Over the weekend, we saw a couple of noteworthy announcements from our local city council districts.
First, from CD 5, which generally represents the western part of our Greater Wilshire area, was the news from Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky that she has been named by LA Mayor Karen Bass to the Metro board of directors. Yaroslavsky expressed her excitement about the appointment in her weekly newsletter yesterday:
This is a big deal, and I am honored that the Mayor has entrusted me to help solve some of our region’s largest challenges. Our Metro buses and trains are ground zero for our homelessness crisis, ridership is way down, and the Metro Board has a critical role to play in our regional approach to creating a more sustainable LA. That means building affordable and workforce housing on Metro owned properties, ensuring true community safety on Metro buses, trains, and stations, and connecting unhoused riders directly to services. We also have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to transform how Angelenos move around our city, both on the Westside with the coming Metro D (Purple) Line Extension and Sepulveda Pass Transit Corridor project, and across Los Angeles.
Yaroslavsky explained that the Metro board comprises 14 representatives from across Metro’s service region, with four seats occupied by representatives of the city of Los Angeles, including the current mayor. Yaroslavsky said her first meeting with the Metro board will be this Thursday, March 23, at 10 a.m.. A detailed agenda is available here. (PDF version available here.) A link to a live video feed from the meeting will be available here when the meeting begins.
Meanwhile, in his weekly newsletter, CD 13 Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez announced that his office has appointed a new Field Deputy to represent the area including Hollywood, East Hollywood and most of our eastern Greater Wilshire neighborhoods, including Windsor Square and Larchmont Village.
The new Field Deputy is Anais Gonzalez, a graduate of California State University, Northridge, who most recently worked as a Constituent Advocate in City Council District 11. Before that, she was a Scholarship and Volunteer Program Coordinator at the Salvadoran American Leadership and Educational Fund (SALEF).
Field deputies are the Council office staffers most closely connected to our local neighborhoods, whom constituents should connect with first about local issues and concerns. To reach out to Gonzalez directly, email [email protected].
