Imelda Padilla, LA’s newest city councilmember, officially gets sworn in

Imelda Padilla, the newest member of the Los Angeles City Council, was sworn in as an officially elected councilmember on Tuesday, Aug. 1, after her win in the June special election for Council District 6 was certified by the council.

Padilla had been appointed to the council on July 5, about a week after a runoff election to fill the vacant seat in the district showed her well ahead of her competitor. But the council could only recognize Padilla as an appointed councilmember, while it waited for the election results to be formally certified by the county registrar’s office.

Tuesday marked the council’s first opportunity to declare those election results final, following a nearly monthlong summer recess during which the council did not meet.

Just before the council voted 12-0 to certify the results, Padilla said she looked forward to being a “coalition builder.”

“I’ve been talking a lot on my campaign trail about how I’m not a fan of policy being done in a very zero-sum way. … I told my (constituents) that I was going to come, be here and be intentional with what I do, not just gonna do things because they’re popular or because it happens to be what’s sensational at the time,” she said, pledging to be “methodical” and “intentional” in her actions and decisions.

Padilla, who turned 36 last month, is the second-youngest member on the Los Angeles City Council.

Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, who is 33, noted that Padilla’s election means there are now seven women on the 15-member council – a record in Los Angeles – and said it shows that young people can lead.

“Young people with the progressive vision can lead and can take these positions,” Hernandez said.

Time will tell whether Padilla’s constituents will consider her a far-left Democrat or one whose positions are more centrist.

Padilla has worked as a community organizer, advocating to raise the city’s minimum wage and tackling environmental issues. Despite her advocacy work on minimum wage, Padilla was endorsed by business groups. She said on the campaign trail that those endorsements demonstrate her ability to build coalitions.

Unlike other current or former councilmembers, Padilla does not support defunding the police department – though she supports alternative, unarmed crisis responses – and she is not entirely opposed to the city’s anti-camping law known as 41.18.

During a candidates forum in June, Padilla also expressed a desire to further empower the city’s scores of neighborhood councils, advisory bodies to the L.A. City Council whose members are elected by voters to represent their local communities, but serve without pay. Neighborhood councils often tackle basic quality-of-life issues, such as traffic safety or environmental concerns, to improve their communities.

Council District 6 includes central and eastern parts of the San Fernando Valley including Arleta, Lake Balboa, North Hills, North Hollywood, Panorama City, Sun Valley and Van Nuys.

Having served on the Sun Valley Area Neighborhood Council years ago, Padilla – who advocated for tree plantings and alleyway cleanups as a member of that council’s land use committee – expressed frustration with “the lack of respect” she said some councilmembers have for neighborhood councils.

At the time, Padilla said that if elected to the L.A. City Council, she would advocate to allow neighborhood councils to roll over their budget funds from one fiscal year to the next, and for neighborhood councils to be better trained to write “community impact statements,” which city councilmembers consider when they weigh how to vote on an issue.

In an interview after being sworn in Tuesday, Padilla said she spent the past month, while the council was largely on recess, focused on opening up field offices in District 6 to respond to constituents who reach out for help. She’s about 40% staffed up and hopes to have many positions filled by September, she said.

Once her team is in place, Padilla said her goal will be to put together a strategic plan for improving the district.

The newest councilmember also introduced her first motion on Tuesday, calling for city staff to report back within 30 days about infrastructure and safety upgrades needed to resume holding some council meetings at Van Nuys City Hall. The council used to hold a meeting quarterly in Van Nuys before the coronavirus pandemic, according to Padilla’s spokesperson.

District 6 residents had been without an elected city official representing them since October when former Councilmember Nury Martinez resigned for her role in a racist backroom conversation that was secretly recorded in 2021, then leaked to the public last fall.

Padilla worked as a field deputy for Martinez about a decade ago – long before the scandal that led to Martinez’s downfall – and has condemned the comments made by her former boss.

The race to succeed Martinez started with a field of seven candidates on the primary ballot in April. The top two finishers in that race, Padilla and Marisa Alcaraz, who serves as a top aide to Councilmember Curren Price, faced off in the June runoff election, where Padilla won with 55.8% of the votes.

Padilla has been described by some of her colleagues on the council who knew her before the election as hard-working. She’s credited her parents for instilling strong work ethics in her and her siblings. On Tuesday, she thanked her mother, who was in the council chamber, for her support and for being her “ride or die.”

Also in attendance Tuesday was her younger brother, whom Padilla said managed to get away from his job as a chef to see his sister get sworn in. He was unable to attend the meeting last month when Padilla was appointed to the council.

“One thing you will all see is that we are a family of hustlers. My family works,” said Padilla, using that as a springboard to talk about how she plans to work to represent Council District 6.

She also thanked U.S. Rep. Tony Cardenas, who attended the council meeting. Cardenas, who previously represented District 6 on the L.A. City Council, had endorsed Padilla during her campaign. Padilla and others on the council said Cardenas helped pave the way for more Latinos to believe they deserve a seat in government.

“Thank you,” she said to the congressman, “for being that example for young people, for the Spanish-speaking community, that we do belong in these halls.”