people

Gabriel Buelna is running for Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees Seat 6.

(Gabriel Buelna)

Name: Gabriel Buelna

Age: 54

Occupation that appears on the ballot: member of the board of trustees, Los Angeles Community College District, Seat 6

Website: https://www.buelna4laccd.com/

Experience: Buelna serves on the board. He also is an attorney and teaches history and political science at Cal State Northridge. He previously led Plaza Community Services, a nonprofit that provides education, health and other services to children and families.

“I bring an unusual combination of personal, professional and governing experience,” he said. “I understand higher education from several perspectives — as an educator, a policymaker and someone who has spent much of his career working with families facing economic and social barriers.”

District challenges: “Our biggest challenge is not simply getting students through the door. It is making sure they can afford to remain enrolled, complete their education and translate that education into economic opportunity.” Among the barriers Buelna cited were the high cost of housing, food insecurity and child care.

Buelna said the board also must conduct strong fiscal oversight of the billions in voter-approved bond funds. “The board has a responsibility to ensure those resources are spent transparently, responsibly and in ways that produce measurable benefits for students,” he said.

Priorities: Buelna said his priorities include addressing student affordability, better connecting education to economic opportunity and “removing barriers to access and completion.”

He said the district needs to “move aggressively to implement” its commitment of up to $500 million for affordable student and staff housing and “strengthening food assistance, mental-health services and other basic-needs programs.” Buelna said the district also needs to expand career technical education and paid internships, while “strengthening transfer pathways for students seeking four-year degrees.”

In addition, he wants to expand multilingual education and support for working adults and students with families while “protecting immigrant and undocumented students.”

Budget: Buelna would continue to advocate for state and federal funds as well as community partnerships that bring additional resources to the colleges. He said the district also must scrutinize its own spending, including ensuring “major construction and capital projects are completed responsibly.”

“LACCD must be both an advocate for greater investment in community colleges and a responsible steward of the resources taxpayers have already provided,” he said.

Student enrollment and success: “We need to design our colleges around the students we actually serve rather than expecting students to adapt to unnecessary institutional barriers,” he said.

“LACCD students include recent high school graduates, working adults, immigrants, parents, first-generation college students and people returning to school for new skills. Their barriers are different, so our solutions must be flexible.”

Tonia Arey is running for the Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees Seat 6.

(Tonia Arey)

Name: Tonia Arey

Age: 56

Occupation that appears on the ballot: realtor

Website: https://toniaarey.com/

Experience: In June, Arey ran unsuccessfully to represent District 3 on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, a campaign that allowed her to travel throughout the district to hear the concerns of constituents. “My experience in real estate, public advocacy and community engagement has taught me how to listen, solve problems, manage complex transactions, and hold people accountable,” she said. As a realtor, she said she handles contracts, budgets, negotiations, legal requirements and competing interests — helpful skills in a trustee role.

District challenges: “The biggest challenges facing the Los Angeles Community College District are campus safety, student success and career readiness, and accountability to students, employees, and taxpayers,” she said.

Arey would work to implement campus safety plans, support additional academic advising and career education and more “closely examine spending, contracts, program outcomes and administrative costs to ensure resources reach classrooms and directly support students.”

“Although LACCD is a four-year term, there are no term limits and current trustees can no longer be trusted,” she said.

Priorities: She cited campus safety, student success and career readiness, accountability and respect for employees.

Budget: Arey would review the district’s budget to “identify waste, duplication and spending that does not directly improve student outcomes” and said “cost reductions should begin with unnecessary administrative expenses, not classroom instruction, campus safety, counseling or essential student services.”

She‘d work to strengthen the competitive bidding process for contracts and work to ensure the district’s construction bond program is effectively managed. On the revenue side, she’d work to pursue government grants, raise money from donors and “explore responsible uses of underutilized district property.” She‘d also look at ways to boost enrollment, since state funding is tied to the number of students served.

Student enrollment and success: Arey would work to make “enrollment simpler, faster, and easier to navigate” and do more to help students who enter the classroom.

That includes flexible class offerings, basic needs assistance, robust counseling and the use of data to understand where students are falling through the cracks.

Randall Winston is running for Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees Seat 6.

(Randall Winston)

Name: Randall Winston

Age: 44

Occupation that appears on the ballot: architect

Website: https://www.randalljwinston.com/

Experience: Winston, a licensed architect and attorney, serves as Los Angeles’ deputy mayor of infrastructure and climate resilience under Mayor Karen Bass. This fall he is teaching a class in public sector leadership skills at West Los Angeles College and said he’s also lectured at UCLA and mentored graduate students.

Under former Gov. Jerry Brown, Winston ran the California Strategic Growth Council, which helps fund sustainable development.

District challenges: Winston listed enrollment and the inability of students to afford basic needs as major challenges. Citing the district’s $5.3-billion bond-funded construction program he said: “Every dollar lost to delays, litigation or fraud is a dollar not reaching students and the faculty and staff who serve them.”

Priorities: Winston’s priorities for the district include ensuring colleges are a pathway to opportunity and good jobs, students can afford basic needs and people historically shut out of higher education are let in.

All colleges should partner with labor and employers to offer apprenticeships and “family-sustaining union careers,” he said, and the district should expand dual enrollment to allow more high school students to earn college credit. He also cited a need to provide more support to groups like veterans and first-generation students.

Budget: Winston said boosting enrollment to increase state funding is the “most direct” way to increase revenue. He‘d also pursue other government funding as well as employer and philanthropic partnerships. There also needs to be “rigorous” oversight of the district’s construction program, he said.

“What I won’t do is balance budgets on instruction or on the people who deliver it,” he said. “Classrooms, faculty and staff come first.”

Student enrollment and success: Winston said most barriers to enrollment and student success are “logistical, not academic.” He‘d push to “invest in simplified onboarding, proactive advising and better counselor ratios.”

“Students who connect with a counselor early are far more likely to finish, and our counselors are stretched too thin to reach everyone who needs them,” he said.

Name: Roberto David LaCarra

Occupation that appears on the ballot: community college professor

Did not reply.

Nancy Pearlman is running for the Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees Seat 4.

(Nancy Pearlman)

Name: Nancy Pearlman

Age: 78

Website: https://www.nancypearlman.net/

Occupation that appears on the ballot: environmentalist/anthropologist/educator

Experience: Pearlman says she served on the board of trustees from 2001 to 2017 and taught part-time at all nine colleges before and after her time on the board.

“I know the needs of part-time faculty, I know what staff wants, and I know what students want and need because I have been involved with the LACCD since I attended City College in 1968,” she said.

District challenges: Pearlman said low enrollment is the biggest challenge, followed by ensuring students are given the necessary support and resources to succeed. She also cited the need make sure faculty receive equal pay and that the district’s construction program remains environmentally sustainable and within budget.

Priorities: Her priorities would be addressing the challenges the district faces and “keeping the chancellor and presidents accountable and working for the community college district mission,” which she described as the main responsibility of the board.

Budget: “Excess spending must be stopped with analysis of how much administration makes versus faculty and staff,” she said. Pearlman supports campus efforts to create foundations for scholarships and lobbying Sacramento and Washington to keep funding, including student aid, at necessary levels.

Student success: Faculty members need to communicate with their students to determine what the student needs to pass their classes, whether it is additional tutoring, “advising them how to be a better student” or giving them textbooks, “which I did from my own pocket when they couldn’t afford them,” she said.

Darryn Harris is running for the Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees Seat 4.

(Gloria Mesa)

Name: Darryn Harris

Age: 42

Website: https://darrynharris.com/

Occupation that appears on the ballot: community college educator.

Experience: Harris works as a government and community affairs officer for St. John’s Community Health and recently started teaching a class on student skills at Santa Monica College, which is not an LACCD campus. He also worked at UCLA and in the halls of Congress as an aide to U.S. Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Los Angeles) and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, when she served in the House of Representatives.

“I’ve spent most of my career in public service,” Harris said. “I know how government works, how budgets and policy decisions get made, and how to bring people together when they don’t always agree.”

He wants to hear from students, faculty and staff before big decisions get made — not after. “One of the biggest things I’ve learned is to listen to the people closest to the work,” he said.

District challenges: The high cost of living in L.A. County makes it hard for students to stay in school and more needs to be done to “help more students finish and make sure their education leads somewhere,” he said.

Priorities: Harris wants to tackle the affordability crisis blocking student achievement by building more low-cost housing on district land and making it “easier for students to get help with food, transportation, child care, and other basic needs.” Harris also wants to boost student success through better counseling, transfer support and career training, including partnerships with employers and labor.

