Wendy Carrillo says she’s running for CD 14 (original) (raw)

Wendy Carrillo announced Thursday she’s running for city council in District 14 in 2024, joining a growing number of candidates who are vying to replace embattled councilmember Kevin de León on the city governing body.

The state assemblymember – whose 52nd district overlaps a portion of CD14 – took to social media to make the official announcement. Her posts include a link to a Los Angeles Times column earlier in the week in which she divulged her reasons for running for the local seat.

In the column, Carrillo said the controversy following De León’s participation in a leaked recording in which he and other councilmembers made racist statements and the ongoing calls for his resignation were taking away from the councilmember’s ability to serve his constituents.

She said that Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass “currently doesn’t have a partner in [District] 14. It’s a challenge when you have someone in office that folks don’t want to associate with.”

Carrillo, who was raised in Boyle Heights, said she made up her mind after her staffers began to hear from constituents who said De León’s office wasn’t returning their calls.

“It wasn’t always like that,” she said. “Before, we worked together. There’s a different political dynamic now.”

On her campaign website, the 42-year-old politician published a letter in which she highlighted her connections to Boyle Heights:

This community raised me, it’s where I grew up and where my family and I call home.

This community offered my mother and I refuge when we fled the civil war in El Salvador in the early 1980’s. This is the community that offered my father, who left his home in Zacatecas, Mexico following the dreams of his father, a Bracero worker, the opportunity to start a new life in Boyle Heights, to dream, raise a family and create a better future for my four younger sisters and I. This is a community whose arms have always welcomed, supported and encouraged working class families like mine, and like many of yours.

I am proud to be a homegrown candidate running to represent you and your families.

Carrillo, a former aide to disgraced councilmember José Huízar, was first elected to the State Assembly in 2017. She is the second Eastside elected official to announce her intention to run for CD14, following a similar announcement earlier this month by Assemblymember Miguel Santiago, who represents Boyle Heights in the state legislature.

As of Friday, a total of six candidates have declared their intention to run for De León’s seat in the March 2024 primary – including former councilmember Nick Pacheco, who represented CD 14 from 1999 to 2003.

De León himself has not announced his intention to run again for the seat.

Boyle Heights Beat is a bilingual community newspaper produced by its youth "por y para la comunidad". The newspaper and its sister website serve an immigrant neighborhood in East Los Angeles of just under... More by Boyle Heights Beat