by Randy Shaw on August 22, 2022 (beyondchron.org)
Freddy Puza lawn sign, Caroline Menjivar, Erin Darling, Natalya Zernitskaya
Huge Impact For California Housing Politics
These candidates will help end the LA region’s anti-housing politics:
- Alex Fisch and Freddy Puza in Culver City
- Caroline Torosis, Natalya Zernitskaya, and Jesse Zwick in Santa Monica
- Chelsea Lee Byers in West Hollywood
- Karen Bass, Erin Darling, Lindsey Horvath, Hugo Soto-Martinez, Caroline Menjivar, Katy Young Yaroslavsky, and Rick Chavez Zbur in Los Angeles
They will also boost LA-area support for critical state bills addressing California’s housing crisis.
The upside for housing advocates this November is huge. Here’s why.
Culver City: Fisch and Puza
Culver City joins Cambridge and Berkeley in having the nation’s most progressive and effective pro-housing, pro-tenant City Councils. Incumbent Alex Fisch is a visionary leader. He ranks with the nation’s best local officials. Freddy Puza will maintain this pro-housing, pro-tenant council majority.
Not familiar with Culver City? Here’s how it was described in 2019: “A leafy suburb steeped in moviemaking history and home to Sony Pictures. It’s where Judy Garland famously walked the yellow brick road and Vivien Leigh watched Atlanta go up in flames. And more recently, this once dilapidated industrial area has become Los Angeles’s pricey, competitive, and unlikely center of gravity for tech startups, gaming developers, and entertainment giants.”
My father worked his entire career in Culver City. My high school held ice skating events there. But tech’s arrival has imperiled Culver City’s future as a home for working and middle-class residents. That’s why it’s vital that the city council advance this goal.
Culver City’s current council majority (Yasmine-Imani McMorrin is the third progressive) has aggressively pushed to maintain the city’s economic and racial diversity. Groups like Culver City for More Homes and Onward Culver City are mobilizing residents to support an inclusionary agenda. But many longtime homeowners want Culver City to become a rich enclave. Fisch and Puza face well-funded opposition from homeowners who want to keep apartments, bike lanes and non-rich people out of their neighborhoods.
Here’s how School Board member Dr. Kelly Kent sees it: “Alex Fisch has been a regional leader in building more housing of every kind. Legalizing ADUs, four-plexes, affordable housing, supportive housing, market rate housing and workforce housing has been his primary commitment for the entirety of his first term on Council. Freddy Puza has organized for tenant protections, renters’ rights and increasing housing supply areas for years. He would formally join Alex in the fight to address the concurrent and mutually accelerating crises of homelessness and climate change.”
Kelly is a big backer of building housing on school sites, something Fisch and Puza also support.
The Culver City Democratic Club has endorsed Fisch and Puza. (Disclosure: I have endorsed and donated to both candidates).
Santa Monica: Jesse Zwick, Caroline Torosis, and Natalya Zernitskaya
In 2020, longtime progressive Santa Monica saw its city council taken over by a “Change Slate” of anti-housing “moderates.” Opposition to new apartments and attempts to weaken rent control have followed.
Three candidates are challenging the current council majority. All must win for pro-housing, pro-tenant forces to secure a 4-3 majority.
Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights (SMRR) has long been the key player in city politics. But 2020 showed that their endorsement no longer ensures council seats. The rise of forces against new affordable apartments and supporting crackdowns on the unhoused requires SMRR to be part of a broader progressive political coalition.
That should mean endorsing Torosis, Zernitskaya, and Zwick. Torosis is a certain SMRR endorsee. But the other two are not.
Jesse Zwick has a comprehensive strategy for addressing the city’s housing and homelessness crisis. He is part of a new generation of Santa Monica activists seeking to keep the city on a progressive path. Zernitskaya also backs a progressive approach. But because both support building new apartments on transit corridors, some in SMRR do not want to endorse them.
SMRR’s endorsement of all three candidates is the best strategy for electing a pro-tenant majority. A council majority that would never consider undermining rent control. Let’s hope SMRR takes this opportunity to help lead Santa Monica back to its progressive roots. (Disclosure: I endorsed and donated to Jesse Zwick).
West Hollywood
Community organizer Chelsea Byers is running for the West Hollywood City Council. Byers has been an extraordinary housing and tenant advocate. She knows how to build winning political coalitions and how to get things done. Byers will bring an important voice to Los Angeles’ regional housing debate. (Disclosure: I endorsed and donated to Chelsea Byers).
