city hall

Voters will elect two new Los Angeles City Council members on Tuesday, one representing the San Fernando Valley, the other South Los Angeles.

In the 3rd District, businessman Tim Gaspar and longtime local government employee Barri Worth Girvan are vying to replace Bob Blumenfield, who is termed out. The district includes Canoga Park, Reseda, Tarzana, Winnetka, and Woodland Hills.

In Council District 9, residents are preparing for a historic shift: No matter who wins, the district will elect a Latino council member for the first time since 1963.

The South L.A. district has long been represented by a Black council member, but over the last few decades it has undergone a demographic shift and today is about 80% Latino. Councilmember Curren Price also has termed out. Estuardo Mazariegos, co-director of the L.A. chapter of Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, and Jose Ugarte, who previously served as a deputy chief of staff to Price, are vying for the seat.

District 3

Gaspar led the June primary with 46.1% of the vote compared to Worth Girvan, who secured 42.5%. Both candidates have spent the last few weeks of the campaign knocking on doors and making their case to voters, saying major issues like public safety and cleanliness are common concerns.

Gaspar, who founded an insurance agency in the Valley that he sold in 2021, would bring a pro-business perspective to City Hall, and among his top priorities would be eliminating “red tape” to stimulate small businesses in the region.

“We need somebody who’s going to come to the table with different ideas,” Gaspar said. “If we keep doing the same thing as before, we’re going to keep getting the same results.”

Worth Girvan, who worked as L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath’s district director for three years before running, would use her experience in the public sector to advocate for the West Valley.

“I am fortunate to have experience at every level of government,” she said. “That’s going to allow me to leverage relationships and know how to work together across jurisdictions to get things done.”

The race has been filled with accusations. Two weeks ago, Worth Girvan’s campaign published an ad featuring Christina Rackohn, a former employee whose family company merged with Gaspar’s insurance company, who alleged he created a hostile work environment.

Worth Girvan also filed an ethics complaint against Gaspar with the City Ethics Commission in October, alleging he failed to report more than $150,000 in personal and business expenditures related to his campaign and violated the city’s matching fund rules.

Gaspar called the allegations about creating a hostile working environment and violating campaign finance violations “lies.” He said he is focused on campaigning in the final week before the election.

Gaspar said Worth Girvan is a career politician who will only maintain the status quo.

“If she ends up getting elected, she’s going to have the same ideas and the same ways of addressing these issues as what got us into this mess in the first place,” he said.

On homelessness, Gaspar has criticized the city’s Inside Safe program and said a housing-first approach doesn’t work. He praised the anticamping zone law but believes the city should be tougher against encampments.

Worth Girvan supports Inside Safe but wants more permanent housing built instead of relying on interim housing. She would expand the city’s CIRCLE program, which provides 24/7 unarmed mobile response for nonviolent calls involving homeless individuals, to the West Valley.

In fundraising, Gaspar reported bringing in nearly $600,000 during the runoff campaign including matching funds, compared with about $287,000 for Worth Girvan.

District 9

Both Mazariegos and Ugarte share many similarities, including having arrived to the U.S. from Latin America as children and growing up undocumented. Both spent years working as community organizers, but now they diverge on issues such as policing and homeless policies.

Mazariegos and Ugarte were nearly evenly matched in fundraising, with both raising about $350,000 for the runoff in contributions and matching funds. Ugarte placed first in the June primary in a crowded field against five others, winning 39% of the vote. Mazariegos, who has been endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America‘s L.A. chapter, came in second with about 26%.

Ugarte’s campaign has received more than $1 million in support from independent expenditures, committees that can receive unlimited donations but cannot coordinate with a candidate’s campaign. Airbnb, Uber and the California Apartment Assn. are among the groups supporting Ugarte.

Mazariegos has criticized the companies supporting Ugarte’s candidacy, accusing them of attempting to displace low-income residents by pouring money into the election.

“They’re trying to displace our community. That’s what this fight is all about,” Mazariegos said. “I know this is a righteous campaign and a righteous cause with the people, alongside the people. Solo el pueblo salva al pueblo.” Only the people can save the people.

Ugarte said he has never met with Airbnb officials but would take a call from any group to figure out what is going to best benefit South L.A., including prioritizing protecting renters.

“I’d open my eyes and see what’s going to benefit South L.A.,” he said. “I want to focus on making South Central clean, safe and affordable.”

While both would defend immigrants, they diverge on issues such as the police budget. Ugarte supports Mayor Karen Bass’ goal of restoring the L.A. Police Department to 9,500 officers, while Mazariegos supports increasing oversight of the department’s budget and reducing its budget to fund other departments, including Recreation and Parks and the Bureau of Street Services.

