Your guide to the L.A. City Council District 13 race: Hugo Soto-Martínez faces three challengers

When Hugo Soto-Martínez won his seat in 2022, he joined a wave of progressive leaders elected to the City Council during a huge shake-up of local politics.

Now, Soto-Martínez is running for reelection in Council District 13 against three challengers who say he failed his constituents as the city struggled with reduced services and a housing affordability crisis. Their positions differ from Soto-Martínez’s on key issues, including homelessness, city finances and policing.

Soto-Martínez said his biggest accomplishments include raising the minimum wage to $30 for tourism workers, updating the rent stabilization ordinance for the first time in 40 years and growing his district’s rapid response network to combat federal immigration raids.

“We came in with a very big vision, a very bold vision, and we’ve delivered,” he said.

California

Voter guide to the 2026 California primary election

California’s primary election takes place on June 2. Learn about L.A.’s city and county races and others for state offices.

May 1, 2026

Los Angeles Councilman Hugo Soto-Martinez

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Before joining the City Council, Hugo Soto-Martínez, 43, was a labor organizer for Unite Here Local 11. The son of street vendors, he grew up in South Los Angeles. His upbringing and his experience in the service industry shaped his political views, said Soto-Martínez, who was elected with the support of the Democratic Socialists of America’s L.A. chapter. While working as a room service server at a hotel, he helped unionize his workplace and became active in the labor movement.

East Hollywood Neighborhood Council vice president Colter Carlisle is running for Los Angeles City Council.

(Carlisle for Council 2026)

Colter Carlisle, 37, who happens to live in the same apartment complex as Soto-Martínez, is from Illinois and moved to L.A. in 2007. Carlisle works in freelance legal sales and is vice president of the East Hollywood Neighborhood Council.

He said the City Council’s efforts to address housing affordability will create problems down the road and threaten rent-stabilized apartments.

“There were a lot of issues that motivated me to run,” he said. “The biggest one was what I felt was a major threat to the rent-controlled apartments in East Hollywood and in CD 13.”

Dylan Kendall is running for Los Angeles City Council District 13.

(Dylan Kendall)

Dylan Kendall, 56, runs Grow Hollywood, a startup economic development corporation. She moved to L.A. in 1992, bartending for about 10 years and then founding two nonprofits. She created a company, Dylan Kendall Home, that sells ceramic bowls with feet — which is exactly what it sounds like — before working to improve Hollywood after what she describes as years of neglect of the storied neighborhood by the city.

She said her top concerns are housing affordability and public safety — issues that she feels Soto-Martínez has not seriously taken up.

“I don’t think the voices are loud enough to connect that without a safe city, no other part of the city functions,” Kendall said. “Families don’t feel safe. Young women don’t feel safe. Our recreational activities are impacted, our small business economy is impacted.”

Rich Sarian is running for Los Angeles City Council District 13.

(Scott Simock)

Rich Sarian, 38, was born and raised in Los Angeles and is vice president of strategic initiatives for downtown’s South Park Social District.

Through his work in business improvement districts in Hollywood and South Park, he said, he has seen the city do a poor job with basic services such as emptying trash cans and maintaining clean streets. With “a lot of errors” coming from the city, Sarian feels he can better represent the district than the incumbent.

The 13th District covers stretches of Atwater Village, Glassell Park, Elysian Valley and Echo Park as well as Silver Lake and Historic Filipinotown. Its western portion includes East Hollywood, almost all of Hollywood, Windsor Square, Larchmont Village and Westlake.

The district has a population of about 253,000, and more than 80% of households are renters.

As the city continues to face budget issues, Soto-Martínez said fees such as the property assessment fee, which hasn’t been updated in 30 years and is used to fund street lights, should increase to keep up with the demand for city services.

“A lot of council members just are not willing to go there because they know that people are going to be upset,” he said. “But I’d rather be honest with the public than to have my constituents later be upset about services not working.”

Kendall said the City Council hasn’t done enough to stop the “capital flight” of businesses and entertainment jobs. She said she would address the previous budget crisis by focusing on the main drivers of the economy.

“Everything from development to the entertainment industry, to the small business sector, tourism — the four big sectors that come together to create the revenue that we use to distribute to all the services we run in the city,” she said.

Sarian said it is “critical” to protect businesses and the microeconomics within the district as the city ramps up on driving tourism as a revenue stream. He called for accountability on homelessness spending as well as establishing public-private partnerships to avoid laying off city workers.

“You’d want to take a look at the budget more strategically, what is working and what isn’t working,” he said.

Carlisle said L.A. officials need to better understand the economic impact of President Trump’s immigration raids on the city and take a tougher stance to prevent them.

He added that the city needs to “stick the landing” on hosting the Olympics despite facing a massive decline in the entertainment industry. To do that, he said, L.A. needs to feel safe, and city officials need to prove they can handle any emergency.