Los Angeles
Karen Bass
Generation Priced Out describes Los Angeles as having the nation’s worst housing affordability and homelessness crisis. Both crises reflect decades of refusing to build enough housing to meet population growth. The LA city council recently overwhelmingly passed a brutal measure targeting the unhoused; it would not have gotten a single vote for a comparable law in Berkeley’s council or in the SF Board of Supervisors.
Karen Bass is headed to victory in the LA mayor’s race. A former State Senate leader, Bass will likely play a much larger role in Sacramento housing politics than the city’s past mayors. This could help persuade LA-based state legislators to support pro-housing state bills.
Bass will be under immediate pressure to address the city’s housing and homelessness crisis. But she needs support. Most current Los Angeles city councilmembers were originally elected by anti-housing homeowners empowered by off year council elections with shockingly low voter turnouts. Voters moved council races to even number years starting in 2020. This has already elected council members like Nithya Raman, who are better on housing than their predecessors. Three candidates could continue this trend.
Erin Darling, Hugo Soto-Martinez, Katy Young Yaroslavsky
Erin Darling is running for the seat long held by Mike Bonin. Bonin was the most pro-housing councilmember for much of his tenure. Darling should be better on development issues. Darling’s victory over a NIMBY opponent would bring a powerful housing voice to the council.
Hugo Soto-Martinez offers a must stronger commitment to tenant protections and affordable housing production than his opponent, incumbent Councilmember Mitch O’Farrell. Soto-Martinez would bring a critical pro-housing, pro-labor perspective to the council..
Katy Young Yaroslavsky will be a vast improvement in supporting housing production over her predecessor, Paul Koretz. Yaroslavsky also shifts LA’s housing debate in a more positive direction.
Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez has already been elected to replace Gil Cedillo. She too will be a far more effective voice on tenant and housing issues than her predecessor.
The current LA City Council has made the city’s housing crisis worse. Voters have an historic opportunity to set Los Angeles on a far more productive approach.
LA County Board of Supervisors: Lindsey Horvath
West Hollywood City Council member Lindsey Horvath is running against State Senator Bob Hertzberg for a seat on the powerful five-member County Board of Supervisors. Horvath is a strong housing advocate; Hertzberg recently cast the vote that killed AB 2053, Assemblymember Alex Lee’s social housing bill. Horvath’s election would add another strong pro-housing voice to the Los Angeles region.
State Assembly: Rick Chavez Zbur
Rich Chavez Zbur is heavily favored to defeat Louis Abramson for the seat vacated by the termed-out Richard Bloom. Both candidates are very pro-housing. Both would be more supportive of expanding apartments on transit corridors and other development measures that Bloom opposed. Zbur would bring the Los Angeles region the strong pro-housing state legislator that California needs.
State Senate: Caroline Menjivar
“Every once in a while there’s a political contest that highlights what can go wrong in politics. In 2022, that would be Daniel Hertzberg’s campaign for state Senate District 20. “—-Kate Karpilow, CalMatters, February 2, 2022.
Read Karpilow’s great story on California’s pattern of dynastic succession. Despite lacking any experience in politics, Bob Hertzberg’s son secured his father’s endorsers and funding stream to become the frontrunner in this crucial State Senate race. Caroline Menjivar has personally experienced housing insecurity and would bring an important housing voice to Sacramento. Her victory, when joined by Rick Zbur’s likely Assembly win, would positively impact state housing politics.
I know many are skeptical about the Los Angeles region abandoning decades of anti-apartment politics. But the combination of a broader electorate and a worsening crisis opens the door to a long overdue shift.
I think the above candidates make this shift happen in November. So if you’ve been waiting on the sidelines to get involved in Los Angeles housing politics, now is the time to jump in.
Randy Shaw
Randy Shaw is the Editor of Beyond Chron and the Director of San Francisco’s Tenderloin Housing Clinic, which publishes Beyond Chron. Shaw’s latest book is Generation Priced Out: Who Gets to Live in the New Urban America. He is the author of four prior books on activism, including The Activist’s Handbook: Winning Social Change in the 21st Century, and Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century. He is also the author of The Tenderloin: Sex, Crime and Resistance in the Heart of San Francisco