Budget: The district needs to “be aggressive” in securing additional partnerships and government funds that “can bring more resources into our colleges,” he said. Prior to cutting classes and student services, he would want to look for savings in “administrative costs, consultants, outside contracts, open positions, and construction spending.”

“We have to look at both sides,” he said. “I want to know what we are spending, why we are spending it, and whether students are actually benefiting from it.”

Student success: Harris would push to make the enrollment process easier and do more to help students finish, including through better counseling and basic needs support. “Then we need to pay attention when someone starts struggling … Reach out early with counseling, tutoring, mentoring, or whatever support they need,” he said.

Adam Bruno is running for the Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees Seat 4.

(Adam Bruno)

Name: Adam Bruno

Age: 42

Occupation that appears on the ballot: No listing

Experience: Bruno said he attended community college and as a therapist has counseled children, adults and families. This experience gives him “valuable insight” to understand student needs.

“I know what it’s like to feel neglected by an overburdened system, and I know how difficult transitioning to adult life and seeking higher education can be,” he said. Often high school graduates with learning needs can “feel too intimidated and overwhelmed to apply for college” and others, including adults, “may be unaware that community college is even an option.”

District challenges: The primary challenge is overcoming low enrollment, which Bruno said stems from financial challenges facing students. “It is very hard to focus on school when you’re just trying to survive from one day to the next,” he said.

Priorities: “My top three priorities: increase enrollment, increase accessibility to education for students and help educators feel appropriately supported and compensated.” Bruno said he’d explore student stipends as a way to enable more people to attend community college successfully.

Budget: Bruno would look for additional funding sources through donations and other measures and attempt to use the extra revenue to address financial needs of students.

Student enrollment and success: Both can be improved through additional outreach, counseling and efforts to make college more affordable, he said, so that students can “focus on education rather than being overwhelmed with day-to-day survival.”

Elaine Alaniz is running for the Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees Seat 4.

(Elaine Alaniz)

Name: Elaine Alaniz

Age: 45

Website: elainereadytoserve.com

Occupation that appears on the ballot: healthcare workforce specialist

Experience: Alaniz has worked in a number of fields, including healthcare, workforce development, disaster recovery, public administration and film production. She said she received associates’ degrees in film production and fire technology from Los Angeles City College and Los Angeles Valley College and currently serves as a public affairs specialist with the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Office of Disaster Recovery and Resilience.

“Rather than following one narrow professional track, transferable skills have allowed me to adapt across industries and remain employable as circumstances and opportunities changed,” Alaniz said. “That is what I want our students to have.” She recalled that her college professors “who taught me technical and academic skills helped make my own career possible.”

District challenges: Alaniz cited the need to ensure classroom instruction “keeps pace with a rapidly changing workforce” in the age of artificial intelligence and other technologies. She said the district needs to teach those technologies and also give students “the technical, occupational, communication and human skills employers will continue to need.”

“I would expand programs that combine academics with industry-recognized credentials, apprenticeships and hands-on training in healthcare, skilled trades, technology, public safety, logistics, advanced manufacturing, media and other growing sectors … LACCD has an opportunity to become an even stronger bridge between education and employment.”

Priorities: Alaniz wants the district to do more to ensure students are ready for the workforce. Other priorities would be more flexible class schedules and online courses for working adults and parents, and “expanding digital access to required course materials and coursework at little or no additional cost to students wherever feasible.”

“Students who prefer physical textbooks should absolutely retain the option to purchase them, but students who cannot afford a printed book should have another way to access the materials they need to succeed,” she said.

Budget: Alaniz would examine district spending, including on administration and programs with weak enrollment, to identify what works and what does not. “Before asking students or taxpayers for more money, the district should demonstrate that existing resources are producing measurable results,” she said. At the same time, Alaniz said, “LACCD should aggressively pursue appropriate state and federal grants.”

Student enrollment and success: To help students, Alaniz said it’s important to recognize that LACCD serves a diversity of students, including recent high school grads, parents and people changing careers. “I do not believe students should always have to reorganize their entire lives around the institution,” she said. “Sometimes the institution needs to become more responsive to the student.”

The enrollment process needs to be examined, she said, to ensure students are not “being lost between application, financial aid, counseling, registration and their first day of class.”

Name: Isidro J. Armenta
Occupation that appears on the ballot: Fire Department employee

Did not reply. .

Priscilla Umana is running for the Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees Seat 4.

(Priscilla Umana)

Name: Priscilla Umana

Age: 43

Occupation that appears on the ballot: American Sign Language educational interpreter

Experience: Umana said her work as an “ASL interpreter in diverse educational environments has given me a firsthand understanding of how different circumstances affect students, faculty, and staff. Through this work, I have developed a deep passion for quality education and for the future of our students.”

District challenges: “One of the biggest challenges facing our community college district is the high percentage of students experiencing housing insecurity, homelessness, and food insecurity. These challenges not only affect students’ quality of life, but also their ability to succeed academically and complete their programs.”

Priorities: Umana said her top three priorities would be affordability, accessibility and community. She would work with the district to expand affordable housing, work-study opportunities and food aid and seek to remove language and disability barriers to make college more accessible. “Education cannot be separated from the basic needs that allow students to participate in it,” she said. “To help students enroll, persist, and graduate, we must provide the stability and support they need.”

She also wants to “build stronger connections between students, faculty and staff” and learn from them how to better foster community. “My goal is to help create community colleges where every student feels supported, included, and empowered to succeed,” she said.

Budget: Umana would review the district’s budget to identify “opportunities to reduce waste while improving services.” This would include examining courses with low enrollment and deciding whether participation can be increased or if money should be redirected to where it’s more needed. She’d also work to raise additional revenue by “partnering with local businesses, nonprofits and entertainment organizations to host campus events, build community partnerships and share proceeds.”

Student enrollment and success: She would work to prioritize “basic needs, accessibility, and clear educational pathways.” She’d do so in part by advocating for expanded financial aid and proactive check-ins with students. “Our goal should be simple: make success easier to navigate and support every step of the way,” she said.

Darryn Harris is running for the Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees Seat 4.

(Calabasas Cyber Mine LLC)

Name: Jason R. Aula

Age: 41

Website: www.jasonaula.com

Occupation that appears on the ballot: Business owner/journalist

Experience: Aula said he has worked as a political campaign consultant and has “nearly 10 years experience as a businessman in technology and small share ownerships” in tech firms that use mobile apps for deliveries and transportation, experience that “has given me an understanding of the world today that few have.” Aula also said he has worked with LACCD labor unions “through business” but did not elaborate.

District challenges: Aula alleged one of the biggest issues facing the district is “financial fraud,” and in his answers referenced cases in which fraudsters posed as community college students to steal financial aid. He proposed a moratorium on noncitizens attending LACCD.

Priorities: Aula wanted to address the basic needs of students “in the interests of U.S.A citizens.” He would “increase the diversity of curriculum” to “authentically represent the United States of America citizens and interests.” He would include “protecting athletics funding, football in particular, making new partnerships with Navy to serve the district’s needs, and growing the partnership with law enforcement.”

He also said he wants to “confront pandemic learning loss.”

Budget: Aula said he would make financial deals only “that are in the interests or benefits of U.S.A. citizens.”

Editor’s note: The Times declined to publish much of Aula’s written questionnaire responses, which contained comments, proposals and unsubstantiated accusations dealing with suspected terrorists, the Chinese Communist Party, the Palestinian militant group Hamas and cannibalism.

The ballot initiative was spearheaded by the United Firefighters of Los Angeles City Local 112, the union representing rank-and-file firefighters, which has long argued that the department is underfunded.

The president of the union has said that the tax would be the most important thing for the LAFD “really ever.”

“The most important thing for the citizens of L.A. is our response times; this ballot measure would help us get more firefighters, more paramedics, more fire stations and more apparatus, which would let us respond faster to citizens of L.A.,” said Doug Coates, the president of UFLAC.

“In the Palisades, this measure would have let us respond quicker, knock it down faster, protect more homes … We would have saved more homes if we had had more firefighters, period,” he said.

The sales tax would represent the biggest investment in the city’s fire department since 2000, when voters approved Proposition F, a ballot measure that authorized the issuance of a $532-million bond — more than half of which was allocated to build 19 neighborhood fire stations and a helicopter maintenance facility.

