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With the effort to recall Governor Gavin Newsom now firmly dismissed, attention turns this week to the Los Angeles mayoral race. And with the actual vote still 13 months away, there is still a long way to go for the post that called Eric Garcetti from.
The week began with another new candidate entering the fray, the last of more than two dozen to date. Jessica Lall, CEO of the Central City Association of Los Angeles, announced his candidacy on Monday, September 20.
Lall seeks to develop his skills in building coalitions to find policy solutions to tackle homelessness. She announced a seven-point plan to deal with the problems, ranging from purchasing more salvage housing that helps people with mental health crises stabilize themselves, to creating a public health service in city scale.
“It’s time to tackle the systemic failures that fuel the homeless pipeline. By the time someone finds himself on the street, he has fallen through several layers of government safety nets, ”she said, speaking from a neighborhood in Mar Vista.
Lall’s focus on homelessness affirmed that the crisis is perhaps the election’s most poignant issue.
She joins a long list of candidates – Los Angeles City Councilor Joe Buscaino, City Attorney Mike Feuer and San Fernando Valley business leader Mel Wilson among the best known – who have campaigned on the issue.
In June, Buscaino, which represents a district that includes Watts, San Pedro and the LA port area, announced his campaign, proposing eliminate the county’s homeless agency and push for a June 2022 voting measure that would ban settlements.
Feurer too, visited camps, touting a plan to declare a state of emergency for the homeless in the city, which would give its leaders the power to steal property to clear the settlements.
Some big names are a long way off, however, and those announcements could arrive as early as this week.
Among them: LA city councilor Kevin de Leon. His camp would not publicly confirm a race on Monday. But an imminent announcement is expected one way or the other.
If De Leon enters, it will appeal to many defenders who are looking for a top Latinx leader.
Such hopes were dashed last week when, after much speculation, LA City Council President Nury Martinez, who represents the heavily Latin American San Fernando Valley, announced that she would not be running for office. the town hall. Instead, she reaffirmed what she said was her “commitment” to her role as board chair.
“I am focused in the moment and know that I can better serve the workers and families of our city as the chairman of the board,” Martinez said in a statement.
His decision preceded by Councilor Mark Ridley-Thomas, long considered a contender, who also decided to stay on the sidelines.
The biggest name of all is also waiting behind the scenes. Representative Karen Bass, D-Los Angeles declined to say if an announcement was imminent on Monday. But she said she was “seriously considering” a run.
Supporters say the time is right for Bass, and if she is to enter, it will likely be in the next week or two.
“This town is ripe and ready for it,” said activist Jimmie Woods-Gray, a longtime Bass supporter, who noted Bass’s leadership experience at the local federal level.
“There is a cry for women’s leadership and for a woman of color,” he added. “It seems like the right time for a woman to be mayor.”
Rick Caruso, developer of Grove and Americana at Brand, is also reportedly thinking about a race.
Even with all of these big names stepping in, Wilson, a San Fernando Valley-based real estate agent who launched his campaign in August, said his campaign would move forward.
“The recall has taken up a lot of room for politics in California,” he said, noting that when he presented himself to voters, they initially thought he was issuing a recall challenge to Newsom. “But what I found out was that although the recall was a big deal in the minds of a lot of people on both sides of the aisle, people were just mad at the city.”
Clean streets and homelessness were always huge problems for people from Lemert Park to Chatsworth, he said, citing homelessness as the number one problem.
Wilson, a former Metro board member, said he wanted to tackle homelessness, help small businesses and create “smart transit corridors and affordable housing.” And he laments the city’s recent political decisions that have hurt businesses.
That’s why he thinks whoever wins the job “will be a foreigner.”
“Voters will ask, how did this happen? Who was in charge? They’re really going to look at what people’s responses are, “he added,” to the complex housing challenges that we have. “
He said that even with new big names likely to jump after the recall, the opportunities will expand to get the message across.
“I think now that the encore is behind everyone,” he said, “it will give us a boost of energy.”
Meanwhile, no one has officially established themselves as a favorite, although that landscape may change in the days to come.
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