Councilmember David Ryu represents the 4^th District of the City of Los Angeles, which includes parts of central Los Angeles, the Hollywood Hills, and the San Fernando Valley.

Elected in an historic upset in 2015, Ryu is the first Korean American on the LA City Council and only the second Asian American elected in the City’s history. Ryu ran a grassroots campaign on the idea of restoring trust in government through transparency and reform, challenging the “pay to play” culture in City Hall, and empowering the voices of everyday Angelenos in local government.

As Councilmember, Ryu has led the fight to clean up perceived corruption at City Hall by focusing on transparency and reform. He is the only Councilmember to refuse all donations from developers with projects before the City. He has also championed campaign finance reforms that would forbid such contributions to any City official.

To ensure transparency and accountability, Ryu created the City’s first and only “discretionary fund task force” of citizens to review spending requests that were previously decided in secret. All discretionary spending is also posted online for easy public access.           

Ryu has been a champion for parks and open space across Los Angeles, expanding the size of parks and wildlife preserves in Griffith Park, Runyon Canyon Park, and Laurel Canyon. He also brought 7 day-a-week shuttle service from the Metro Red Line to the Griffith Observatory, to provide car-free access to one of the City’s most visited icons.

Ryu has brought 297 new emergency, bridge, supportive, and affordable housing units to Council District 4, which are either open, in construction, or in development. Even more housing units are in the pipeline.

To expand opportunity and ensure a brighter future for all Angelenos, Ryu created a program for Child Savings Accounts to help increase college enrollment and graduation rates. He has also introduced legislation for a fully paid parental leave policy in the City of Los Angeles and led on legislation to protect and support vulnerable renters. In addition, Ryu stands with organized labor in its efforts to secure better wages, fair benefits and safe working conditions for working families throughout Southern California.

Ryu has delivered results for all the district’s neighborhoods: passing legislation to restrict tour-bus routes and ban loudspeakers; winning stricter penalties and enforcement for unruly party houses; adding enforcement officers in neighborhoods near the Hollywood Sign; updating planning and zoning codes to better protect hillsides and residential neighborhoods; and making infrastructure improvements like concrete street replacement, new traffic signals and crosswalks into reality.

Ryu immigrated from South Korea at age 6, and grew up in East Hollywood.  Ryu is a proud graduate of UCLA and LAUSD schools.  Ryu lives in the Cahuenga Pass.  He and his fiancé, Regina Yoon, also of Los Angeles, plan to be married in October of this year.

I am a proud democrat, and I have been a member of the Democratic Party since I was naturalized, rougly in 1994. 

Nithya Raman is an urban planner, community advocate, and mother of two.

Prior to life in Los Angeles, Nithya started Transparent Chennai in India. The organization worked with residents of slums to create data that strengthened their advocacy for resources like running water and basic sanitation.

In 2014, she worked for the City Administrative Officer of Los Angeles. In her time there, Nithya wrote a report detailing how the city was spending over $100 million on homelessness, the majority of which was spent on jailing our unhoused neighbors, rather than helping them into stable, permanent homes with access to services.

In response to a growing population of people experiencing homelessness in her own community, Nithya and a group of neighbors started SELAH Neighborhood Homeless Coalition in 2017. SELAH has organized regular outreach programs, and brought regular hot meals and showers to a region of the city severely lacking in such resources. The coalition has enabled hundreds of volunteers to get involved and educated about the growing homelessness crisis. Nithya also continues to serve as Co-Chair of the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council’s Homelessness Committee, a position she has held since early 2017.

This past year, Nithya served as executive director of Time’s Up Entertainment, the women’s rights movement furthering equity and safety for women in the entertainment industry. Under Nithya’s leadership, the team launched a critics database, a mentorship program for the executive and producer pipeline, Know your Rights resources related to sexual misconduct in the workplace, and created regular opportunities to strengthen community building.

Nithya holds a Masters degree in urban planning from MIT and an undergraduate degree from Harvard. She lives in Silver Lake with her husband and twin preschoolers.

Yet, in response to these crises, our current elected officials are failing our city. They have responded by doubling down on what they have been doing, which so clearly has not worked.

This campaign comes from a place of hope: we have an opportunity now to capture the energy of Angelenos who are frustrated with our national inaction on the things that matter to us. We want to use this campaign to turn our collective energies and power to keeping this incredible city vibrant, just, welcoming for all through robust action by the city to support its residents and help all of them to thrive. No matter your race, gender, immigration status, or sexuality, we want you to help us build an inclusive Los Angeles that’s livable for decades to come.

I moved to Los Angeles twenty years ago, because I found an affordable apartment. That apartment allowed me to be a young person in this city, the way being a young person used to be -- when beginning your career with one entry level job was enough. I was an assistant at USA Networks, and then I returned to school and earned my Master’s in Professional Writing at USC, where I also taught Freshman Comp. (I earned my B.A. in English Literature at Yale.)

I have spent most of my professional career as a writer. I’ve published essays, short fiction, a popular mommy-blog, and I’m a Writers Guild of America West screenwriter. 

My husband and I live in Beachwood Canyon with our four children. In all my years in Los Angeles, I have never lived anywhere outside this district. 

I recently stepped down after serving for two-plus years as President of the National Women’s Political Caucus, LA Metro, a grassroots, non-partisan organization that helps pro-choice, pro-ERA women win local seats. With NWPC, I supported and volunteered on local campaigns, and lobbied on issues important to women, children, and families, in Sacramento.

I have been an active member of the Community Policing Committee at the Los Angeles League of Women Voters since early 2017. I volunteer with the Planned Parenthood Advocacy Project, and am a member of several local Democratic Clubs. I also sit on the Board of the Library Foundation of Los Angeles.

I am running because it is time we had a serious conversation about the state of the city, and the planet, we are leaving our children. I will fight for affordable housing, transit and mobility, and trees and green space in every neighborhood. Housing, transit, and trees are how we will grow our economy, create good jobs, take real climate action -- and support small business, all at the same time.