By Marianne Love
Correspondent
City of Los Angeles voters have their hands full this election cycle.
Eight odd-numbered district seats are up for grabs in L.A. City Council races, with the top two vote-getters facing off on Nov. 8 unless a candidate gets more than 50% of the votes and wins outright in the June 7 primary.
Los Angeles council districts were extensively reshaped after the 2020 U.S. Census, and some L.A. voters have been shifted into a different districts, while others have not. The city’s 15 councilmembers represent more constituents than in any city in the U.S., with 259,916 residents per district. The 21-member Redistricting Commission said that, despite massive growth, L.A. has not added new districts in nearly a century, and urged the city to do so — to deal with “a complex and changing” city.
Meanwhile, many intertwined challenges face those elected in 2022. All campaign contributions listed below were recorded as of April 23, according to the Los Angeles Ethics Commission.
Here’s a rundown on who’s running in which district.
City Council District 1
Eunisses Hernandez, a public policy advocate endorsed by legendary farm worker organizer Dolores Huerta, is challenging Councilmember Gilbert “Gil” Cedillo in a district that stretches from Glassell Park and Highland Park to Chinatown and University Park.
Hernandez, co-founder and co-executive director of La Defensa, cites her top issues as public safety, affordable housing, homelessness, the environment and gender justice.
Her goals include housing stability, zero traffic deaths, road repair and emergency vehicle access, access to jobs and supportive programs for youth, according to her website. “I’ve had the honor of participating in and co-creating campaigns, coalitions and commissions that shifted LA County’s priorities away from jail construction and towards a Care First vision,” Hernandez posted on her website. Hernandez was endorsed by 54th District Assemblymember Isaac Bryant.
Incumbent Gil Cedillo served in the state Assembly and state Senate prior to the city council. He came up through union roots at Service Employees International Union Local 660, Los Angeles County’s largest union.
His promises include building 100,000 housing units over the next decade and strengthening Special Order 40, which provides resources for immigrants and defines the city’s relationship with federal ICE enforcement.
On his reelection website he said, “We have thus far achieved the second (highest) amount of permanent support housing units created among 13 other districts participating in these efforts.”
As of April 23, Cedillo had raised $457,000 compared to Hernandez’s $195,000.
City Council District 3
West San Fernando Valley L.A. City Councilman Bob Blumenfield is facing a challenge from real estate broker Scott Silverstein in District 3 to represent communities including Canoga Park, Tarzana, Reseda, Winnetka and Woodland Hills.
Before being elected to the Los Angeles City Council in 2013, Blumenfield served in the California State Assembly. He heads the City Council’s Public Works Committee and is a member of the Budget Committee. Blumenfield has raised $42,487 to Silverstein’s $9,552.
During his term as a councilman, Blumenfield said, he has focused on building supportive housing across his district.
The solution, he said, is to offer a combination of affordable housing, including permanent supportive housing, immediate transitional housing and a “safe parking program,” which offers a parking spot to people who live in their cars.
Silverstein, is a businessman and commercial real estate broker who served on the Woodland Hills-Warner Center Neighborhood Council for 14 years, including the last five years as its president.
Silverstein described himself as someone who got used to “thinking outside the box,” and “a professional negotiator” who has handled complex negotiations.
He said politicians tend to see homelessness as “a one-size-fits-all issue, and I don’t do that.”
It’s important for the city, Silverstein said, to spend money on services — and not on purchasing properties to house the homeless.
Silverstein said the district needed “somebody with a backbone” to tell developers that they have to build more affordable housing, especially in areas like Warner Center where workers and middle-class families struggle to afford to live.
When it comes to cleaning the toxic Santa Susana Field Lab, Silverstein echoed Blumenfield’s concerns about trucks taking radioactive soil through residential neighborhoods.
City Council District 5
Termed-out Councilmember Paul Koretz is running for L.A. City Controller, so the field is wide open and four candidates are vying for this district that meanders from Bel Air to Palms, Pico-Robertson, Greater Wilshire and Mid-City West.
Jimmy Biblarz is a UCLA law professor who has raised $177,000 in campaign contributions. He says his family struggled to make ends meet and were evicted from their home to make way for a “McMansion.”
“With some help, they were able to bounce back,” Biblarz posted on his campaign site. “Everyone deserves a decent place to live in a city as rich as Los Angeles … housing insecurity can happen to anyone.”
He says he’ll tackle homelessness and affordable housing, invest in transportation, confront police violence and protect immigrants. As a Harvard graduate student, he worked at the Los Angeles Public Defenders office and against the Trump administration’s “cruel immigration policies and racist voter disenfranchisement efforts.” He also tutored, advised and mentored hundreds of LGBTQ students.
