ECONOMIC & labor JUSTICE

From Extraction to Reinvestment - investing in an economy that works for district 9

For nearly 100 years, the diversity, resilience and innovation of District 9’s residents have created a dynamic community of entrepreneurship and innovation, even in the face of systemic racism, neglect and disinvestment. Our streets are lined with vendors, barbershops, panaderias, corner stores, and home day cares that have flourished in spite of, rather than because of, our city’s policies. I am running for City Council to change that and ensure that our workers, businesses, and communities receive what they need to prosper and thrive.

BUILD COMMUNITY WEALTH FROM THE GROUND UP

Council District 9 has the land, the talent, and the entrepreneurial spirit to drive the next generation of economic growth. For too long, development has happened around us without benefiting us.

Building it here means investing in green industry, high-road manufacturing, small businesses, and worker-owned enterprises that create good jobs, protect public health, and keep ownership rooted in the community. Economic development should strengthen our neighborhoods, not displace them.

  • Over 1,068 acres of CD 9 (mostly in the northeast area) is zoned as industrial. This creates significant economic development potential but also concerns about pollution and contamination for surrounding residents.  For example, the Goodyear tract - which was established in the 1930s as an airship factory and then a tire manufacturing plant - remains an active business district with nearly 4,000 employees. However, many of the businesses are considered “hazardous uses” that put the surrounding communities at greater health risk.

    Using financial support and land use incentives to incentivize green industries will allow us to build a workforce for the future and create healthier and more prosperous communities for generations to come.

    Specifically we can: 

    • Create a Jobs of the Future Fund to support new green businesses, particularly in the Good Year Tract and along the Slauson corridor. 

    • Increase utilization of land use incentives for Green Businesses established through the Slauson Transit Neighborhood Community Plan.

    • Increase utilization of the Jobs and Economic Development Incentive Zones (JEDI) Program in the Goodyear tract, which provides incentives to businesses, including case management of the City development permit process, permit fee reductions, business consulting, and façade improvements.

    • Use tax increment financing programs like EIFDs to provide longer-term financing to support businesses in and around the Good Year Tract.

    • Require that businesses that receive financial incentives adhere to labor and wage standards and prioritize local hiring. 

  • As part of the Downtown Community Plan Update, Council District 1 advocated for the City to create recommendations to support garment workers, business incentives for garment manufacturers, and funding strategies for implementation. The initiative was focused on the fashion district in Downtown, however, Council District 9 houses the Garment Worker Center, includes many garment factories, and many of Downtown’s garment workers live in CD 9.

    To support garment workers and garment manufacturing in the district we can: 

    • Provide business support for garment factories that comply with fair labor standards to have access to capital and technical assistance. 

    • Support a Garment Sector intermediary within the City’s Workforce Development Division to provide training, upskilling, and support for garment workers.

    • Partner with the Garment Workers Center to holistically meet the needs of garment workers and support the launch of the Garment and Fashion Industry Pilot Program, including workforce development, small business support, and sector-specific programs.

    • Provide real estate assistance for “high road” garment sector employers  to locate in CD 9.

  • Small businesses and street vendors are ubiquitous with the culture and values of Los Angeles. They are the backbone to our economy and to our community and are more likely to be run by families and be worker-friendly than larger corporations. Which is why we must support our local businesses just like they support us. Through policy we can:

    • Increase contracting opportunities for businesses in the district to partner with major entities like the City and County and USC. 

    • Advocate for the city to master lease ground floor commercial spaces in mixed-use buildings to provide below market rents to community-serving businesses. 

    • Prevent small business displacement by advocating for commercial tenant protections for community-serving small businesses. 

    • Expand the City’s pilot Good Food Zone policy to create economic incentives for businesses, including retail and restaurants, that offer healthy products.

    • Replicate the success of Mercado la Paloma by creating another incubator for food, culture and services in the District. 

    • Finance the creation of new industrial kitchens and refrigeration centers for street venders.

    • Increase resources at the City’s BusinessSource Centers to help street vendors obtain permits.

    • Establish a dedicated Small Business Deputy within the Council Office to serve as a direct point of contact for local businesses by providing technical support to navigate city bureaucracy, troubleshoot permitting or compliance issues, and gather input from small business owners to inform future policy decisions.

    • Expand financial resources and training to assist workers in forming cooperative businesses.

  • Council District 9 has one of the highest rates of poverty and the lowest median incomes of any district in the City, yet we receive far less in city-supported economic assistance compared to other communities in the City. Whereas other districts have all received over $200 million for innovative community development projects (supported by the Los Angeles Development Fund), Council District 9 has received less than half of that. With the right leadership and vision, this type of funding can support catalytic projects that integrate economic and job development with affordable housing investments and create much-needed community-serving resources like grocery stores.

