Adrin Nazarian won Tuesday’s race to represent parts of the San Fernando Valley on the Los Angeles City Council, while Heather Hutt held onto her 2022 seat.
With the victory of Ysabel Jurado over Kevin de León who will represent parts of the city and the Eastside, the council will have a majority of women for the first time.
Hutt on Tuesday emailed supporters thanking them for helping him represent the district from Koreatown to the Crenshaw corridor.
Hutt, 65, was appointed to the post by the council in 2022, after former councilor Mark Ridley-Thomas was charged with corruption.
She is the first woman, and the first black woman, to be elected to the position. When the new members take office on December 9, she will be one of eight women on the 15-member council.
“We felt good about seven – eight makes it good,” Hutt said in an interview on Tuesday. He said homelessness, public safety and cleaning up roads and streets will be his priorities for the next four years.
Hutt led the District 10 race with 63% of the vote Monday night, according to the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk.
With a dwindling number of votes left to be counted, her rival, Grace Yoo, appears to have no way of catching up.
Hutt had the support of Mayor Karen Bass and the support of business and labor unions. He was a strong supporter of Healthy Streets LA, which was passed by voters in March and requires the city to build bus and bike lanes.
Yoo, a housing advocate and longtime critic of City Hall, raised nearly half a million dollars in the primary and general election — slightly more than Hutt. Yoo had previously run for the District 10 seat twice, losing to incumbent Herb Wesson in 2015 and Ridley-Thomas in 2020. Ridley-Thomas was indicted by federal prosecutors the following year and remains free pending an appeal.
District 10 covers all or parts of Mid-City, Little Ethiopia, Leimert Park, La Cienega Heights, Baldwin Hills, Jefferson Park, Koreatown and South Robertson.
In the race to replace outgoing City Councilman Paul Krekorian who represented the eastern San Fernando Valley, Nazarian had 54% of the vote as of Monday night, leading by nearly 10 percentage points over Jillian Burgos, a small business owner and member of the NoHo Neighborhood. Council.
Nazarian, a former state lawmaker and former Krekorian aide, said by phone Tuesday that he was “tired” but “in high spirits.”
The longtime politician raised more than $1 million during his campaign, a fraction of what Burgos brought in. He was sponsored by businesses and labor groups and was also endorsed by Bass.
Burgos, who has been endorsed by a number of leftist groups, including the LA chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, had hoped to boost the bloc of “progressives” who have been pushing the council to the left.
The group includes Council members Eunisses Hernandez and Hugo Soto-Martinez, who will soon be joined by Jurado, the new District 14 representative.
Neither Burgos nor Yoo immediately responded to requests for comment.
Nazarian, 51, said some of his first actions as a council member will focus on homelessness in District 2, which includes all or parts of North Hollywood, Studio City, Toluca Lake, Valley Glen, Valley Village and other areas.
Summarizing the situation in the city, Nazarian cited “the sense of insecurity that many people feel.” Voters told him during the campaign that they didn’t feel comfortable walking the streets, and in some cases, seeing open drug use, he said.
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