Scott Epstein, a public policy analyst, has raised $70,000. He served on the Mid-City West Neighborhood Council for nearly a decade and leveraged a shoestring budget to bring millions of dollars into the community for safer streets, according to his campaign site.
“As founder of the Midtown Los Angeles Homeless Coalition, I created the space that led to the only Bridge Home Shelter in CD5. I transformed Mid City West into a hub of proactive, progressive action on the most important issues our city faces,” he posted.
He has extensive experience as an elected delegate to the California Democratic Party and a board member for the Miracle Mile Democratic Club and Neighborhood Council Sustainability Alliance. Some of his ideas include reimagining public safety, and helping small business and the arts.
Kathy Young Yaroslavsky, an environmental attorney and the best-known name in the race, has raised $585,000. For six years she was L.A. County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl’s senior policy director for the environment and the arts, and she’s the daughter-in-law of former L.A. city councilman and county supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky.
Yaroslavsky says she will work to raise incomes for families and provide affordable childcare, elder care, universal preschool, paid family leave, job training, and health care for all — including access to abortion.
She developed Measure W: The Safe, Clean Water Program, saying, “I successfully fought to pass the most important clean water measure in L.A. County history.” She’s endorsed by Planned Parenthood, SEIU-UHW and the Sierra Club, and said, “I’m running to be the first woman to represent the 5th Council District in 57 years.”
Sam Yebri, a nonprofit director and business owner, has raised the most money at $807,000.
Arriving here from Iran as an infant, he says that during his career he has worked to build affordable housing for special needs adults, advocated on behalf of low-income Angelenos Bet Tzedek Legal Services and Bend the Arc and engaged thousands of immigrants and first-generation Americans in civic life by co-founding the non-profit 30 Years After.
He has advocated for the rights of workers, tenants and refugees, advised startups and small businesses, and served on the LA City Civil Service Commission and the boards of the Anti-Defamation League and Westwood Library.
He sees leadership on the city council slipping away, and according to a survey he completed at ballotpedia.org, he says he has not accepted donations from developers, PACs, corporations or other special interests.
City Council District 7
Community activist Elisa Avalos wants to unseat incumbent Monica Rodriguez who since 2017 has represented the Northeast San Fernando Valley. Avalos held an elected position for nearly five years on the Pacoima Neighborhood Council, an advisory board to the city council.
The issues facing the community include economic recovery, food and housing insecurity, affordable housing, increased food costs, sustaining food pantries and the debate over shuttering Whiteman Airport.
Both cite similar goals, particularly when it comes to ending homelessness. Both say they are on the side of law enforcement. But their approaches differ.
Rodriguez touts her role in city programs designed to address the unhoused, while Avalos believes the issue has been mishandled, will take years and billions of dollars to solve — and may need to include mandatory institutionalization for some.
The candidates differ on whether 76-year-old Whiteman Airport in Pacoima should be closed down. Rodriguez leans that way, while Avalos believes it’s a valuable asset. The Federal Aviation Administration will make the final decision.
Rodriquez expanded efforts to increase the number of officers assigned to the San Fernando Valley and led attempts to redirect mental health calls to trained professionals. Avalos supports community policing and calls the police defunding movement “childish and shortsighted.”
Rodriguez has a big fundraising lead of $335,000 compared to Avalos’ $16,000.
City Council District 9
Incumbent Curren D. Price Jr. also has one opponent, educator and community leader Dulce Vasquez who has raised a fairly sizable $255,000 to Price’s $408,000. They are facing off to represent South L.A. communities including Vermont Square, the Central-Alameda Corridor and Green Meadows.
In addition to their campaign contributions, both candidates accepted “matching funds,” through the voter-approved Public Matching Funds Program. Vasquez accepted $161,000 compared to Price’s $95,000.
Vasquez came to Southern California from Mexico at the age of seven. She spent half of her childhood undocumented and cleaning houses with her mother, and later earned a B.A. in political science and philosophy from Northwestern University, studied at The Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris and secured a Master’s in Public Policy from the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs in 2020.
She was appointed by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti to serve as a commissioner to El Pueblo Historic Monument, Los Angeles’ birthplace and was elected to represent her Assembly District on the Central Committee of the Los Angeles County Democratic Party.
Her campaign platform includes building more housing, supporting public transit and uplifting small businesses.
Price, who was elected in 2013 to the city council, was a Democratic member of the California State Senate and State Assembly during the early to mid-2000s. He earned a B.A. in political science from Stanford University in 1972 and a J.D. from the University of Santa Clara in 1976.