The initiative also has received support from Mayor Karen Bass as well as Councilmember Traci Park, who represents Pacific Palisades.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is in the fight of her political life, facing a vigorous challenge from City Councilmember Nithya Raman, a savvy campaigner who was until recently a close ally.

Raman publicly endorsed Bass at the start of the year, then launched her own mayoral bid weeks later, saying the city “can’t seem to manage the basics.” She came in second behind Bass in the June 2 primary election, edging out the flashier and more attention-grabbing Spencer Pratt, a onetime reality television star.

Now, Raman and Bass — both Democrats — are heading toward a generational showdown.

Bass, 72, is a veteran lawmaker who served in Sacramento and Washington D.C., before coming to City Hall. She’s drawn support from more traditional corners of the city’s political establishment, including Los Angeles County’s Democratic Party and its Federation of Labor, which represents hundreds of thousands of workers.

Raman, 45, arrived in L.A. in 2013 and launched a City Council bid six years later. She’s been endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America and other groups that are newer to city politics, including Streets For All, which seeks to expand the city’s bus and bike lane network.

Bass has been dogged by high unfavorable ratings since the Palisades fire, which broke out in January 2025 while she was out of the country, destroying thousands of homes and leaving 12 dead. She has faced criticism over her handling of the wildfire response and recovery work.

Since the primary, the mayor’s political challenges have intensified.

The Lineage cold-storage warehouse fire broke out in June, causing communities on L.A.’s Eastside to cope with the stench of rotting meat for two months. The latest homeless count showed an increase in the number of people living on the street, dealing a setback to a mayor who staked her reputation on the issue.

Raman contends that Bass is simply a bad manager, pointing to those crises and other problems facing the city.

“I respect very much her long career of public service,” Raman said. “But the election has to be about results.”

The mayor isn’t backing down.

She says Raman has little to show for her three years running the council’s powerful housing and homeless committee. She contends that Raman is on the wrong side of the issues — particularly public safety — and does not work well with others.

“It says something that you do not have strong working relationships with any of your colleagues. Not one,” Bass said. “Each council member had a story to tell about how difficult she was to work with.”

The Times submitted surveys to the candidates. Unedited excerpts from the surveys, in which candidates lay out detailed goals and policy analysis, can be found at the links below.

Barrera

Shaw

Aligned with their parties

Shaw, 44, is the president of the Chino Valley Unified Board of Education, overseeing a relatively large school system of 26,000 students in San Bernardino County.

Barrera, 59, is the president of the San Diego Unified Board of Education, which governs the state’s second-largest school system with about 113,000 students. Barrera also serves as a senior adviser to state Supt. Thurmond, whom Shaw has sharply criticized.

Both are parents. Barrera’s children are grown; Shaw’s still are in school.

Shaw broadly characterizes the public education system as failing because of liberal Democratic policies, although she praises the quality of the public school system over which she presides. On the culture-war front, she supports flag bans at schools — which were conceived to target gay pride flags — and book restrictions that target content deemed as sexually obscene.

She became politically activated by the pandemic’s prolonged school closures, COVID vaccine mandates and mask mandates — all of which she opposed.

Despite a consistent policy alignment with the Trump administration, Shaw, a longtime religious conservative and a small business owner, objects to any implication that she is falling into line behind Trump or that she is subservient to his policies.

“I don’t put loyalty behind a person,” Shaw said. “I put my my effort and my love and my everyday sacrifice behind protecting kids, whether it’s this president, the next president or whatever. If they’re on the right side of protecting kids, then, of course, when it comes to the issues, I’m all in. I really honestly hate the division. In my heart, if we just speak on our issues, it’ll bring people together. We could see more eye to eye. We can actually have decent conversations, right?”

At times, Shaw presents a sharp rhetorical style, as when she characterized a September court ruling that placed limits on when school officials would have to notify parents about their child’s gender issues. Shaw believes such notifications should be mandatory. Her first emphatic comment, in an interview and a social media post after the hearing, which she attended, was: “Kangaroo courts. Dishonorable judges.”

Shaw sidesteps discussions about Trump’s immigration enforcement. “Districts should follow the law, communicate clearly with families and keep their attention on the classroom … That’s where our energy belongs,” she said.

Barrera, in contrast, calls Trump’s immigration raids harmful.

“This assault on our immigrant families by the Trump administration absolutely is a real issue that affects students and affects educators,” he said. “And I’m going to stand up to those assaults, and Californians will continue to stand up to those assaults.”

Barrera defends the quality of public schools and advocates for increased funding and expanding what works from successful campuses to those with poorer academic results.

Barrera sees the superintendent as a convener and organizer to advance initiatives that benefit students — with or without state funding or direction from the governor and Legislature.

As an example, he cited the education department’s effort to promote affordable workforce housing projects on school district property. He also cited efforts to reduce chronic absenteeism, for which the department gathered a working group that has produced guidance for schools.

Barrera has a long career in community and labor organizing and worked as a senior official in two unions. That background, combined with his 18 years on the San Diego school board, where he has been a union ally, made him an ideological fit with CTA. Neither Barrera nor CTA had to compromise values or shift positions to join forces for this campaign.

“I have absolute respect and … a long demonstrated partnership with the unions that represent our educators,” Barrera said, “and believe strongly that unions are democratically elected, governed institutions where the educator voice comes out most powerfully, and so for me, the unions are a partner and will always be a core voice in influencing the way that I make decisions.”

Measure G, propelled by Horvath, will result in expanding the Board of Supervisors from five to nine members in 2032 and create a new county chief executive position, with an election in 2028. It passed narrowly, with 51.6%.

It also called for creating a county ethics commission and an ethics compliance office. Other branches of government already have this, including the city of Los Angeles, where the commission’s duties include overseeing campaign finance, such as the matching funds program for political candidates. The commission also regulates lobbying and can issue penalties for fundraising and other infractions.

The Measure G governance reform task force is setting everything up, but officials realized that for true independence, the seven-member commission and the compliance office must be permanently enshrined in the county charter. That requires the approval of voters.

Establishing the commission and the compliance office, Horvath said in a statement in May, “delivers on the will of the voters and marks a monumental step toward greater transparency and accountability in County government.”

Gaspar founded Gaspar Insurance in 2008 and sold it in 2021 after he built it into one of the largest independent insurance companies in the Valley, and worked with several nonprofit and community groups: Discovery Cube Los Angeles, YMCA of Metropolitan Los Angeles, Viewpoint School‘s board of trustees and the West Valley/Warner Center Chamber of Commerce.

He would bring a pro-business perspective to City Council and help it make decisions that support business owners and residents alike.

Gaspar came in first during the primary election with 46.1% of the vote. He is running with support from groups including the Valley Industry & Commerce Assn. and the Los Angeles Police Protective League, a union representing LAPD officers. He’s also been endorsed by Blumenfield, L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, real estate developer Rick Caruso and former Democratic state Assemblymember Bob Hertzberg, Worth Girvan’s former boss.

Worth Girvan meets voters during a neighborhood event in Canoga Park’s Lanark Park.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

Worth Girvan is a longtime city and county employee, with nearly 20 years working in public service. Prior to running, she was L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath’s district director for three years, handling constituent services on the Westside and in the Valley.

Before that, she spent eight years as an aide to Hertzberg, who failed to take Horvath’s seat in 2022.

Worth Girvan secured 42.5% of the vote in the primary, only 4% shy of her opponent.

Worth Girvan said her two decades of experience at the city and county levels have helped her build relationships and gain deep knowledge of the communities she works with.

“It allows me to be able to make a phone call and to be able to know how to bring about the change that we need,” she said.

She’s been endorsed by the L.A. County Democratic Party and labor unions including the local chapters of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the Service Employees International Union. She’s also been endorsed by Horvath and former L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

The amendment aims to clarify campaign finance rules for candidates running for a seat on the board of education, which overseas LAUSD and its approximately 350,000 students.

Repetitive language in the Los Angeles City Charter would be deleted and would make clear the same campaign finance rules apply to both mayoral candidates and board of education candidates, except in certain instances, the measure says.

Among those requirements are rules governing campaign contribution limits, filing deadlines, public disclosures and fundraising windows.

Justin Allen Clayton, L.A. County deputy public defender

Bar rating: Qualified

Clayton is a Los Angeles native who attended public schools, earned a bachelor’s degree in criminology and passed the bar in 2012. He joined the public defender’s office two years later and since 2023 has served as deputy in charge of the Inglewood branch.

