Election Update: Winning her seat outright, Yaroslavsky looks ahead
Incumbents Hugo Soto-Martínez and Katy Yaroslavsky won their respective City Council seats outright in the June 2 primary, which means instead of campaigning through November, they can get to work on plans for the next four years.
METRO BOARD MEMBER Yaroslavsky was at the opening of the recent Wilshire/Fairfax station opening.
Yaroslavsky reaped 64.18% of the vote, and Soto-Martinez crossed the finish line with 68.46% of ballots cast, according to the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder.
So, what is high on their to-do lists?
“I think it’s homelessness, public safety and public services, and you can’t start funding these things without getting our fiscal house in order,” Katy Yaroslavsky, of CD5, said in a phone interview last month.
Fiscal responsibility is something she knows something about as chair of the City Council Budget and Finance Committee.
For starters, she wants to better utilize the city’s billions of dollars of real estate assets (such as parking lots at the Convention Center and vacant property near City Hall East) to help pay for homeless beds, streetlights and other pressing needs.
She is also implementing a Business Improvement District in conjunction with the community on Wilshire Boulevard in Miracle Mile. BIDs greatly improve an area’s walkability and livability, with trash pickups, tree plantings, and more. Just look at Larchmont Boulevard, she said.
As for homelessness, the good news, according to Yaroslavsky, is, “We’ve seen a 27% decrease in the last three years.” She continued, “It’s progress, not victory,” adding the county and state need to step up.
Sacramento has not taken homelessness seriously, she said, so lobbying at the state capital is chief on her list, while “mental health and addiction issues are the purview of the county.”
Other laws she said need to be tweaked involve implementing harsher sentences for thieves stealing copper from streetlamps, who are currently slapped with a misdemeanor.
Money to maintain streetlights, as well as to fund solar, has not increased since Bill Clinton was president. “Generations of councilmen have kicked the can down the road,” Yaroslavsky said.
As a board member of Metro, she plans to continue to work to keep stations safe and vibrant, with the addition of farmers markets, skate parks, and security enforcement.
Councilmember Soto-Martínez will be interviewed next month as he was unavailable by press time.
Category: News
