Los Angeles City Councilman Herb Wesson is running to represent L.A. County Supervisorial District 2. His opponent is California State Senator Holly Mitchell.
Wesson and Mitchell were neck-and-neck during the primary election in March. Councilman Wesson got 29.9% of the vote, while Sen. Mitchell got 29%, according to Ballotpedia.
Wesson said the lessons he learned while doing stand up comedy during his younger years have helped him in his political life.
“I had a roommate who wanted to sing on Broadway, so he would go to these amateur nights throughout the city, and I would go with him," said Wesson. "And one night, there were a couple of acts that didn’t appear, so they asked if I could kind of stall things out. So I got on the stage and did my very best to try to keep people engaged. But the one thing that it did, it taught me how to connect with people. It taught me how to connect with people even when they weren’t paying attention or had no interest, and I think it taught me how to read a crowd. But most importantly, it eliminated my fear of speaking before people, so I think that was a very good experience for me."
Wesson said Angelenos need to address the pandemic because it’s not going to disappear after the election on November 4.
“All of the problems that we had in this region prior to the pandemic, we still have today,” he said. “I think one of the most important lessons that we’ve learned, which relates to homelessness, is we have to do more than just build new units. We’ve got to focus on closing the spigot that allows people to flow into homelessness in the first place. So, we’re going to need to put resources in rental assistance programs that do a few things, like provide financial planning for people who found themselves upside down. And we’re also going to have to make small investments that I think will be cost-effective investments in keeping people in their homes now.”
The homelessness crisis is personal for Wesson because, at one point, his son was unhoused.
“My family has felt the roller coaster of emotions, from being embarrassed, to 'how could you do this to us,' to 'was there something that we didn’t do…' But so many people have, when they discover that my family has experienced this, they can relate, and I think that it gives a lot of hope, and for all of the people out there that have volunteered to help us, have chatted with him,” Wesson said. “Let me let everybody know that within three weeks, my son Douglas will be sober for the first time in his adult life for one year, and that we feel very optimistic that this time, he has a legitimate shot to make it. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and I want any family in the Los Angeles County area to know that there’s power in prayer and that you’ve got a shot to turn your loved one’s life around.”
A committee affiliated with Wesson’s campaign received a large contribution from a union representing sheriff's deputies. Despite this, Wesson wants to bring change to law and order.
“This support came from organized labor," he said. "My opponent and I both competed to get their endorsement. I was fortunate enough to get the endorsement of the 800,000 working people in this region. They decided that they wanted to create their own separate campaign to support me, God bless them, and I’m appreciative. But don’t think that we both didn’t get law enforcement money. So, we did. At this point, when you look at reimagining public safety, I don’t think that there’s a person in this region that has done more to reimagine public safety than myself in a real way. It’s not so much the police as it is the system of policing.”
If elected, Councilman Wesson said he’d do his best to try to work with L.A. County Sheriff Alex Villanueva.
“If the Board of Supervisors and the Sheriff’s Department cannot connect, cannot communicate, then it is the residents of this region, they are the ones that are suffering the most,” said Wesson. “But I believe that now is the time for us to have a serious conversation about, 'Do we want to have an elected sheriff, or do we want to have a selected sheriff?' In the event that this sheriff would have applied to become the chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, I do not believe he would have even made it to the interviewing process. So that’s a conversation that needs to take place now. And if the residents of L.A. County feel as though we should select a Sheriff, where we would have oversight, then we need to do whatever’s necessary to get the authorization to do that from our representatives at the state.”
Read about Councilman Wesson’s opponent, California State Senator Holly Mitchell, here.
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