Clayton describes himself as a “working supervisor” who conducts arraignments and represents clients at preliminary and other hearings. He has completed dozens of trials, including three with life sentences, according to his website.

The position involves overseeing and training attorneys, as well as law clerks and summer interns, on misdemeanor and felony case preparation and trial strategy.

Clayton said a priority is improving court efficiency through pretrial preparation and “firm but fair enforcement of deadlines.”

Time as a candidate, he said, has shown him the importance of effective communication within the court system in bridging language and cultural differences. He called that a guiding principle, particularly for clients who lack counsel.

“Sometimes, one additional question, or one additional statement, can make all the difference in resolving an issue,” he said.

Clayton said running a public defender branch office, which brings him in contact with judges, sheriffs, court clerks, interpreters and others, combined with 14 years as a trial attorney, gives him a “comprehensive understanding” of the courtroom.

“That combination of courtroom experience, leadership and daily interaction with the many people who make our justice system work has uniquely prepared me to serve as a Superior Court judge,” he said.

Anna Slotky Reitano, L.A. County deputy county counsel

Bar rating: Qualified

Reitano spent the early part of her career in criminal defense, contract law and other sectors. In 2014, she joined the L.A. County public defender’s office. A decade there included three years in juvenile court, where she primarily handled felony cases, and five years at the San Fernando Courthouse, where she represented indigent clients facing felony charges.

Reitano focused on mental health diversion and treatment, aiming to support rehabilitation when possible. Having a brother with schizophrenia and witnessing how families navigate the legal system when dealing with mental illness has informed her approach.

“This has given me a deeper understanding of both the challenges individuals and families face and the ways in which the system can fall short in addressing those needs,” she said.

This is not her first bid for office. She lost a campaign for a judgeship in 2022 and two years later assumed her position in the county counsel’s justice and safety division, where she supervises litigation and advises county departments.

Reitano, a former child actor, volunteers with local schools and, according to her website, mentors “future lawyers” through moot court competitions.

Campaigning, Reitano said, has shown her that constituents, no matter how different, uniformly want “a judge who is experienced, prepared, fair and willing to listen.”

“My experience across criminal, juvenile, civil, administrative and government law has uniquely prepared me to serve wherever the court needs me,” she said.

There is no love like municipal infrastructure love.

It was late in the 20th century when my wife, Mary Frances, and I moved into Los Feliz. Quickly we learned that our corner of the neighborhood was known as Franklin Hills, and that just about every eastward outing would take us across a funny little bridge with eight pointy turrets. That bridge was the Shakespeare Bridge.

As a teacher at nearby Ivanhoe Elementary, Mary Frances crossed the bridge twice every school day for more than 20 years. As a student there, our daughter Grace crossed it for six years, usually with me as chauffeur.

We’ve crossed it at all hours in every kind of weather, on foot, on bikes and in cars, talking about school, work, family and, lately, the fractured state of the nation and world.

Now that bridge on Franklin Avenue at St. George Street is near its 100th anniversary and an Oct. 10 neighborhood celebration is in the works, complete with a street party and procession. As the day approaches, I keep thinking about how large a funny little bridge can become in the lives of its neighbors.

This view looks westward across L.A.’s Franklin Avenue Bridge, also known as the Shakespeare Bridge.

(Library of Congress)

Originally it was the Franklin Avenue Bridge, designed by J.C. Wright of the city’s civil engineering department in the mid-1920s, when a twenty-something cartoonist named Walt Disney was new to the neighborhood and the Vitagraph Studios, a block away, were transitioning from silent films to talkies.

Paid for by a controversial city assessment of neighbors, the bridge is 262 feet long and 30 feet wide — a pipsqueak compared with landmarks like Pasadena’s Colorado Street Bridge or the 6th Street Bridge between Boyle Heights and downtown L.A.’s Arts District. Its three open-spandrel arches were made using Portland cement.

Nobody knows where the Shakespeare nickname came from, but city officials designated the bridge as L.A.’s Historic-Cultural Monument No. 126 in 1974 and retrofitted it in the 1990s to better withstand earthquakes. Crucially, city staffers preserved those charming and entirely unnecessary turrets, which deserve their own sonnet, if you ask me.

“Back then, people put some thought into these things,” City Council aide Tom LaBonge told this newspaper in 1988, years before he became councilman (2001-15) for the district that includes the bridge.

Since 2017, neighbors have tended a Shakespeare Bridge Garden beneath the span. The neighbors (a.k.a. the Franklin Hills Residents Assn.) also pay to keep up the landscaping on the nearby traffic island.

When the bridge went up, L.A. “was becoming a city,” said Alison Wallace, president of the FHRA. “We were trying to look legit, and people were adding all of these amazing public works.”

The result, Wallace said, was a span that eased connections between neighborhoods and “helped us become a community.”

This view looks from below the Franklin Avenue Bridge, also known as the Shakespeare Bridge.

(Library of Congress)

Many architectural sources call its style Gothic Revival. Some see Moorish influence. Researcher Tiger Shankman has hailed its “perky, anachronistic beauty.” In “An Architectural Guidebook to Los Angeles,” authors David Gebhard and Robert Winter suggest that the ornate ends of the bridge “cry out for sculptured saints.”

Instead of saints, however, the bridge has seen a lot of actors and film crews. The bridge turns up in the movies “Dead Again” (1991) and “I Love You, Man” (2009), the Netflix series “Nobody Wants This” (in 2025) and the HBO series “I Love L.A.” (also 2025). My favorite clip is a chase sequence from a 1971 “Mannix” episode — excruciatingly slow-paced by 2026 standards, and shot long before the FHRA tore out the city’s blacktop median and planted greenery.

Given all of its neighborhood fame, it surprised me to hear how few Angelenos know about the bridge. When Charlie Ryan and Thom Vest started offering LA Explained walking tours early this year, they expected the Disney history would be a popular part of their Los Feliz itinerary, but the bridge quickly emerged as another central element.

Because most of those who sign up for the Los Feliz tour live elsewhere, they have never crossed the bridge “and don’t know it’s there,” Ryan said. “Out of all the tours that I do, it’s the one that brings the most surprise to people.”

An aerial view of the Shakespeare Bridge, formally known as the Franklin Avenue Bridge, in the Franklin Hills area of Los Feliz.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

But plenty of those who live nearby have deep connections with the bridge, including Charley and Shirley Mims, who got married there on Oct. 21, 2000.

To open the ceremony, Shirley strolled from the west end of the bridge to the east, where Charley was waiting. (They still live in the neighborhood and plan to be at the centennial party.)

“When you see the bridge and cross it,” my neighbor Dave McDonald said the other day, “you feel like you’re home. It’s like a welcoming beacon.”

“It’s a real local’s way of getting around,” said Matteo Chizzola, who moved to Los Angeles four years ago and settled in Los Feliz two years ago. Last year, when Chizzola decided to start selling matcha from a sort of grown-up street-corner lemonade stand, he chose a patch of sidewalk at Franklin Avenue and Talmadge Street, two blocks from the bridge.

A jogger crosses the Shakespeare Bridge.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

“It is beautiful and it’s weird. If you go at the right time of day, at sunset, it’s an incredible view,” he said.

Chizzola said he isn’t getting rich running the stand, Fridays through Sundays, but “it has become something that puts a huge smile on my face.”

He’ll be on hand for the bridge’s centennial parade, along with invited local luminaries including Victor the fruit guy (who worked a corner near Marshall High School for more than a decade) and Dora Herrera of the much-loved Yuca’s restaurant on Hillhurst Avenue.

A pedestrian crosses the Shakespeare Bridge,which was completed in 1926.

(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

Sometimes, when Mary Frances and I are on a neighborhood walk, we stop mid-span. In the distance to the south, you see the downtown skyline. In the arroyo below the bridge (officially the Arroyo de Sacatela) you see the private homes and yards along Monon Street and Myra Avenue. You also see the Los Feliz campus of the International School of Los Angeles (1960), the only school designed by modernist architect John Lautner.

Then there are the decorations. Every few months, in a tradition started by departed neighbor Chris Boutelle, Mary Frances joins a team of FHRA board members and other volunteers who put up hearts for Valentine’s Day, shamrocks for St. Patrick’s Day, Pride and Juneteenth flags in June, American flags and bunting in the lead-up to July 4, and so on.

Most of these costume changes are seamless. But in June 2023, someone tore down the Pride flags. Neighbors quickly replaced them. They came down again. Neighbors replaced them again. The back-and-forth went on for weeks. A suspect was arrested, released, then re-arrested.

