First of all, thanks to everyone who met the call for donations. We met our fundraising goal, ensuring we will be functional for 2026. So here we are for another year.
And we are certainly needed. Already, Council is looking to restrict traffic on both Overland, and now Sepulveda. The lawsuits against Jubilo Village failed, so we’re looking at $20 million in city funding for that. Dan O’Brien and Freddy Puza are both up for re-election this year, and we don’t yet know who will rise to challenge Freddy. And now we are informed that the progressive Council majority will put the failed “Vote 16” ballot measure back on the ballot. If that passes, expect them to aggressively ballot harvest the high school.
So that’s in in a nutshell for Culver City.
But that election is in November. And as we know, Culver City is not an island. We are surrounded by the city of Los Angeles. What happens there affects us intimately – as we have witnessed in our various freeway underpasses. The 405/Venice cleanup was a heroic effort involving Culver City, two LA councilmembers (Park, Yaroslavsky) as well as the Mayor and the County Board of Supervisors.
Both Traci Park and Karen Bass are up for re-election. Furthermore, Park has only one challenger – a Bonin protégé who promises to undo all the work Park has done. And DSA champion Nithya Raman (LA CD4) just announced a last minute candidacy against Karen Bass. Their elections are in the June 2 primary.
Whoever wins Traci’s primary will automatically be elected to Council, as an absolute majority will bypass the general election. Meanwhile, 25 candidates have announced their candidacy for mayor, recalling memories of the desire to oust DA Gascon. Spencer Pratt, whose house burned down in the Palisades, is a promising contender.
The opposition to Bass is palpable, given her handling of the Palisades fires. But we also risk diluting our opposition among some ~20 challengers. Meanwhile, we can expect the DSA to hit a heavy ground game to get Raman into the top two candidates who would make it to the general election.
And we need to do what we can to avoid a Bass/Raman runoff. As you know, the DSA is violently opposed to everything we stand for. They want to defund the police, abolish prisons, leave vagrant camps unregulated, and implement road diets. They’re “housing first” – meaning if the homeless don’t want to move, we can’t touch them.
So this election has very concrete consequences for Culver City. We will be getting involved, as we need an LA Council we can work with. And, given the schedule for this year, we can afford to spend some time on it.
Look forward this year to updates on the LA race and how you can get involved. But we will certainly be keeping you up to date on the city election and any crazy ballot measures our Council wants to pass.