Ugarte supports enforcing Municipal Ordinance 41.18, which prohibits camps near schools, daycare centers and other “sensitive” areas as a tool to clear homeless encampments. Mazariegos has said all the ordinance does is shuffle people around, and instead the focus should be on addressing addiction and mental health issues.

Mazariegos has been endorsed by Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, City Controller Kenneth Mejia, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), United Teachers Los Angeles, L.A. Forward and several labor unions.

Ugarte has been endorsed by the L.A. County Democratic Party, Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights Action Fund, Rep. Sydney Kamlager Dove, the late Dolores Huerta and Councilmember Tim McOsker.

In the Los Angeles mayoral debate Tuesday night, I was reminded of two things.

First, as I’ve said before, it’s no surprise that roughly one-third of likely voters remain undecided with less than three weeks to go until election day.

Second, there is one key difference between the two candidates: We know who Mayor Karen Bass is, but we don’t yet know who Councilmember Nithya Raman is, even though she’s been leading in most polls.

Those two points are connected. I think a majority of voters want a change at City Hall because of the marginal progress on homelessness, the erosion of basic services and the bad decisions before and after the Palisades disaster, among a host of other issues.

But they’re not sure what they’d be getting in Raman.

Why not?

If you haven’t already seen the story a few days ago by The Times’ longtime City Hall reporting ace, Dave Zahniser, you need to check it out right here.

The headline neatly sums it up:

“L.A. mayoral candidate Nithya Raman has strong opinions. But they often change.”

Raman has flip-flopped so many times, it’s as if she’s having a political identity crisis, which is not a great selling point for a candidate.

She endorsed Bass, an ally, for reelection and then abruptly and surprisingly announced that she was running against her.

She rose to power as a darling of the Democratic Socialists of America and vowed to defund the police, only to later support an LAPD budget increase.

She embraced the so-called mansion tax, then said it needed an overhaul.

She supported and helped fund Bass’ signature homelessness initiative, Inside Safe, and now has turned against it.

“That’s the real wild card,” said Sara Sadhwani, assistant professor of politics at Pomona College. “She has flip-flopped so extensively on policy that it’s unclear which version of her values we would get.”

Look, it’s not uncommon for a candidate of the left, or the right, to move toward the center to broaden support. And there’s nothing wrong with learning on the job and evolving. It’s all too rare, in fact.

The problem for Raman is that in somersaulting around on core issues, she’s alienating some of the people she would need as allies in order to be an effective mayor.

They might come around, because in the city’s shared system of power, there are times when the City Council and mayor need to paddle in the same direction in order to get anywhere. But among the 15 City Council members, 13 have endorsed Bass, and that support includes even the DSA wing of the council.

I like the idea of a rebel as L.A. mayor, but the job is hard enough with City Council allies. Without them, Raman could be cooked. And it’s not as if she’d have an easy time winning support for much of anything from the powerful public employee unions and traditional business interests, which are for the most part aligned with Bass, for better and for worse.

Both candidates had their moments in the debate, although I gave the edge to Bass. During The Times’ live chat, I said I think L.A. really needs a leadership change, and I think Raman did not prove that she’s the answer.

It’s probably the second-most important political job in the state, in one of the great cities of the world, and along with the ducking and punching, I wanted more love, more poetry, more unbridled passion and a contagious sense of possibility.

And please, all you Spencer Pratt toadies, don’t send me your whiny little notes about how he was the guy all along. Identifying some of the obvious problems is easy enough. (I do it all the time.) Having a plan is another matter, and that’s why I never ran for mayor, and why Pratt faded out of the picture.

So what next, as the final three weeks of the campaign play out?

If I were Raman, who is 45, I’d go heavy on touting the work she’s done on eviction protections and capping rent hikes, because nailing down younger voters could give her the keys to the throne. On homelessness, she knows the issue better than most, has detailed what’s wrong with the Bass program, has made headway in her own district, and has laid out a plan to speed up progress and efficiency citywide.

But her best argument is that City Hall and the entrenched political establishment need a major shake-up, because the machine is now a jalopy.

“We cannot afford another four years of decline, of mismanagement, of excuses,” Raman said in the debate.

As for Bass, 73, you can’t count her out just yet because she’s a fighter, and she’s better at campaigning than at being mayor. She also is likely to benefit from the fact that older voters — who are most likely to go to the polls — favor her by a huge margin.

“You are not ready for prime time,” Bass told her former ally during the debate, and Bass also hammered Raman for taking “different positions on different days of the week.”

In 2005, Mayor Jim Hahn became the first L.A. mayor to lose a reelection bid in more than three decades, falling to Antonio Villaraigosa. It was a rout, at 58% for Villaraigosa to 41% for Hahn.

I don’t see a rout this time.

The question for Los Angeles is this:

Have you had enough of the mayor you know, and are you ready to roll the dice on someone you don’t?

steve.lopez@latimes.com