His experience includes working as a consultant to the Small Business Development Center, and a member of the Los Angeles County Commission on Insurance, the South Bay Governance Council and Metropolitan Transit Authority, according to ballotpedia.org. Price has sent campaign literature attacking Vasquez, while touting his long career.
City Council District 11
Eight candidates, heavy on the attorney side, are competing for an open seat to succeed Councilman Mike Bonin, who is not seeking re-election due to health reasons.
Homelessness is the key issue in this district which includes parts of Venice, Mar Vista, Westchester, Playa del Rey, Brentwood, Del Rey, Playa Vista, Ladera, Sawtelle and the Pacific Palisades and is considered the wealthiest of the 15 council districts. The eight candidates have raised a total of $1.4 million in campaign contributions.
Bonin is one of the more progressive councilmembers, having supported the concept of prioritizing housing for the unhoused without requiring them to accept services for mental health support or drug treatment. He also opposed L.A.’s anti-camping ordinance.
Some of the candidates, including environmental attorney Allison Holdorff Polhill; municipal law attorney Traci Park; Jim Murez, president of the Venice Neighborhood Council; and planning attorney Mike Newhouse have openly criticized those views.
Traci Park, a Venice resident and the top fundraiser in this race, was concerned about plans to convert a hotel near her home into transitional housing without the input of nearby residents.
“(My) top priority is ending the inhumanity of encampment living and the community impacts that correlate with it,” she posted on her campaign site. “We cannot and will not criminalize poverty, addiction, or mental health disorders – but we can and must insist upon clean and safe streets, parks and neighborhoods.”
Her war chest includes $352,000 in campaign contributions plus $161,000 in matching funds.
Allison Holdoff Polhill has raised $273,000 plus $161,000 in matching funds. She is followed by Good at $215,000 plus $135,000 in matching funds.
Holdhoff Polhill supported the failed attempt to recall Mike Bonin earlier this year. She supports the anti-camping ordinance and says the unhoused are living in dangerous, unhealthy and inhuman settings. “I have worked on this firsthand at LAUSD,” she posted on her site. “This problem is made worse by some of our current representatives in City Hall who have polarized this debate to the point they’ve become unable to take the necessary actions.”
Greg Good, a Texas transplant with experience as a teacher, went to Brown University to study history. After moving to Los Angeles, the would-be actor had a shot at fame but instead attended UCLA Law and met his wife on the Santa Monica Big Blue Bus while commuting from Venice.
He has been involved in several economic, environmental and social justice campaigns fighting for living wage jobs and cleaner air. He was director of infrastructure for the city of Los Angeles, and later was chief of legislative and external affairs.
In 2020, Good was appointed president of the city’s Board of Public Works.
Good posted on his campaign site, “We can house people and manage our public spaces. We will work preemptively, intentionally and methodically to help people from falling into homelessness. And we will work collaboratively with the entire community in a collective effort.”
Mike Newhouse has raised $182,000 and accepted $129,000 in matching funds compared to Jim Murez, president of the Venice Neighborhood Council who raised $102,000 and accepted $70,000 in matching funds and city rights attorney Erin Darling who raised $57,000 and accepted $72,000 in matching funds.
Newhouse, a former president of the Venice Neighborhood Council and co-founder of the Westside Regional Alliance of Councils in 2009, says his top issue is homelessness.
“I’ve spent two decades in business and public service working on the everyday challenges that are currently not being met because our leadership is not listening to all sides of the debate,” Newhouse said in a survey he completed for ballotpedia.org. “We need to move away from ideology to pragmatism and implement common sense solutions.”
He wants to leave a legacy of getting people off the streets, into services and on the road to permanent housing while ending encampments with a huge increase in housing units and a Coastal National Recreation Area stretching from the Santa Monica Mountains down the coast to Ballona.
Jim Murez, a child of Holocaust survivors and a member of the Venice Neighborhood Council for decades, helped write the Early Notification Report, a book on how land-use committees would operate throughout the city, and is still in use.
He wants the mentally ill, criminally violent and chronic substance abusers off the streets and beaches, out of parks and into medical and psychiatric treatment facilities.
“Enough of the big ideas from downtown planners and experts,” he posted on his campaign site. “Enough of the temporary fixes that clearly have failed and only serve to divide us as a community. We must now muster the courage and (resolve the issue so) our friends, families and seniors are safe once again.”
Murez is general manager of the Venice Farmer’s Market. Before 1989, he assembled and patented the first-ever portable computer with little funding and formed a corporation that attracted customers such as the U.S. Navy, Sandia Labs and General Dynamics.
