outreach groups.
District 12
Councilmember John Lee, elected in 2019, is hoping for one more time period to characterize District 12. To take action, he’ll need to beat Serena Oberstein, a former president of the town’s ethics fee.
Lee is contesting claims of ethics violations that he allegedly dedicated whereas chief of employees to then-Councilmember Mitch Englander in 2016 and 2017. Lee is accused of accepting items from a businessman and developer far in extra of the present restrict for metropolis officers, together with resort facilities, playing chips and drinks throughout a 2017 journey to Las Vegas.
Town’s Ethics Fee employees alleges that Lee accepted the items, didn’t report them, misused his place, and aided and abetted Englander, who misused his personal place — and finally went to jail. Lee denies the allegations and is suing the Ethics Fee over its case.
Serena Oberstein is difficult Lee whereas that controversy performs out in court docket.
Oberstein is government director of Jewish World Watch, a humanitarian nonprofit that encourages “folks of all faiths and cultures to hitch the continued combat towards genocide,” in keeping with the group’s web site.
Lee and Oberstein are attempting to persuade voters they’re one of the best individual to characterize Council District 12, which incorporates the communities of Chatsworth, Granada Hills, North Hills, Northridge, Porter Ranch, Sherwood Forest and West Hills.
Each candidates cited homelessness and public security as their high two points. For Lee, one other precedence could be supporting native companies whereas Oberstein stated she’d concentrate on offering “dwelling wage jobs.”
Lee helps the city’s anti-camping ordinance, known as 41.18, which makes it unlawful for homeless folks to sit down, lie, sleep, or camp out on public proper of how for as much as 500 toes from “delicate” locations like colleges, daycare facilities, parks and libraries. Whereas not all councilmembers have chosen to implement 41.18 of their districts, Lee has. His district logged more 41.18 arrests than any other council district in 2022, in keeping with the town controller’s workplace.
Oberstein shouldn’t be totally against 41.18, but it surely wouldn’t be her first alternative for coping with encampments. She would like a “folks first” strategy by providing psychological well being providers and different alternatives to get folks off the streets.
District 14
Eight individuals are operating in District 14, together with Councilmember Kevin de León who was secretly recorded in a backroom dialog in 2021 with two different councilmembers and a strong labor chief discussing how they needed Metropolis Council district maps redrawn to their liking throughout the metropolis’s once-per-decade redistricting course of.
The dialogue was laced with racist and derogatory feedback. After the recording was leaked on-line, a scandal broke and lots of demanded de León’s resignation however he refused. He has stated {that a} remark he made — meant as a joke about then-Council President Nury Martinez, who was on the assembly — was misinterpreted.
Seven candidates are hoping to unseat de León in a council district that represents a lot of downtown Los Angeles in addition to Boyle Heights, Lincoln Heights, El Sereno and Northeast L.A.
Kevin de León is a former assemblymember and state senator elected to the Metropolis Council in 2020. He stated greater than 2,000 extra beds or housing models for the homeless have grow to be obtainable in District 14 since he took workplace. However he stated there’s extra to do, together with addressing RV encampments.
On public security, de León stated he’s invested in fixing street lights, creating youth applications to maintain youngsters secure and guaranteeing the police division has the assets it wants.
Assemblymember Wendy Carrillo has represented Meeting District 52 since 2017. She just lately pleaded no contest to a drunken driving charge stemming from an incident in November during which she crashed into two parked automobiles.
Born in El Salvador, Carrillo believes that if elected she’d be the primary previously undocumented individual to serve on the Metropolis Council.
Carrillo cited housing, psychological well being and public security as her priorities. She famous that as a legislator, she secured greater than $50 million to show L.A. County Normal Hospital right into a housing and psychological well being facility. She stated that as a councilmember she’d make use of “sturdy options” and use her connections to carry assets to District 14.
Nadine Diaz is a geriatric social employee and professor who serves on the town’s Council on Getting old. She has served on the Boyle Heights Neighborhood Council and as a delegate for the L.A. County Democratic Get together and the California Democratic Central Committee.
Diaz labored for a time in Skid Row together with a medical staff to offer providers to the homeless. She helps measures to forestall homelessness and to extend reasonably priced housing. She additionally desires to reform marketing campaign financing, cut back the affect of cash in politics and elections, and develop the town’s first-time homebuyer applications.