Shakespeare Bridge in Los Feliz was the site of controversy in June 2023, when someone repeatedly stole Pride flags from a bridge display. Neighbors replaced the flags and police made an arrest.

(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

“It was almost every day for a month. People really came together,” said Wallace. The vandal surely didn’t mean to, but Wallace contends that he wound up uniting the neighborhood as never before.

The Oct. 10 bridge celebration, organized by the FHRA, will begin with a noon procession to the bridge from Marshall High School (another neighborhood Gothic Revival landmark), featuring a marching band, several vintage cars and a costumed dog parade.

At the end of that short walk, there’s a party planned from 1-5 p.m. at the end of Monon Street , right under the bridge. There will be snacks, drinks, live music, kid crafts, a bouncy house, a handful of actors in Shakespearean garb and scads of neighbors being neighborly.

I’ll be there for all of it. In times like these, every bridge needs celebrating.

Shakespeare Bridge, formally known as the Franklin Avenue Bridge, spans a ravine in the Franklin Hills with downtown Los Angeles in the background.

(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

The state Legislature was tasked with developing a better recall system after Gov. Gavin Newsom faced a gubernatorial challenge in 2021, costing state and local governments more than $200 million.

Newsom defeated the recall attempt after nearly 62% voted to keep him in office. Had he been ousted, conservative talk radio host Larry Elder was the leading candidate to replace him with less than 49% of the vote.

Former state Sen. Josh Newman, who was recalled in 2018 and later reelected to office, co-authored the measure that made it to the ballot. He believes that the elimination of a second simultaneous vote for a replacement removes “the political incentive for gamesmanship around recalls.”

“My solution is really simple: It’s to eliminate that second question and maintain the recall as a valid, powerful tool of accountability,” he said.

It’s not uncommon for someone to get appointed to fill an official’s term if they leave office before their time is up. Newman said that slotting the lieutenant governor into the role of governor in the event of a recall would follow a precedent.

The lieutenant governor currently serves as acting governor when the governor leaves the state.

The measure is backed by four of the five supervisors. During the February meeting, Horvath, who authored the initial motion, said that binding arbitration would promote transparency and push the sides to reach a deal. She said that 21 California jurisdictions, including Sacramento and San Francisco counties, have implemented binding arbitration.

Supervisor Hilda Solis called this “another tool in the toolbox.”

A battery of labor unions representing county workers are on board, including the International Assn. of Firefighters Local 1014, the Assn. for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs and the Los Angeles County Lifeguard Assn.

Dave Gillotte, president of IAFF Local 1014, which represents more than 3,000 L.A. County Fire Department employees, said contract negotiations with the county generally are intense and lengthy. He said the goal is never having to resort to binding arbitration, but that if required, this would allow a “neutral third party” to make the final decision.

“Binding arbitration really brings about leverage to move both parties to work hard to get a contract done, where we don’t have that now,” Gillotte told the Times.

Democratic State Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin is facing off against Republican candidate and nonprofit leader Samuel Gallucci in the race for California’s 26th Congressional District.

They are seeking to claim the open seat created by the retirement of Rep. Julia Brownley, who has represented the region for the last 12 years. The district stretches from the the Pacific Ocean through the foothills of the Santa Monica mountains, encompassing most of Ventura County and the L.A. County communities of Calabasas and Agoura Hills. It includes the communities of Oxnard, Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley, Ventura and Camarillo as well as wide swaths of vineyards and agricultural land.

As with most Californians, the rising cost of living and especially the price of housing are major concerns for constituents. Many communities sit at the wildland-urban interface, making wildfire prevention and response another essential issue. The district is home to a significant immigrant community in agricultural areas such as Oxnard and Camarillo, which have been the site of Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids and protests.

The seat is ranked as solidly Democratic by Cook Political Report.

Steven Veres, 46, is vying to maintain his seat on the Los Angeles Community College District Board of Trustees.

(Courtesy of Steven Veres)

Name: Steven F. Veres

Age: 50

Website: www.steveveres.com

Occupation that appears on the ballot: Los Angeles Community College District, member of the board of trustees

Experience: Veres cited his role as trustee and previous work as a teacher as key experience for another four-year term. Veres also has worked as a state politics adviser, including for Sen. María Elena Durazo. As trustee, he said his work has included strengthening job training programs, improving graduation rates and addressing basic student needs.

“Successful colleges depend on students, faculty, and staff having a meaningful voice in decisions” while the board should “listen, set clear priorities, protect public resources, and give our colleges the support necessary to help students succeed,” he said.

District challenges: The district’s greatest challenge is helping students finish their education, given how many are forced to juggle school with “jobs, housing costs, food insecurity, transportation, and family responsibilities … We need to remove those barriers while making the academic experience easier to navigate,” he said.

Priorities: “First, make college truly affordable. Tuition is only part of the cost. Housing, food, transportation, textbooks and childcare can determine whether a student stays enrolled.

“Second, improve completion and transfer rates. Students deserve clear academic pathways, accessible counseling and course schedules that allow them to earn a degree, certificate or transfer without unnecessary delays. Third, connect education to careers. I want to dramatically expand paid internships, apprenticeships and partnerships with employers and organized labor.

“These priorities reinforce each other: Students are more likely to finish when college is affordable, the path to completion is clear, and they can see the economic value of their education.”

Budget: “Our first responsibility is to use taxpayer dollars efficiently while protecting instruction and student services,” he said. In addition, Veres said that because state funding is based on enrollment, boosting it can be a path to financial stability, along with eliminating unnecessary, duplicative spending across the nine colleges and investing in energy efficiency to cut costs.

“Fiscal responsibility is not simply cutting spending,” he said. “It means directing limited resources toward what produces the greatest value for students and taxpayers.”

Student success: Veres would address barriers to student success and enrollment by pushing to make the application process easier and providing more flexible class schedules — including more evening, weekend, online and hybrid options — for working adults, parents and others. “Our job should not end when a student enrolls. It ends when that student reaches their educational goal,” he said.

Robert Payne is running for Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees Seat 2.

(Robert Payne)

Name: Robert Payne

Age: 77

Website: http://payneforlaccd.info/

Occupation that appears on the ballot: researcher/writer/environmentalist

Experience: Payne said he has taught at L.A. Mission College. His education at L.A. Valley College and Cal State Northridge helped prepare him for a career as a writer. He said he has worked on movie crews and ran an import business, among other jobs. Growing up in Pacoima helped him understand the needs of immigrants and “those of diverse backgrounds with limited resources.”

“I went through the [community college] system,” he said. “I know the difficulties. All my ideas come from my direct experience.”

District challenges: Payne cited low enrollment growth as the main challenge. Students also need to see a quicker return on their investment. “Life costs money,” he said. “If students could see immediate advantages to college, the colleges would attract more enrollments.”

He reflected on his own experience when discussing the importance of a quick payback. “I graduated from Cal State Northridge. Nothing I learned at L.A. Valley or Cal State paid off immediately,” he said. “I worked as a janitor, security guard, construction site cleaner. I lucked into a union tech job and I earned my way through graduate school. Years later, the master’s degree finally helped me get work as a ‘professor.’ ”

Priorities: Payne wants to make community colleges “cheaper, faster, better” in part by offering students more training for specific jobs and less expensive online textbooks. He also would support ending student debt.

Budget: He does not support cutting “student opportunities” and said if “the colleges can demonstrate success for the students, enrollment will justify the expense of maintaining the expense of the faculty, the staff, the facilities.”

Student success: Payne wants college to do more to offer “immediate perceived value,” including teaching résumé building, interview skills and how to apply to jobs. He said hiring adjuncts with industry experience could enhance student success.

Kristina Irwin is running for Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees Seat 6.

(Yolando Mitchell Brown)

Name: Kristina Irwin

Age: 50

Website: https://kristinairwin.com/

Occupation that appears on the ballot: parent/business owner.

Experience: As a former community college student, Irwin has firsthand knowledge of the L.A. community college student experience.

She serves on the general advisory board at Santa Monica College and said she also served on the board of trustees at her children’s school, Palisades Charter High School, during the Palisades fire. She said she holds a Public Engagement & Civic Leadership Certificate from the Davenport Institute at Pepperdine School of Public Policy.

District challenges: Irwin said the main challenge is preparing young people to advance in college when their earlier schooling failed to give them the tools to succeed.

Priorities: Irwin wants to establish “preentry” programs in every local high school that would prepare students for community college and do more to give educators the resources they need to craft classes that “fit the needs and life limitations of the students.”

