Endorsement: Re-elect Imelda Padilla to the L.A. City Council
It was just over six months ago that yet another scandal shaking Los Angeles City Hall resulted in the need for a special election in the eastern San Fernando Valley’s Council District 6.
The local councilmember, who was also the entire council’s leader, Nury Martinez, had been forced to resign from office for her role in the leaked racist tape that showed how cynical she truly was about politics in the city she was supposed to serve and the bigfooting of council district boundaries in order to serve incumbents’ wishes rather than the myriad needs of L.A. citizens.
In June we were pleased to endorse the council candidacy of Imelda Padilla, a community organizer who briefly worked for Martinez many years ago as a field representative.
“She prioritizes common-sense ideas like cleaning up the district’s streets, tackling blight and working with a variety of stakeholders to prevent and protect against crime. On the economic front, she intends to reduce convoluted red tape for entrepreneurs, from street vendors to restaurants,” we noted at the time.
Now, though half a year into her tenure, Padilla has to run for re-election, this time for a full term in District 6, and we are pleased to endorse her again.
The Sun Valley resident and neighborhood champion has been hard at work, forging an alliance with Mayor Karen Bass, to ensure City Hall knows homelessness is an enormous problem in the Valley just as it is citywide.
She says she is committed to getting bureaucracies off the dime and completing work on making the parks on Sheldon between Arleta and Laurel Canyon the greenspace the community needs.
She is continuing to engage all stakeholders in the community, including the business sector, in order to improve a district that her predecessor clearly neglected.
In a recent interview with our editorial board, it’s clear that Imelda Padilla is taking this job seriously and is working hard to be a member of the council who can effectively address the challenges facing her community.
Having grown up in Sun Valley, gone off to UC Berkeley for her bachelor’s degree and then returned to CSUN for her master’s, Padilla knows her district well. She previously worked for L.A. County’s Women and Girls Initiative and Pacoima Beautiful.
We’ll look forward to Padilla continuing to work on practical, sensible approaches to the district’s problems in a full term in office.
She deserves re-election to a full term.