Genny Guerrero is a small enterprise proprietor whose firm works with nonprofits. She was a senior discipline deputy for then-Metropolis Councilmember José Huizar from September 2014 to September 2015 – earlier than his arrest and subsequent sentencing to 13 years in prison for his function in a corrupt pay-to-play scheme. Guerrero has served on a variety of group organizations, together with the Neighborhood Police Advisory Board for the LAPD’s Hollenbeck Division.
Guerrero stated she’d create jobs and “construct the bridges which might be lacking” so folks going through homelessness can get assist. Her priorities additionally embrace tenant protections and defending hillsides and inexperienced areas from overdevelopment, and addressing crimes and “high quality of life” points like investing in road lights and park applications for youth.
Teresa Hillery is an legal professional who retired from Constancy Nationwide Monetary final yr. She’s a member of the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council and South Park Neighborhood Affiliation and has served on the Los Angeles Congress of Neighborhoods.
Hillery desires to deal with housing manufacturing and shield towards gentrification in Northeast L.A. Additionally vital to her are transportation and mobility – together with efforts to advertise secure strolling and bicycling, carpooling and electrical autos – and assist for small companies and entrepreneurs.
Ysabel Jurado is a tenant rights legal professional who stated her information as a authorized housing knowledgeable and her experiences as a teen mother and a “queer, immigrant-raised, working class, lady of colour” make her a “battle-tested consultant” for the district.
She referred to as for stronger tenant protections and desires to combat local weather change by means of measures like enhancing inexperienced areas, creating tree canopies and group gardens, and creating inexperienced jobs to foster a fossil fuel-free future.
Assemblymember Miguel Santiago was elected in 2014 to characterize Meeting District 54 after serving as a group school board member. In Sacramento, he represents components of downtown Los Angeles, together with East Hollywood, Boyle Heights, Vernon, Commerce and Montebello.
To deal with reasonably priced and homeless housing wants, Santiago proposes “adaptive reuse” initiatives during which previous buildings are repurposed for housing, and constructing extra tiny home villages. He additionally desires to concentrate on job creation and addressing earnings inequality and has referred to as for secure and clear neighborhoods and a metropolis authorities that’s responsive when residents request services like road upkeep or tree trimming.
Eduardo “Lalo” Vargas is a highschool science trainer for the Los Angeles Unified Faculty District. He calls himself “a proud socialist” and an organizer with the Get together for Socialism and Liberation.
Vargas proposed utilizing eminent area to take over empty housing models to completely home the homeless and residents displaced by rising rents, banning luxurious developments to forestall gentrification and repealing a city law that bars homeless encampments in certain “sensitive” areas together with close to colleges, parks or libraries. His different priorities embrace addressing police brutality and employees’ rights.
Writers Olga Grigoryants and Marianne Love contributed reporting.
2024 presidential main election
Election Day: March 5, 2024. Polls shut at 8 p.m.
Early voting: You possibly can vote on the Los Angeles County registrar’s workplace starting Monday, Feb. 5. The registrar’s headquarters are at 12400 Imperial Freeway, Room 3002, in Norwalk. That workplace is open from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday to Friday.
Vote-by-mail: Ballots started going out on Thursday, Feb. 1. You possibly can submit VBMs in 3 ways: By mailing them to the registrar’s workplace (VBMs embrace return envelopes with the right deal with and postage already included); by putting them in an official drop field; or by dropping them off at any county Vote Middle.
VBM deadline: VBMs despatched through mail should arrive no later than seven days after the election, however they should be postmarked by March 5. The deadline to put VBMs in a drop field or ship them to a Vote Middle is 8 p.m. on Election Day.
Vote Facilities: Vote Facilities open 10 days earlier than Election Day. This yr, that’s Saturday, Feb. 24. You possibly can vote at any Vote Middle in Los Angeles County. Previous to Election Day, the Vote Facilities might be open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. On Election Day, they are going to be open from 7 a.m. to eight p.m.
Concerning the ballots: In California, the order races are listed on ballots goes from native to federal, that means the nominees for president might be listed on the backside. Aside from presidential races, California’s primaries for “partisan” workplaces – now often called “voter-nominated workplaces” have a top-two system. Meaning the highest two vote getters in a given race advance to the final election, no matter political occasion.
To discover a drop field or Vote Middle and for extra info: lavote.gov.
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