Budget: Irwin said alternative streams could be identified to fund “classroom student resources.” She said that as “responsible stewards” of district resources, trustee actions “are often under scrutiny either formally or informally.”

Student success: Irwin wants to address barriers to student success and enrollment by doing more to demonstrate how a community college education can give them the tools necessary to succeed in their chosen career.

Name: Roy Payan

Payan told the Times he suspended his campaign.

Adriana Cabrera is running for Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees Seat 2.

(John McCoy/For Los Angeles Times en Espanol)

Name: Adriana Cabrera

Age: 34

Website: https://adrianaforlaccd.com/

Occupation that appears on the ballot: educator

Experience: Cabrera said she attended community college and went on to earn bachelor’s degrees in Chicana/o studies and political science and a master’s in education from Cal State Northridge. She said she also served as president of the Central Alameda Neighborhood Council and co-founded Empowering Youth in South Central, a “grassroots collective of students and educators” that “has supported thousands of first-generation students with college, career, financial-aid, and leadership support.”

“I am not coming into this role to learn higher education after I am elected,” she said. “I have studied it, worked in it, navigated it as a student, built programs within it, worked inside public institutions, and organized communities around it.”

District challenges: Cabrera said student services are too difficult to navigate, too many students struggle to afford basic needs such as housing, and clearer pathways are needed to economic mobility, She said budget decisions also can feel “disconnected” from the staff and students those decisions effect.

Priorities: “My first priority is invest in students first,” she said. Cabrera would do that by making student services easier to navigate and strengthening financial aid and other support, including for food, housing, child care and mental health.

Secondly, Cabrera wants to better connect education to economic mobility through good paying jobs. Lastly, Cabrera would give students, faculty, staff, labor organizations and community members “a meaningful voice before major budget priorities are finalized.”

Budget: Cabrera would review the district’s spending “to make sure existing dollars are being used efficiently” and “identify responsible ways to generate additional revenue without shifting costs onto students.” For instance, renting out underutilized facilities.

Student success: Cabrera would take steps to ensure student services are more readily available and the public has better visibility and say in trustee decisions. “The overall standard I would bring to the board is simple,” she said. “Can students enter LACCD, understand their options, find the support they need, complete their goal, and leave with more opportunity than when they arrived?”

Last year, Kim was one of the sponsors of the Community Investment and Prosperity Act, a proposed law that later was encompassed in another piece of legislation that expanded banks’ ability to invest in communities in a way that promotes economic development and the public good. The law allows national and state member banks to invest up to 20% of their capital and surplus in affordable housing, small business lending and community revitalization.

“Families across California have felt the effects of rising costs for years. From delivering meaningful tax relief to supporting commonsense housing and energy reforms, I remain committed to fighting for opportunity and economic security that put Californians first,” Kim said in a press release issued by Americans for Prosperity in May.

Calvert sees affordability as the biggest challenge facing families and blames Sacramento for the rising costs and “driving businesses out of the state.” He points to his vote in support of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which maintained many of the tax cuts in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 and raised the State And Local Tax (SALT) deduction cap.

“My priority is fighting to lower everyday costs, help families keep more of what they earn and supporting policies that fuel economic growth, which in turn provides higher wages and more opportunities for California families and workers,” he said.

The largest chunk of this money — $7.2 billion — would be doled out as loans to builders who agree to rent some of the homes to low-income families; in Los Angeles County, a family of four earning about $133,000 a year qualifies as low-income.

Researchers recently found that the construction of nearly 40,000 low-income homes was in limbo because of a lack of funding.

The second-largest portion of these funds — $1.25 billion — would be set aside for housing for veterans, in the form of homeownership loans. Voters last approved this type of statewide bond for veteran home loans in 2018.

According to the Legislative Analyst’s Office, the remaining dollars would be spread across several other initiatives and could subsidize up to 40,000 rental apartments, 2,500 homes for farmworkers and 1,200 beds for university students:

• $1.1 billion to help low- and middle-income families buy homes through direct loans and funds to nonprofits
• $500 million for infrastructure related to new housing, such as road and water repairs
• $450 million in loans or grants to build or upkeep affordable housing for farmworkers
• $350 million to build affordable housing for students, split evenly among the University of California and California State University
• $200 million available for tribal members to use to build or repair housing
• $200 million available to city and county governments and other entities hoping to pilot programs to build low-cost housing

Consolidate boards

Arguably the biggest change is to Area Planning Commissions, a group of seven volunteer-led boards that hear cases from homeowners, developers and businesses and make rulings on liquor licenses, hillside developments and more.

The amendment would consolidate those seven commissions into a single unified Neighborhood Appeals Commission.

The goal is efficiency. State laws passed in recent years have changed the appeals process, leading to lower caseloads for the seven boards. It’s also a financial drain on the city to train and take on so many volunteer commissioners while also paying overtime for staffers to host evening meetings for seven bodies — think audio-visual specialists, tech support, etc.

Under the amendment, the total number of commissioners would shrink from 35 to as few as seven, and the staff required to host meetings also would shrink significantly.

A unified board would eliminate the risk of commissions issuing different rulings. Picture a developer trying to build a hillside home; a commission that’s wary of such projects could reject it, while another commission that leans more pro-housing could approve it. Having a single board means that all appeals and applications would be governed by the same logic.

Pave the way for super-skyscrapers

Could an L.A. skyscraper rise higher than those in New York City or Chicago? Could downtown L.A. claim not just the tallest building west of the Mississippi River but also in the entire country?

If so, it would start here.

This amendment allows the City Council to change the existing floor area ratio (FAR) restrictions, which cap the height of certain buildings. FAR ratios vary by neighborhood and height districts, but the highest ratio is currently 13x, meaning a building’s total square footage never can be more than 13 times the size of the parcel of land that it sits on. For reference, L.A.’s tallest building, the Wilshire Grand Center, has a ratio of roughly 10.5, depending on how you calculate the square footage and acreage.

These limits were set in the 1950s, when L.A.’s population was roughly half of what it is now. This amendment would give City Council the flexibility to set higher limits to add density in order to adapt to a growing population.

Individual projects still would require zoning reviews, so no need to worry about skyscrapers coming to Silver Lake.

Set deadlines

You just opened a taco shop and you want to serve margaritas. The City Council said it’s fine, but you’re waiting to hear back from the City Planning Commission. They’re taking too long, and your patrons are drinking water while you wait for a liquor license.

Under current rules, decisions from either the City Council or Planning Department can get kicked back and forth indefinitely. This amendment sets deadlines for both sides to speed up rulings: Planning boards have 30 days to concur or dissent with City Council decisions, and City Council gets 21 days to hold a final vote on Planning decisions — or else the Planning decision becomes final.

Ensure passed amendments actually pass

Here’s how it would work. Say there’s an amendment to the city’s General Plan, which guides land use decisions, or a tweak to one of the neighborhood community plans that oversee development in areas like Hollywood or Boyle Heights. The mayor has signed off on it. The City Planning Commission approves too. But the City Council just hasn’t quite gotten to it yet.

Under current rules, if the City Council doesn’t vote on an amendment within 75 days of the mayor and Planning Commission approvals, it’s automatically denied. This amendment reverses that; if the City Council doesn’t get to an amendment within 75 days, it’s automatically approved.

McKinney has been endorsed by Hochman, the union that represents rank-and-file L.A. police officers and City Councilmembers Traci Park, John Lee, Tim McOsker and Monica Rodriguez. While McKinney has raised half a million dollars, independent expenditures have spent more than $3 million to support the veteran prosecutor.

More than $2 million of those funds have come from a political action committee run by Airbnb. The rental giant was sued by Feldstein Soto for price gouging after the destructive Palisades fire, but McKinney has dismissed criticism that he’s receiving massive financial support from a corporation that if elected, he’d be involved in litigation against.

“Airbnb is going to benefit from a safer L.A., because it’s going to boost tourism to the extent that they have properties and interests here,” he told The Times in May. “When they look at the current city attorney and they look at Marissa Roy, maybe they decided this guy is going to do a better job.”

Roy has the support of the L.A. County Democratic Party, the Democratic Socialists of America’s Los Angeles chapter, California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), City Councilmembers Ysabel Jurado and Eunisses Hernandez, L.A. City Controller Kenneth Mejia, L.A. County Supervisors Hilda Solis and Lindsay Horvath, the city attorneys of San Francisco and San Diego, the L.A. County Federation of Labor and a host of other labor unions and Democratic groups.

