Ten contested local seats on ballots this month
Incumbent City Councilmember David Ryu is working to keep his seat in District Four in the face of a challenge from newcomer Nithya Raman. Council District Four includes most of Larchmont, Hancock Park and surrounding Larchmont Chronicle readership areas. See the map of local political districts on pages 16-17. Other local candidates in highly contested elections on the Nov. 3 ballot are Holly Mitchell, who is running against Herb Wesson to represent the Second District on the County Board of Supervisors, and Mark Ridley-Thomas, who is competing with Grace Yoo to represent Council District 10.
Our editorial board talked with all six of those candidates in Zoom meetings last month. Those three races are nonpartisan. You can read our article on each of those candidates in the October issue on pages 14 and 15, 18 and 19 and 20 and 21.
This year, our four incumbent members of the U.S. House of Representatives, Adam Schiff (D), Ted Lieu (D), Jimmy Gomez (D) and Karen Bass (D), face challengers Eric Early (R), James P. Bradley (R), David Kim (D) and Errol Webber (R), respectively.
Three incumbent members of the State Assembly, Richard Bloom (D), Miguel Santiago (D) and Sydney Kamlager (D), face challenges from Will Hess (D), Godfrey Santos Plata (D) and Tracy Bernard Jones (D), respectively.
There is one countywide race that is highly contested, the nonpartisan job of Los Angeles County District Attorney. Incumbent Jackie Lacey is facing a challenge from former San Francisco County District Attorney George Gascón. There is an article on that contest below.
Finally, the Nov. 3 ballot includes 12 statewide propositions and one Los Angeles County measure.
Editorial: Re-Elect Councilman Ryu
By John Welborne
The Larchmont Chronicle recommended the re-election of David Ryu in the March primary. We do so again in the November 3 runoff election — where voting actually commences this month.
Ryu grew up in Los Angeles and has a record of years of productive employment since college — more than 15 years in government and the private sector, all prior to his election as our Councilmember in 2015. That record is a significant contrast to his opponent, Nithya Raman, who moved to Los Angeles in 2014. In the 2000s, she obtained degrees from two great universities in Cambridge, Mass. (Harvard and MIT). Raman spent most of her time between and after those schools in India, where she was associated with a research center at the Institute for Financial Management and Research in Chennai, where she prominently initiated and directed a program (Transparent Chennai) focused on urban action research beginning in 2009.
After moving to Los Angeles in 2014, Raman worked part-time in 2014 and 2015 as an administrative trainee in the City of Los Angeles Chief Administrative Office where she did research for a well-regarded report, and she worked, for about one year, as executive director of Time’s Up Entertainment from July 2018 to August 2019. She then announced that she was running for a seat on the Los Angeles City Council.
What we residents of the Fourth Council District need is not a well-meaning, ambitious person looking for a four-year Council job. We need an experienced person — one who already has done an exceptionally good job as our Councilmember since 2015.
That person is Councilmember David Ryu. We continue to urge our readers to vote to re-elect him as our representative.
While Ryu and his opponent may agree, possibly 100 percent, on what are the issues of the day (homelessness, affordable housing, crime, etc.), Ryu already has made progress in addressing these issues and is far more likely to make continued progress.
Ryu is aware of, and concerned about, national and global issues, but his primary goal is to serve us in this District.
On or before November 3, please vote for David Ryu.
Category: News
