GOOD GOVERNMENT

People have lost faith in government at City Hall. Our 311 calls go unanswered, streets aren’t cleaned, lights are not repaired, and our basic needs are not met.

Meanwhile, elected officials abuse their power over permits, contracts, and grants to benefit themselves. We have to call that what it is: corruption.

As a result, Council District 9 has the lowest voter turnout in the entire city. When people feel alienated and ignored, they disengage. When they disengage, corrupt politics becomes even easier to maintain. This creates a cycle that feeds itself again and again. It is time to break that cycle and take back our political voice.

That is why I am putting forward a plan to make government work for working people. I am proposing a set of reforms to make our government accountable, take power away from the wealthy and well-connected, and return it to working families in District 9.

DELIVERING THE BASICS

Throughout the District, I hear the same complaints over and over again: the streets aren’t cleaned, potholes aren’t filled, and streetlights aren’t fixed. Failing to deliver on the basics erodes public trust and makes it harder for people to imagine solutions to bigger issues like affordability, public safety, and climate change. I will fight to ensure our neighborhoods receive their fair share of basic improvements.

  • For decades, the City has prioritized the needs of higher income communities over working class communities like CD 9. In 2023, the City launched an index and tool to identify the areas of the City with the highest economic, social, and environmental needs to help better align investment and resource allocation. Nearly all of CD 9 is considered “high” or “very high” need. 

    Unfortunately, no one is holding Departments accountable to make sure that investments are distributed to the areas with the highest needs. I will work with the Controller’s office to conduct an equity audit of programs like street cleaning, illegal dumpling response, and street light repairs and require that CD 9 and other high need communities receive our fair and equitable share of resources.

  • Nearly every weekend, volunteers organize community clean-ups because they are fed up with waiting for the City. I believe our volunteers should be compensated for their efforts. As Councilmember, I will provide living-wage compensation, supplies, and training for people who conduct regular clean-ups. I will also expand local hiring and make it easier for CD 9 residents to become employed by the City or City contractors.

  • Functioning street lights make people feel safer walking, biking, and driving at night. Unfortunately, a lack of regular repairs and maintenance combined with a spike in copper wire theft, have left many of our communities in the dark. Switching to solar-powered streetlights and increasing the budget for maintenance and repairs will keep our neighborhoods shining and safe.

Restoring Integrity and Trust To City Government

I take restoring trust in our government incredibly seriously. We need a Councilmember in District 9 who is not influenced by the money and insider culture that has plagued City Hall. I will champion ethics reforms to restore public trust and establish a culture of ethics at every level of government, not just in my office. We need to strengthen the city’s conflict-of-interest rules, close the revolving door between lobbyists and public service, and enforce stricter disclosure requirements for outside income.

  • Los Angeles has seen too many scandals in recent years that erode faith in leadership and weaken our democracy. We must move from a system in which corruption is punished after the fact to one in which robust ethical standards prevent misconduct in the first place. An independent oversight office, fully empowered and properly resourced, should monitor compliance and investigate wrongdoing without political interference.

    As Councilmember, I will support reforming the Ethics Commission into a true independent accountability body,  led by an exempt Inspector General that is hired by the Ethics Commission and can only be removed both by a supermajority vote in Council and the Mayor.

  • I support ending the revolving door by implementing regulations that prohibit, or limit within four years, lobbyists, consultants, and City Commissioners from running for office and elected officials from working as such. The revolving door goes both ways. People leave city jobs and go work for the same companies they were supposed to regulate. At best, it looks bad. At worst, people make decisions in office that benefit the employers they hope to work for next.

  • Standing up against corruption is brave and scary. The City must proactively protect whistleblowers and make it easier and safer to report fraud, waste, and abuse.

  • Currently, elected officials and their staff self-report economic interests, conflicts of interest, and other financial disclosures. I support strengthening disclosure requirements by requiring candidates for office to submit to a background investigation to identify conflicts and requiring that the results be publicly available. If an elected official fails to report conflicts of interest, they should face stricter fines and enforcement than currently required.

  • We all have to show up to work every day, and our elected officials should too. I support authorizing the City Controller to halt payment for elected officials who miss more than 3 meetings in a row or a certain number of committee meetings

  • Understanding how the City allocates money and makes decisions is too difficult and confusing. To make it easier to track expenditures, outcomes, and decisions, I support reforms that will:

    • Modernize the Council File Management System to make it easier to understand and track Council motions, votes, and contracts.

    • Require more public-facing dashboards that show program investments and outcomes. 

    • Centralize CPRA responses and require faster response times.

Reforming our Campaign Finance System

When people run for elected office in Los Angeles, special interests are there and ready with maxed out checks. I am running a clean money campaign with no lobbyist, corporate, oil and gas, or developer money. As someone who has organized in our community for years, I have seen firsthand how these kinds of contributions hurt tenants, drive homelessness, strain our city budget, and sell out our neighborhoods. And right now, all of this is completely legal.

We are holding ourselves to a higher standard. But we need to strengthen public investment in our election process so that the hard-working residents of District 9 can have real power. A fair and transparent system that centers community and limits the influence of big money is how we can ensure that grassroots voices are elevated in the democratic process.

  • modeled after Seattle’s democracy voucher system, to supplement our existing matching funds program and help more everyday residents participate in funding campaigns. Right now, our elections often rely on candidates raising money from wealthy neighborhoods and big donors. We need to reform the system so regular people have just as much power as organized money. In Seattle, this approach worked. The share of registered voters who contributed nearly doubled from 2017 to about 7.59% in 2021. Seattle now has one of the highest local participation rates in the country.

  • We need to also strengthen pay-to-play restrictions, expand the existing developer contribution ban to cover additional high-risk categories, and ban candidates who receive public financing from receiving corporate donations.

Strengthening Our Democracy and Representation

We need people working in our city and working for our city who are committed to the mission of their departments and who understand the real, lived experiences of the residents they serve. If I am elected to represent Council District 9, I want to ensure that every level of our city government, from councilmembers to frontline staff, reflects the diversity of our neighborhoods, speaks our languages, and knows our history.

The biggest way we can do this is by expanding representation on City Council and ensuring communities that have been left behind are no longer overlooked, ensuring fair and equitable access to city services, and strengthening support for immigrant and refugee families who are the heart of South Central. Only then can we build a city government that is both reflective of and responsive to working families.

  • Expand the Los Angeles City Council to ensure that councilmembers represent smaller, more manageable districts which will grant constituent access since smaller districts will reduce the constituent-to-councilmember ratio, making offices more responsive and accessible to local needs. It will also ensure fair representation of historically underserved populations.

  • Study ways to establish a citizens assembly to ensure that the voices of everyday Angelenos are being heard within the policymaking process. Under this model, a group of residents would be selected through a randomized process that also ensures representation across age, race, income, and geography.

    The Assembly would be tasked with examining a specific issue affecting the city, receive briefings from experts and community groups, and then directly recommend their input to policymakers about what policy recommendations they support.

  • Establish a Permanent Office of Immigrant Affairs which would institutionalize support for immigrant communities, ensuring translation services, legal aid, small business resources, and workforce development programs are accessible to all. This office would also advocate for immigrants at the policy level, protecting communities against exploitation, discrimination, and fear.

  • Ensure that ICE, law enforcement, and other agencies cannot use civic spaces as opportunities for immigration enforcement or intimidation. City facilities should be designated as safe spaces, free from immigration raids, so that immigrant families can participate in civic life without fear.