Endorsement: Imelda Padilla for L.A. City Council
Voters within the San Fernando Valley’s sixth District might wrestle to decide on between the 2 homegrown candidates operating to symbolize the realm on the Los Angeles Metropolis Council within the June 27 election.
That’s as a result of, in broad strokes, the candidates — Imelda Padilla and Marisa Alcaraz — have related biographies and coverage priorities.
Each have been born and raised within the district, which incorporates Van Nuys, Lake Balboa, Panorama Metropolis, Arleta and Solar Valley, by working-class Mexican immigrant dad and mom. Each have been College of California undergrads who went on to earn grasp’s levels. Each are millennials with spectacular resumes exhibiting a dedication to native public service. Each are pragmatic progressives with related positions on homelessness, policing, environmental justice, housing and different urgent points which can be in keeping with the values of the district and the wants of the town.
However the variations emerge in terms of their experiences and expertise, and it turns into clear one is best suited to be a robust chief for the district and on the council. That’s Padilla. With 20 years of labor throughout the group — as a volunteer, organizer, activist and a staffer for native organizations — Padilla is finest suited to win again the belief of residents after the final council consultant resigned in shame. Then-council President Nury Martinez stepped down in October after a leaked audio recording caught her and two different council members making racist, divisive feedback.
Padilla is already well-known and revered in political and group circles. She has been deeply concerned in Solar Valley and the northeast San Fernando Valley since becoming a member of the L.A. Metropolis Youth Council within the ninth grade (she’s 35 now). She has labored in quite a lot of group engagement and outreach roles for Pacoima Lovely, the Los Angeles County Ladies and Women Initiative and the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Financial system. She has served on the Solar Valley Space Neighborhood Council, an unpaid and often-thankless elected place, and labored as a area deputy within the district workplace underneath Martinez earlier than heading to grad college at Cal State Northridge.
Padilla is a pacesetter who comes from the trenches, and it reveals in her data of the ground-level wants of the district. She speaks with authority about addressing group frustrations such because the unmaintained Sheldon skate park, getting sources for unhoused individuals residing in RVs in industrial areas, and the environmental impacts from Van Nuys Airport and the Solar Valley Producing Station, a pure fuel energy plant.
Given the breadth of Padilla’s expertise and longtime work locally, it’s no shock that her endorsements embody a various assortment of elected officers — together with Metropolis Councilmember Monica Rodriguez and Rep. Tony Cardenas (D-Pacoima), who represented the district on the council earlier than being elected to Congress — group organizations and leaders, labor unions and enterprise associations, comparable to BizFed, which praised her as a coalition builder and a pacesetter who will work to stability competing priorities.
Her vary of help and deep understanding of the district will give Padilla an edge in terms of directing investments locally, such because the $2-billion East Valley mild rail undertaking, which is able to assemble a 6.7-mile rail line alongside Van Nuys Boulevard, and business and residential improvement, in addition to negotiating how the Sepulveda Basin Recreation Space might be used within the 2028 Olympics, which would require development of non permanent or everlasting amenities.
By comparability Alcaraz’s expertise and data locally is proscribed. She has spent nearly her complete profession engaged on coverage at Metropolis Corridor for Councilmember Curren Worth, who represents a South L.A. district. She has labored on a lot of vital initiatives, comparable to legalizing sidewalk merchandising, launching a assured primary revenue pilot and passing the $15 minimal wage. (Padilla additionally labored on that effort as an organizer charged with rallying help within the Valley.) Alcaraz would little question have the ability to work effectively inside metropolis authorities, however she has had significantly much less expertise constructing relationships throughout the district and dealing on granular group points than her opponent.
Being a member of the Los Angeles Metropolis Council requires not simply coverage experience however a capability to rally the district, battle for sources and champion points residents care about. Padilla is clearly the candidate higher suited to be the chief the district wants.
