Antoinette Scully’s 38th birthday was unlike any other. It was the day that then Los Angeles City Council President Nury Martinez was exposed for making racist remarks on a leaked audio recording, eventually leading to her resignation and Scully’s running to take her place.
The tape didn’t just upset Scully; it put her life on a new trajectory.
Los Angeles District 6 City Council candidates must deal with more than just a special election. On top of issues like homelessness, the environment and public safety, whoever wins the seat at the table will face the social and political tensions that former Council President Nury Martinez’s racist remarks left.
But Rose Grigoryan thinks she is up for the challenge.
If keeping her community swimming pool open meant that third-grade Imelda Padilla would have to become a politician, she would have readily accepted the challenge.
When Padilla was eight years old, a local city council member invited Padilla and her classmates to take pictures at the town’s pool reopening after it had been closed for years. Standing with her classmates posing for the photo-op, she realized that the government not just existed but affected real life — someone had to be in charge for things to run. There, the initial seeds of her interest in politics were sown.
On sunny weekends, Isaac Kim and his wife take their dog, Billie, to the Sepulveda Basin Park in the San Fernando Valley to enjoy the weather and watch their dog crash into a pile of leaves.
As the only park in the neighborhood, it is always overcrowded. The lack of green space is one issue Kim sees in the district and wishes to change. Kim sees this lack of green space as an issue he’d like to change - just one of the concerns that have led him to run in the special election to fill the vacancy in Los Angeles Council District 6.
Those closest to the Rev. Dr. James Thomas from San Fernando Valley never anticipated him entering politics. However, they were not surprised that he did. A long-time advocate for everyone around him, Thomas has been a constant in the lives of his friends, family, and peers – and is now running for Los Angeles City Council.
Marco Santana has never held elective office, but a raft of powerful endorsements has propelled him to sudden prominence in the crowded field of candidates in the special Los Angeles City Council election to fill the vacant seat in the San Fernando Valley’s District 6. From Democratic clubs, newspapers like the Los Angeles Times, and influential politicians like current council member Nithya Raman, his long list of influential supporters put him as one of the top contenders for the role. His status as a veteran Latino political aide and nonprofit executive may also give him a leg up in the majority-Hispanic district formerly served by Nury Martinez, who was forced to resign in October of 2022.