  • Pharmacies are closing at an alarming rate across the country and creating pharmacy deserts in Council District 9 that threaten to leave seniors and people with chronic conditions without access to essential medication. CVS is closing 270 stores in 2025, Walgreens announced that it’s closing 1,200 stores by 2027, and Rite Aid is closing all of its remaining stores. This is a slow-moving public health emergency that threatens to expand existing inequities in access to care for working families in the district. If I’m elected, I will introduce a motion to explore policies to stabilize and expand access to pharmacies, including subsidies for independent, community-based pharmacies, as well as the feasibility of a pilot program establishing city-owned (or co-owned) pharmacies in District 9.

  • A lot of our economic functions are scattered across departments. Establishing an Economic Development Corporation (EDC) would allow us to unify these efforts and move projects forward more efficiently. An EDC could put our city’s properties and resources to work for housing, strategic investments in growth sectors, and job creation.

    My office would ensure that the EDC partners with neighborhood groups to make targeted investments in areas like the Central-Vernon neighborhood and the southern parts of Council District 9 — communities that are too often left behind.

REINVEST DISTRICT REVENUE BACK INTO DISTRICT 9

District 9 generates millions in revenue every year from major venues, industrial corridors, and retail sales. Yet too little of that wealth is reinvested back into our neighborhoods.

Keeping it here means requiring that public dollars and locally generated revenue fund affordable housing, green space, transportation improvements, and community-serving infrastructure. It means ending wealth extraction and building systems that ensure our community benefits from the prosperity it helps create.

  • CD 9 is home to some of the largest sports and entertainment venues in the nation, including the LA Memorial Coliseum, the Crypto.com Arena, BMO Stadium, the Galen Center, the Peacock Theater, and the Shrine Auditorium. Combined, these venues have a capacity for more than 210,000 people and regularly host large concerts, games, festivals, and even NASCAR races.

    But how do these mega-events benefit us?

    I will champion policies to implement a small surcharge on tickets, parking, and/or concessions to fund green space, housing, and street improvements in our communities.

  • CD 9 has a concentration of car dealerships that create billions of dollars in sales tax revenue. But while our communities accommodate the test drives, added traffic, and pollution, none of the revenue is required to be reinvested here. I will require that a certain percentage of car sales tax revenue be used to make our communities greener, more walkable, and more bikable.

  • The City is spending hundreds of millions of dollars each year on interest and fees paid to Wall Street banks and financial institutions. And billions of dollars of our taxpayer money is held in petrochemical banks that finance fossil fuel projects and other harmful industries.

    If the City created a public bank, these public dollars could instead rebuild neighborhoods, fund disaster resilience, and support housing and economic development.

EXPAND ACCESS TO GOOD JOBS AND ECONOMIC MOBILITY

Council District 9’s greatest resource is its people. A strong local economy depends on the full employment, health, and upward mobility of the workers who power this city, especially those who have been excluded from opportunity.

Hiring us first means expanding pathways to union jobs, strengthening wage protections, improving access to education and apprenticeships, supporting working families with childcare, and removing barriers for formerly incarcerated residents.

When our residents succeed, our entire district succeeds.

  • To connect CD 9 residents with good-paying, union jobs I will:

    • Support and expand local hiring and contracting programs for large and mid-size employers and companies, with particular emphasis on employers that provide union jobs.

    • Support LA Trade Tech in connecting graduates of its programs with local hire and apprenticeship programs in construction and the trades. 

    • Increase and expand priority hiring for large employers throughout the city to hire from high poverty neighborhoods located in the city.

    • Expand the City’s employment programs like the Targeted Local Hire (TLH) and Bridge to Jobs (BRIDGE) Programs to leverage good-paying City jobs to hire more Angelenos.

    • Increase the reliability of bus routes that connect Council District 9 with large employment centers (like the 105 and 40) to ensure workers in Council District 9 can benefit from priority hiring programs. 

    • Increase outreach and education about local hiring programs by partnering and expanding services at Worksource and Youthsource centers. 

  • Everyone in our community deserves a living wage and as Councilmember I will:

    • Advocate for citywide policies to increase wages, particularly in low-wage industries and particularly for vulnerable and marginalized workers (including people with disabilities, immigrants, youth, and women).

    • Protect and expand the City’s minimum wage ordinances, and continue to fight for a living wage in the face of rising costs.

    • Expand the universal base income pilot program.

    • Support outreach and services to ensure families are receiving the maximum amount of public benefits including Earned Income Tax Credits, SNAP, Utility Assistance, SSI, etc. 

