Endorsement: Danielle Sandoval for Los Angeles City Council

Of the two candidates running to replace Councilman Joe Buscaino, Danielle Sandoval, a community activist and entrepreneur from Harbor City, is best positioned to advocate for all Angelenos and deliver real change on pressing issues from housing and homelessness to public safety and pollution.

She is a grass-roots politician who has run an impressive on-the-ground campaign, knocking on doors in communities that have long been ignored in a district that includes Watts, the Harbor Gateway, Harbor City, Wilmington, San Pedro and the Port of Los Angeles. For years, District 15 has been represented by someone from San Pedro, which has had outsized power and influence over its council member’s priorities despite making up less than one-third of the district’s population.

Sandoval would bring a fresh perspective to the council and support policies that are practical, non-dogmatic and would make a difference in people’s lives: housing the homeless, pushing antipoverty efforts and expanding mental health services and youth programs to address the underlying causes of crime without increasing the size of the LAPD. She wants to reduce truck traffic and pollution without automating port operations or cutting good-paying union jobs. She would be the first Latina to represent a district that is nearly two-thirds Latino.

Opinion

L.A. Times electoral endorsements for November 2022

The L.A. Times’ editorial board endorsements for statewide ballot measures, elected offices in Los Angeles city and county, L.A. Unified School District board, L.A. county superior court, statewide offices, the state Legislature and U.S. House and Senate seats.

Sept. 8, 2022

She will draw on years of service on the Harbor City and Central San Pedro neighborhood councils, and as a budget advocate for the harbor area, where she has fought to get resources like streetlights, speed bumps and turn signals and to hire more city staff to respond to 311 calls about illegal dumping and other service requests. She also has valuable firsthand experience that will help her tackle city issues with wisdom and empathy, having experienced homelessness, lost a loved one to gun violence and navigated city bureaucracy as a small-business owner.

In the June primary, Sandoval came in second out of four candidates and, despite being vastly outspent, forced her opponent, Tim McOsker, into a runoff. It speaks highly of Sandoval that she went on to win the endorsements of the two other contenders in the race, Anthony Santich and Bryant Odega, who are now urging their supporters to back her in the November election.

McOsker is an attorney, former lobbyist and nonprofit executive from San Pedro who has worked at City Hall as chief of staff to former Mayor James Hahn and chief deputy city attorney. He is aligned with business groups, labor unions and other powerful establishment interests. Sandoval is the better choice because she will bring an outsider’s perspective, focus on the needs of regular people and be a forceful advocate for change. Voters should support her.