Darling is an advocate for the homeless and has worked at nonprofit organizations like the Eviction Defense Network and Public Counsel.
He wants to strengthen renter protections to keep people in their home through the Rent Stabilization Ordinance and enact a right-to-counsel so tenants facing eviction have a lawyer when they go to court.
He believes in rapid rehousing of those in encampments, assisting the newly homeless bypassed by some agencies and speeding up the creation of permanent supportive housing using the adaptive reuse of motels and under-utilized commercial spaces.
“We must also support the United to House LA initiative, which would fund the creation of 26,000 units for people experiencing homelessness in the next decade,” Darling posted on his website. “There is strong demand to live, work and invest in the Westside. We can turn that into affordable housing and homelessness interventions through policies such as inclusionary zoning, a vacant tax and by-right for nonprofit affordable housing providers and coordination amongst social service agencies to help transition people from shelters to permanent housing.”
Darling has had his own legal practice since 2017 and serves as a commissioner for the L.A. County Department of Beaches and Harbors.
Mat Smith, an Army combat veteran who owns a medical courier business and grew up in Westchester, reported $10,000 in campaign contributions and rejected any matching funds.
He blames liberal politicians and their policies as the root of homeless encampments.
Finding available space in less dense areas to begin returning safety to neighborhoods and deal with the addiction and mental illness crisis is one of his goals should he be elected.
“I’ll work closely with law enforcement to ensure our streets and communities are protected and safe,” Smith said. “We need to immediately ‘Re-Fund’ law enforcement and increase the number of officers on our streets to enforce the laws already we have in place.”
Smith believes the unhoused disproportionately suffer from violence, property crimes and sexual predation that result when there are no consequences from breaking the law.
“I will immediately appoint an oversight committee made up of community members and experts that will begin to assess service providers receiving our tax dollars,” he posted on his website. “I’ll personally sit on this committee and it will provide weekly reports to the public regarding progress.”
And last but not least is candidate Midsanon “Soni” Lloyd, who hasn’t reported any campaign contributions.
He’s been a teacher for nearly two decades and currently teaches government at Venice High School and has been active in teacher unions over the years.
On his website, Lloyd calls for full employment with a living wage, public transit access to reduce pollution, reparations for communities targeted by racist government, public affordable housing and comprehensive public health and bodily autonomy.
“Any policy on housing would be incomplete without taking into account the people who live in them,” according to his website. “Without also implementing measures for good stable jobs and fair wages, we will never be able to solve this crisis.”
City Council District 13
District 13 is an odd-shaped district and one of the most diverse.
It covers Atwater Village, Echo Park, Historic Filipinotown, Little Armenia, Hollywood and Silver Lake.
Councilmember Mitch O’Farrell, who is seeking his third term, is the top fund-raiser with $504,000 in campaign contributions.
Facing four challengers, he is running on his record to create affordable housing, reduce homelessness, protect renters and address climate change and touts delivering results and taking bold action. His supporters include community organizers and leaders, labor unions and elected officials.
His challengers, who he dubbed in his campaign literature as “dangerous amateurs,” might have something to say about that.
They are Hugo Soto-Martinez, a labor and community organizer who has $253,000 in campaign contributions.
Soto-Martinez, a staunch critic of O’Farrell, boasts he has not accepted money from real estate developers, fossil fuels, police unions, corporations and anyone else who wants to profit off the city.
The son of Mexican immigrants, he was born and raised in South Central Los Angeles. He’s been an organizer with UNITE HERE Local 11 in Los Angeles for the past 15 years.
His plan is to convert empty hotels and retail and office spaces into homeless housing with mental health and addiction services. The UC Irvine graduate promises also include creating additional eviction and tenant protections to keep residents off the streets.
Among his supporters are United Teachers Los Angeles; Dolores Huerta, a legendary farm worker organizer; LGBTQ organizer Cleve Jones and Rev. James Lawson, a civil rights movement leader.
Kate Pynoss, a homelessness policy advisor to Councilmember Mike Bonin, posted $166,000 in campaign contributions.
She has been endorsed by Culver City Councilmember Alex Fisch and former U.S. Rep. Katie Hill.
Homelessness is one of her top priorities.
She will focus also on the housing shortage by building affordable housing faster, preserving existing affordable housing and expanding and enforcing tenant protections, according to her website.
Another key goal of Pynoss’ is public safety.