Mayor Karen Bass endorsed Feldstein Soto in the primary. She has yet to weigh in on the runoff.

Hollywood is filled with book-to-screen adaptations that have ignited grumbling and spirited debates. Even before its release, Zoe Kazan’s interpretation of John Steinbeck’s sprawling 1952 masterwork, “East of Eden,” roused passionate opinions from loyalists of the text on social media.

Much of the discourse surrounds Kazan’s creative choice in how to portray the book’s infamous antagonist, Cathy Ames, in Netflix’s seven-episode limited series out Thursday.

Steinbeck’s multigenerational saga ruminates on family, the power of choice and the nature of good and evil — deeply exploring the biblical stories of Cain and Abel and the fall of Adam and Eve — through the intertwined destinies of two families, the Trasks and the Hamiltons. Cathy (later known as Kate) functions as a chilling, destructive force in the saga.

Kazan pared down much of the Hamilton family’s story for the show and centered Cathy (Florence Pugh), whose arrival alters the lives of the Trask brothers, Adam (Christopher Abbott) and Charles (Mike Faist). In doing so, Kazan dared to humanize the character who has been considered one of literature’s most definitive symbols of pure evil, described by Steinbeck to be a “psychic monster” born without a conscience or kindness.

“I’m trying to protect my mental health by not being too much online,” Kazan said in a video call from London on a recent weekday. “I do think it is not surprising to me that this character brings up a lot of strong feelings for people … I’m excited to see what people think once they actually see what we have made and aren’t just anticipating something.”

Mike Faist as Charles Trask, Christopher Abbott as Adam Trask and Florence Pugh as Cathy Ames in Netflix’s “East of Eden.”

(Netflix)

When Kazan, an actor who has expanded her creative footprint behind the camera, first pitched the series in 2019 and was asked about which actor she envisioned as Cathy, she replied: “I have one.” She had seen Pugh in “Midsommar,” “Lady Macbeth” and “Little Women,” marveling at how the actor’s ultra femininity lived alongside her masculine energy.

“The range on that girl … I was like, if anybody can do that, they can play Cathy,” Kazan says. “It allowed me to write Cathy as complicated and mysterious [as I wanted] and with so much shadow and light.”

When it came to Adam and Charles, Kazan knew Abbott and Faist could depict the psychological nuance beyond the binaries of the nature versus nurture debate: “I wanted an Adam where you felt what his true nature was and the nature that his father had pushed him into … and I knew we needed that in Charles as well.”

Adapting a classic is hardly a simple endeavor, particularly one that has been done before. That Kazan would choose “East of Eden,” which unpacks legacy and generational shadows is apt: Her grandfather, Elia Kazan, famously directed the 1955 film version starring James Dean. The actors of the Netflix series are eager for viewers to see her vision come to life.

“When you do an adaptation of a book, especially a seminal American novel, no matter what, you’re always going to be up against it because … whenever somebody reads a book, the budget in their heads is unlimited,” Abbott says. “I think this is such a great adaption in its own right.”

Pugh adds: “I’m excited for people to do the stuff that I’m doing now, which is [to say], ‘Oh my God, let’s read this and see how it fits against what I’ve got in my head.’”

Over a video call together, Pugh, Abbott and Faist reflected on their journey to adapting Steinbeck’s epic story, including their first experiences with it and filling in the shades of these characters who remain timeless allegories of the human condition. This conversation, which contains spoilers, has been edited for clarity and length.

Florence Pugh, left, Christopher Abbott and Mike Faist take on some of literature’s most indelible characters — Cathy Ames, Adam Trask and Charles Trask — made famous in John Steinbeck’s classic “East of Eden.” (Photographs by Sophia Spring / For The Times)

When did you first encounter the book?

Faist: My first encounter with the story was the James Dean, Elia Kazan film. That was a movie that I watched, especially when I first moved to New York and wanted to be an actor. It wasn’t until Zoe and Florence asked if I’d be interested in doing this, that I picked up the book.

Pugh: I want to say maybe my early 20s, I read the book. I only watched the movie recently to prepare myself for these kind of conversations. I’m rereading the book now while we’re heading into press, just so I can like fine-tune what I thought I knew … there’s so much love that’s being breathed into every single sentence of every chapter [in this adaptation], and that is solely down to Zoe’s fantastic brain and her ability to want to dig deeper.

Abbott: A lot of my favorite books I’ve picked up and put down numerous times before actually plowing through it — that was the case here until Zoe approached me about doing it. I was like, “Well, this is a perfect excuse to finally [finish].”

This adaptation lit up social media early on for centering Cathy. She is such a polarizing figure. Some see her solely as an evil monster. Some argue there is more nuance to what’s driving her actions. Florence, how do you see her?

Pugh: It’s tricky because I know I’m gonna get asked this again and again, and I guess I’m still trying to figure out how to word it without totally pissing people off. I love finding characters that people automatically think are villains and trying to find a way for you to love them — it’s my favorite thing to do.

I read these episodes, and I was listening to Zoe and how she was wanting this to come from Cathy’s perspective, how Cathy was her hero and how she’s just been championing Cathy ever since she first read the book — that was so f— exciting to know that we’re not gonna just point the finger and say that she’s evil. It is my job to do my skills as good as possible so that I can argue in defense of them. I believe that I can argue for her, which is terrifying but also really cool. I care for her deeply. I understand where she went and why. Does she do some terrible things? Absolutely. Is she a product of the situation that she grew up in? Totally. You can’t get raped as a child and and you be totally fine for the rest of your life.

Florence Pugh as Cathy Ames. She hopes the adaptation prompts curiosity: “I’m excited for people to do the stuff that I’m doing now, which is [to say], ‘Oh my God, let’s read this and see how it fits against what I’ve got in my head.’”

(Netflix)

That detail was not explicitly stated in the book. What were your conversations with Zoe about it?

Pugh: That’s why we ended up choosing the way that we explained it and the way that we showed it — that little girl is so tiny you can’t even imagine anything bad happening to her, and the fact that she’s holding “Alice in Wonderland,” [in her mind], there’s so many through lines through Cathy and Kate’s life that all come back to that moment. You don’t need to do much. Everybody has the sinking feeling of what might happen to a vulnerable child in that situation. In the book, I think it’s constantly playing with the themes of can we trust her? Is she already a monster as a child?

What Zoe has done is made her a real human, and has given her cause and has given her time to understand. That moment that is alluded [to in the book ] — if Cathy asked the boys to tie her down, and whatever it is that they were doing to her — it’s no longer alluded [in the series]. That [assault] happened, but maybe people didn’t believe her.

Mike, what were you interested in excavating with Charles, this Cain archetype who’s tormented by rejection and jealousy?

Faist: What is amazing about this story is — and it’s the entire through line of the entire novel — is this idea of timshel. What happens in a person’s life, and the burdens that they carry, then the choices they make, and every single moment as they continue to live it. Charles jumped out at me. There was just something about him that I was very drawn to — and along with that pull, there’s this feeling of dread, where you say, “Oh God, I can’t believe that I’m about to jump in and do this thing.” You end up surrendering yourself to it. It is scary and deeply exciting.

Abbott: I don’t have a brother. You forget too that they’re half brothers and what that dynamic is like, what kind of Freudian s— pops up. I think the through line for Mike and I, because there’s a lot of conflict there, that it always comes from a place from love. The letters, as they [Charles and Adam] get older, that are written or the letters that he starts to write and doesn’t send, when there is hate between them, it’s because they love each other so much. Otherwise, it would just be indifference. A lot of that happens in the things that are unsaid.

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1. Mike Faist as Charles Trask. (Netflix) 2. Christopher Abbott as Adam Trask. He found the sibling relationship intriguing: “I don’t have a brother. You forget too that they’re half brothers and what that dynamic is like, what kind of Freudian s— pops up.” (Kirsty Griffin / Netflix)

When Zoe approached you, Chris, to play Adam, you questioned whether she actually meant for you to be Charles?

Abbott: I’m just used to being typecast, so I thought she made a mistake. Zoe’s mentioned this idea of masculine and feminine energy — what one presents and what one actually holds, and the old switcheroos of that. The very first email, I was like, “Oh, are you sure?” But I was excited to play with all the nuance of and the layers of what this is. I had seen the movie before, and it [covers] only the last 100 or so pages. It’s really gratifying to play a part where you get to see someone’s whole life and how this guy goes from being this wanderer, drifter to this to stoic, depressed, rigid older man.