Soto-Martínez, who was elected on a police abolitionist platform, said city funds should go toward preventive measures, not reactive ones. He said only about 1,000 of the Los Angeles Police Department‘s 8,700 officers are on patrol duty, with some performing desk jobs, such as approving permits, that could be done by civilians.

“Why are we using sworn police officers to do work that is not related to solving crime or fighting crime, when it can be done by a civilian at a fraction of the cost?” he said.

He added that the focus should be less on the size of the department and more on a reenvisioning of public safety, including expanding the unarmed crisis responders program.

Kendall would increase the LAPD to 10,000 officers and expand community policing. In the first year, she would increase the number of officers on patrol, enforce a ban on encampments and abandoned recreational vehicles near schools and parks, and speed up graffiti removal.

“Our cities don’t feel safe. You can’t take your kids to a park,” she said. “Every parent wants their kids to be safe. That transcends socioeconomic culture. It transcends everything.”

Sarian would like to see what the LAPD can do at its current size and figure out other ways to use its resources. He supports the unarmed crisis response program cited by Soto-Martínez and said the department should use technology to streamline paperwork.

“As we see the model continue to succeed, it is worth expanding. That way, our emergency responders can respond to true emergencies and not have delayed response times to any and all crises,” Sarian said.

Carlisle believes the LAPD should grow to 9,500 officers and would be open to increasing to 10,000 officers once that threshold is met. He accused Soto-Martínez of complicating public safety responses by not having a relationship with the LAPD.

“If tourists do not feel safe in the city of Los Angeles, then we are going to put ourselves on a horrible long-term fiscal trajectory,” Carlisle said. “We have to do everything we possibly can to make sure that the folks that come here for the Olympics have a great time, feel safe and want to come back and invite their friends.”

Soto-Martínez believes in housing and services first — addressing the issues that often exacerbate homelessness, such as mental illness, drug addiction and domestic violence, while also keeping people housed. He created a team in his office that focuses solely on homelessness. Districtwide, homelessness dropped 25% in his first two years, he said.

He added that Mayor Karen Bass’ signature Inside Safe program is “a very powerful tool” and that tenant protections can keep families from getting evicted and becoming homeless.

Kendall, who started Hollywood Arts in 2005 to provide art and music-based education for homeless youth, said she has seen firsthand how the city has failed to address homelessness. She said providing housing isn’t enough and would support initiatives like Corazon del Valle in Panorama City, which provides wraparound services along with housing.

“If we have over 60% of the population living outdoors struggling with extreme mental illness or extreme drug addiction, giving them a key is not the solution,” she said.

Kendall opposed Senate Bill 79, a state law that aims to expand high-density housing near major transit hubs, as a one-size-fits-all solution and instead would support a “local alternative plan” that would expand housing along transit-heavy streets.

Sarian said the city is “managing” homelessness, not solving it. He said Inside Safe has proven costly and the city should better track participants to understand the long-term impact.

“We merely give them housing,” he said. “We can bring the other city partners that we have out there in, to help us restructure our program so that it does prove [successful] and we start to actually solve homelessness instead of just managing it.”

He added that the city could boost its housing stock by easing the permitting process to avoid delays. He also was against SB 79 as a blanket solution and said high-density housing should be built based on factors including the neighborhood, parking, transit access and traffic.

Carlisle sharply criticized homelessness spending, saying it has gone unchecked amid a budget deficit. While he supports Inside Safe, he is concerned the city’s approach to homelessness is “built on a fiscal house of cards” designed to get a lot of people inside quickly for a short period of time. The city, he said, needs to “rethink everything about how we’re doing homelessness.”

He would enforce Municipal Code 41.18, the controversial city law that bars homeless encampments within 500 feet of schools and daycare centers, and he supports enforcing Senate Bill 43 — an update to the state law governing involuntary treatment that expanded the definition of “gravely disabled” to include people with substance abuse and mental health disorders.

“If we’re not taking the worst of the worst off the streets, I really don’t see how we’re going to resolve this situation going forward, or improve anything with homelessness,” he said.

Soto-Martínez has endorsed Bass for reelection. Carlisle, Kendall and Sarian have not endorsed a candidate.

Soto-Martínez is endorsed by labor groups including United Teachers Los Angeles, the California Nurses Assn. several locals of the Service Employees International Union and locals of the Teamsters union. He also has been endorsed by the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), the Democratic Socialists of America’s L.A. chapter, the L.A. County Democratic Party, the Sierra Club, Streets For All, the Dolores Huerta Action Fund and the Avance Democratic Club, the largest Latino political club in California.

He also has endorsements from Bass, City Controller Kenneth Mejia, L.A. County Supervisors Lindsey Horvath and Hilda Solis and six other council members.

Kendall is endorsed by local community leaders and business owners.

Sarian is endorsed by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce.

Carlisle has endorsements from East Hollywood Neighborhood Council President Christopher Martinez and other members of the neighborhood council. He also has been endorsed by presidents of five other neighborhood councils in the district.