“Right now, when you call 9-1-1, there are limited options for the types of services you could receive,” she stated on her website. “But most calls do not require an armed police officer, which far too often leads to escalating tensions and dangerous outcomes for far too many and further exacerbates the city’s long and painful history of racist over-policing. We need to invest far more resources into experts and alternative forms of crisis response.”
The environment and creating a livable city are among her other top issues.
Detailed plans of how she would go about achieving her top priorities are all set out on her website.
Albert Corado, a community organizer, wants to defund the police, according to his campaign platform.
His advocacy work got a kick start after the death of his sister, who was shot and killed by police during a gunfight between LAPD officers and an armed gunman who fled a Trader Joe’s where she worked in 2018.
In campaign mailers and flyers, Corado outlines issues he supports and how he would use the money from defunding the police.
His notions include that housing is a human right and not a profit opportunity for the wealthy, that humans do not belong in cages and abolition is necessary now, workers should be paid a living wage and that public transportation should be free and everyone deserves to breathe clean air. He wants to transform the city’s public transit system radically with trains and buses that get Angelenos where they need to be on time.
He has raised $57,000.
His supporters include Dr. Melina Abdullah, cofounder of BLM-LA; Adnan Khan, cofounder and executive director of Re:Store Justice; and Gina Viola, an organizer with White People for Black Lives and LA chapter of Showing Up for Racial Justice.
Steve Johnson, an Air Force veteran, an educator and a sergeant with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has raised $67,000.
Johnson is a newbie to political office, but believes the current council is a failure. He says crime and homelessness have drastically increased and the streets are not safe.
“We have many serious problems in our city that have been ignored or are being treated with nonsensical “solutions” which only serve special interests which exacerbate and divide us,” Johnson wrote in a letter posted on the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission website. “We have had enough of these temporary fixes that help no one.”
His top priorities are creating spaces for the unhoused and getting the mentally ill and substance abusers into the treatment facilities. He would increase the number of sworn officers to 11,000, fight to ensure taxpayer dollars were used for essential services and not on deals with cronies and political insiders and restore ethical leadership to City Hall.
City Council District 15
Four candidates have lined up and will face off in the June 7 primary, offering voters a fresh slate that includes both those familiar to the community and those new to local politics.
The seat has been held by Joe Buscaino, a former LAPD officer who successfully broke into L.A. city politics on his first run for public office, since 2012, when he was elected to finish Supervisor Janice Hahn’s council term. He was reelected twice after that.
But when faced with running for a third, four-year term this year or taking a shot at the L.A. Mayor’s race, Buscaino chose the latter. Buscaino, 47, later dropped out and has endorsed Rick Caruso for mayor.
Lining up to run for the now-open council seat, in the order they are listed on the June 7 ballot, are Danielle Sandoval, an entrepreneur and community leader; Anthony Santich, a community advocate and businessman; Bryant Odega, an educator and community organizer; and Tim McOsker, businessman and nonprofit director.
Sandoval, 45, of Harbor City, completed paralegal studies course work and earned a real estate sales certificate. She’s also worked in hospitality and opened her own restaurant in San Pedro.
But it has been her volunteer experiences, she said, that have shaped her values.
The diverse district, Sandoval said, needs more equal representation.
“I will represent a district whose majority population is currently underserved and left out of the decision-making process at the city level,” she said in a written statement.
Santich, 60, of San Pedro, has worked in port-related industries throughout his career and is the son of Croatian and Italian parents; San Pedro has large populations of both, stretching to the port town’s early days. He grew up across the street from Mary Star of the Sea Church surrounded by some 20 relatives who lived on the same block.
Santich’s campaign has stressed coming down on “the Establishment,” arguing he’s an outsider who will fight corruption. He lists his key issues as being homelessness, crime prevention, more investment in public safety and reducing port pollution.
Odega, 24, of Harbor Gateway, has grown up in the district and is a teacher for Los Angeles Unified School District.
His parents emigrated from Nigeria both come from working-class backgrounds, Odega said: His mother was a nurse and his father was a taxi driver before he was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and forced to leave the country when Odega was 7 years old.
Odega said he became interested in politics because of the climate change movement. He supports doubling the size of the City Council, so it better serve the area.
McOsker, 59, of San Pedro, has spent his career as an attorney and businessman who served in City Hall during the administrations of former City Attorney and Mayor James Hahn.
His focus, he said, is on homelessness and affordable housing, economic recovery and jobs.
In-person voting for the primary election begins Saturday, May 28, across Los Angeles, and more vote center locations will open on June 4 ahead of election day on June 7.
Along with City Council, the primary ballot also includes citywide races for mayor, controller and city attorney.
Staff writers Olga Grigoryants and Donna Littlejohn contributed to this story.
