Your guide to the 2022 Los Angeles City Council District 9 election
An incumbent councilman is facing a challenge from a college administrator in South Los Angeles’ District 9, which was hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic and has struggled with homelessness, crime and gentrification issues.
The candidates
- Curren Price, Los Angeles city councilman
- Dulce Vasquez, director of strategic partnerships for Arizona State University
The district
The district stretches from the southern tip of downtown L.A., through USC and Exposition Park and deep into South Los Angeles.
Fundraising
These are the latest fundraising numbers from the L.A. Ethics Commission.
The race
Vasquez has been critical of Price’s record, saying in her campaign mail that he let crime and homelessness get out of control. She also chided him for approving three huge digital billboards backed by his campaign supporters on Washington Boulevard.
Price has touted his success in increasing the city’s minimum wage, building low-income housing and creating a guaranteed income pilot program to help the city’s neediest. His campaign has also issued a series of lacerating attacks against his opponent, many of them built around Vasquez’s comparatively recent arrival in the district — and her voting history.
Councilman Curren Price is portraying his opponent, Dulce Vasquez, as an inexperienced newcomer. Vasquez says she fully understands the district’s issues.
Demographic change in South L.A. is at the heart of this race.
Parts of South L.A., battered in the ’92 uprising, have been frozen in time. Now property prices are soaring and change is coming. Who will benefit?
Read the full series on disease, inequity, resilience and love in South L.A.
Even when vaccinated, Black and Latino Angelenos are still dying of COVID at disproportionate rates. New legislation could change that in South L.A.
Even as longtime residents are getting priced out, a small number of Black families who can afford it are moving in. The question is whether more will follow.
Reading from other publications
A two-person race in District 9
(L.A. Magazine)
A guide to the council race
(LAist)
District 9 candidates at a glance
(VoterEdge)
Video: The candidates debate mobility issues
(Streets for All)
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