    • Ensure that workers are able to prepare for retirement by taking action at the local level to prepare for Social Security reductions, increase worker participation in pension decisions, and increase accountability for employer-provided retirement accounts.

  • Wage theft remains a widespread issue in Los Angeles, disproportionately affecting low-wage and immigrant workers across industries like hospitality, construction, and retail. Despite existing labor laws, many violations go unreported due to fear of retaliation and limited enforcement resources. Strengthening enforcement and worker protections could recover millions in unpaid wages while helping reduce poverty across the city.

    I strongly support expanding the City’s efforts to combat wage theft and aggressively prosecute employers found to have committed violations.

  • Between USC, Mount St Marys, and LA Trade Tech, Council District 9 is home to some of the most prestigious higher education institutions in the country, yet only 25% percent of people in Council District 9 have above a high school degree and just 5% percent of people have a bachelor's degree or higher. To increase educational access I will: 

    • Support and expand USC’s Family of Schools program and partner with USC to provide more support for adult education in the community - including computer literacy, English language classes, etc.

    • Advocate for additional federal, state, and local resources to help support and expand LA Trade Tech’s programs.

    • Develop partnerships between LA Trade Tech and other higher learning institutions to develop and share new technological innovations in technical careers.

    • Support targeted apprenticeship programs at restaurants, trade unions, and other employment institutions.

    • Work with LAUSD to create vocational schools within the district.

    • Expand access to financial aid programs so that the residents in our district can afford to go to college or university.

  • One of the greatest ways to support working families is making quality and reliable childcare accessible and affordable to all. Not only does childcare help working parents, but studies have shown that early childhood education is very beneficial to a child’s development. Increasing the supply of childcare services, supporting existing providers, and providing childcare subsidies for lower-income households 

    • Work with local and regional actors to advocate for an easy-to-access and affordable universal childcare system that provides dedicated resources to parents and existing or prospective childcare providers - including financing assistance, permitting, business planning, etc.

    • Increase funding and utilization of childcare voucher programs like Crystal Stairs.

    • Colocate childcare centers in government owned or leased buildings to provide lower rents and services targeted to lower income households.

  • Individuals that were part of the criminal justice system face significant economic barriers upon release, which can lead to recidivism. To end this cycle of economic hardship and crime, I plan to coordinate local and county officials with local nonprofits to support individuals post-release.

    • Partner with local non-profits to offer expungement services 

    • Expand employment opportunities for formerly incarcerated individuals by promoting awareness of financial incentives available to hiring businesses

    • Create programs from the City alongside the County to offer an economic workshop for individuals that have been released or are about to be released

  • I will stand to protect workers from workplace hazards and ensure the health and safety of the City’s labor force by:

    •  Leveraging contracts, development agreements, and labor agreements to ensure that employers offer adequate healthcare coverage for their workers.

    • Creating a pilot program to fund community clinics that provide quality, low-cost healthcare services to their local communities. 

    • Identifying occupational safety violations at the local level and collaborating with the State on enforcement.

    • Identifying how climate change is affecting workers, especially those outdoors, and establish protections to ensure their safety. 

    • Ensuring that workers have access to mental health resources in the workplace, as well as fight for coverage for mental health expenses.

  • As someone raised in a union household, I know the importance of protecting, supporting, and expanding unionization. As Coucilmember I will:

    • Adopt measures to discourage union-busting practices and inform workers of their right to unionize.

    • Establish preference programs for City contracts to award contracts to employers with a unionized labor force. 

    • Maximize the use of unionized labor for capital projects through Project Labor Agreements.

    • Incentivize and support the expansion of union industries.

    • Work with labor and industry leaders to support local and federal incentives for film and TV in LA.

  • Our nation has been built on equal opportunity and the promise of upward mobility regardless of personal history. I will continue to demand and work towards equal opportunity and protections for the City’s most vulnerable workers by:

    • Combating nationwide DEI rollbacks and demanding that corporations provide equal opportunities for workers despite protected classes

    • Fighting against gender-based discrimination in wages and benefits

    • Ensuring victims of sexual harassment can safely report violations and violators are held accountable.

    • Seeking stronger protections for the LGBTQ+ community from discrimination in hiring, wages, and harassment.

    • Protecting undocumented workers by strengthening and enforcing the City’s Sanctuary City Ordinance, preventing employer coercion, and advocating for access to work visas and a path to citizenship.

    • Protecting disabled and senior workers by ensuring appropriate occupational safety measures are implemented and protecting workers against discrimination.

    • Strengthen enforcement of the City’s Fair Chance Ordinance to prevent private employers' use of criminal history for consideration of employment.