What moment between these characters were you most eager or nervous to depict?

Faist: The scene that I reflect back on the most, that actively had the biggest impact on me, is the scene between Cathy and Charles, where she comes into his room and the two of them share this intimacy together. We had talked about what we were wanting to do, then on the day, none of it was really working. I remember Florence had this really specific thing she wanted to bring to the scene. And it was really powerful — there’s these very rare moments when you genuinely feel someone’s objective actively working against your own. [Pugh makes a quizzical face.] No, it’s good! It creates this friction and this tension that does exist and does live.

Abbott: That was your favorite, huh?

Faist: I’m sorry, Chris! That one was just such a visceral feeling of, I know what my character wants in this thing, and her character is very much wanting the exact opposite and the literal clash of that that moment and the feeling of that — I’ll never forget that.

Pugh: It’s such an important scene to get right because it literally is the ending moment of those two; it added so much pressure on the day of shooting. It’s actually really hard when you’re trying to do a sex scene that’s consensual, but it’s definitely not at the right time. The coolest thing about it is it wasn’t working and we had to push everyone out. Everyone was whispering and everyone was trying to figure out what they were comfortable with us doing and, eventually, Mike and I were just like: Right. Done.

Florence Pugh, with Christopher Abbott, left, and Mike Faist, says “East of Eden” endures because “every single one of these characters is struggling to survive realistically.”

(Sophia Spring / For The Times)

Chris, you have the daunting task of, in the closing moments of the series, delivering the word that’s the thrust of the whole story —timshel.

Abbott: I think that was the last scene I shot. I can’t say I was being lazy, but the character had a stroke so he was laying there. You just gotta listen [in a moment like that]. Hoon [Lee, who plays Lee] is reading from the Bible. You take in the room. I nailed it in one. [Pugh and Faist laugh.]

People have deep feelings about “East of Eden.” And it seems to have had a real resurgence recently, even outside of curiosity about this adaptation. Why do you think that is?

Abbott: That’s a big, existential [thing to think about]. There’s a ton of themes in the book that are relevant: displacement, family, love. The themes in the book aren’t specific to the time period. All great works are that.

Pugh: It’s also about generational trauma and change in healing. One of the things I recognized immediately when I started rereading the book months ago, the first few pages about the Salinas Valley describe very quickly that this place is about growth, change and moving on. What I’ve taken from our adaption of Cathy and her generational trauma and what she’s doing to her kids is that not everybody is going to get it right. The reason I think why people keep picking it back up is every single one of these characters is struggling to survive realistically, and they are all making decisions that affect and domino-effect other people around them. Us learning about how we could have done better will always be relevant. And especially with America, and what we’re watching in terms of its constant battle against racism and immigration. It’s relevant to life and to our lives.

Former Long Beach Police chief Robert Luna came out of retirement to run for sheriff in 2022, promising to turn around a department that had veered off course.

As someone who didn’t have the wide name recognition or countywide political experience of some of his challengers, Luna’s second-place finish to Villanueva in the primary was far from guaranteed, but he ultimately cleared the rest of the field by a wide margin.

Fast-forward four years to June, and Luna received 44.2% of the vote in this primary — less than six points short of winning the race outright — versus Villanueva’s 21.7%. And Luna’s been a more effective fundraiser, bringing in $366,000 since Jan. 1, more than three times the nearly $109,000 Villanueva had raised by June 30, according to their most recent campaign filings. Luna had $352,000 in the war chest as of June 30, and Villanueva had about $56,000.

But Villanueva has wide name recognition in L.A. County. And he pulled off a historic political upset of his own in 2018 when he beat Sheriff Jim McDonnell, who is now the Los Angeles police chief. It was the first time an incumbent L.A. County sheriff lost a reelection campaign in more than a century. It was also the first time in 100 years that a Democrat had been elected to the nonpartisan sheriff’s job.

After running on a progressive platform and pitching himself as a criminal justice reformer, Villanueva tacked hard to the right. Within two years he was a favorite of conservative media, including Fox News, where he appeared repeatedly to vilify “woke” culture and criticize Democrats. He ultimately switched his party registration to Republican in a move that solidified a new base of law-and-order supporters while alienating many who supported him in 2018.

Villanueva’s tenure was marked by controversy and scandal. He launched, then walked back a criminal leak investigation of a Los Angeles Times reporter and was ordered to testify after sheriff’s deputies took and shared pictures at the site of Kobe Bryant’s helicopter crash. Villanueva defied subpoenas over so-called deputy gangs.

Now, Luna is the one defending his record as sheriff over the last four years. He’s presided over declines in homicides and violent crime and established a period of relative calm after the stormy Villanueva years. But Luna’s department has come under scrutiny in the wake of a July 2025 incident in which a grenade exploded accidentally in a department parking lot, killing three deputies. The state has fined the department more than $350,000 after identifying a series of safety violations leading up to the blast.

And the Civilian Oversight Commission filed suit against the department in June for declining to provide certain records related to three cases of use of force the commission issued subpoenas for in February 2025. Luna has said the county’s attorneys maintain that the unredacted records can’t be released until it completes a “meet and confer” process with the Sheriff’s Department union, a claim that watchdogs have disputed.

Min said Trump’s attacks on voting by mail and his attempts to get the U.S. Postal Service to refuse to deliver mail-in ballots, combined with his attempts in 2020 to overturn the election, “should worry every American who cares about our country, our Constitution, and the values of our nation.”

Min added that all of this has happened despite no evidence of widespread voter fraud.

In 2024, Min authored a bill which passed that prohibits local governments from forcing voters to present identification before they cast a ballot at a polling place.

“I will continue to do all I can to stand up against these anti-democratic and un-American attacks on the sanctity of our elections,” Min said.

Le Roux told The Times she supports the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility or SAVE America Act, which would require voters to provide documents proving their citizenship at the time of registration and a photo ID at the time they vote.

In California, people are required to provide a driver’s license number or a portion of their social security number when they register to vote.

“Millions of ballots are mailed out in California with very few safeguards and at significant cost, leading to weeks of uncertainty as the rest of the country laughs and mocks us for our incompetence,” she said.

Le Roux also supports Proposition 39, which will appear on the November ballot in California, and would require voters to show government issued identification at the polls. Voters who submit mail-in ballots would need to provide the last four digits of a government ID to vote.

Proponents of the measure say Los Angeles is falling short in providing basic services, including street and sidewalk maintenance, upkeep of streetlights and trees and other services administered by the Department of Public Works.

The measure is intended to streamline public works decision-making to improve city services and add new sources of revenue by leveraging existing resources such as underutilized city land.

Measure LA’s perhaps most controversial element is the proposal to increase the power of the director of public works while reducing the sway of the Board of Public Works or potentially eliminating it.

The director would be able to manage public works projects, including construction, buying or leasing property, exercising eminent domain with City Council approval, granting street permits, regulating parking and recommending budgets for the department.

An opponent of the measure, Rodriguez said the Board of Public Works was established to provide independent review of city contracting, with commissioners’ decisions made in public meetings.

“Removing this important check and balance would reduce public scrutiny and weaken accountability over billions of taxpayer dollars for public projects,” Rodriguez said in her ballot argument against the measure.

Commissioners are appointed by the mayor. They work full-time on the board for five-year terms administering the Public Works Department while assisted by several bureau heads and the director of public works.

Proponents of the measure say the current system of overseeing public works is ineffective because responsibility is spread among multiple officials, commissions, agencies and bureaus.

“Angelenos see the results in crumbling streets, buckled sidewalks and streetlights that stay dark,” proponents said in their ballot argument.

Another key element of the measure is establishing a two-year budget cycle for the city, which currently adopts its budget annually. Under Measure LA, the mayor would be required to submit a proposed two-year budget to the City Council by April 1. A two-year budget would enhance planning for infrastructure improvements under another new requirement that the city adopt a Capital Infrastructure Plan.

Most major U.S. cities rely on multiyear capital improvement plans to schedule spending on roads, bridges, parks and buildings.

A long-term infrastructure plan administered with two-year budgeting “sets clear priorities, identifies the projects that need to get done, and plans how to fund them over time,” proponents said.

Currently, the charter prohibits the city from mortgaging city-owned property and prevents it from operating purely commercial or industrial businesses. The measure would remove these restrictions to raise new revenue.

Easing restrictions on operating a business also would allow the city to use its intellectual property to sell merchandise with city logos, as is done in other cities including New York, Yaroslavsky said.