Yaroslavsky, Yebri differ on encampments in LA council race

The race to succeed termed-out City Councilman Paul Koretz in the Fifth District features Katy Young Yaroslavsky and Sam Yebri, two candidates with different backgrounds and approaches to Los Angeles’ homelessness crisis.

In the June primary, Yaroslavsky finished just shy of winning the election outright, claiming 49% of the vote. Yebri finished second at 30%. The Fifth District runs from the San Diego (405) Freeway to the edge of Koreatown, and contains some of the largest job centers in the city, including UCLA and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

Yaroslavsky, currently on leave as senior policy adviser for LA County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl, comes from a family with roots in politics. Her father-in-law, Zev Yaroslavsky, served on the City Council for nearly two decades, and her mother was Kuehl’s district director when Kuehl was in the Assembly.

Yaroslavsky told City News Service she grew up doing her homework at community meetings.

“A lot of people feel disconnected from government, and that it’s something that is inaccessible,” Yaroslavsky said. “For me growing up, government was my mom and people like my mom, who used their jobs to help fix problems for people and make things easier and better.”

Yaroslavsky touted her experience working at the county level as a plus. She believes that council members can be “parochial” at times, and said she would entertain citywide approaches on solutions regarding homelessness, public safety and climate change.

Yebri is a small-business owner who has served on various nonprofits. He has worked as a litigator for the last 20 years, taking cases defending tenants and workers’ rights. If elected, he’d be the first Iranian American to serve on the council.

Yebri told City News Service that he would use his business pedigree to fix what he called a city budget that is “being mismanaged year after year with endless waste, fraud and abuse.”

“Our city is in crisis, and the career politicians who got us into this mess are unwilling and unable to bring new solutions that we need to solve our big problems,” Yebri said.

The candidates disagreed on the council’s recent changes to the 41.18 ordinance, which now makes encampments illegal within 500 feet of schools and daycare centers.

Yebri pledged to enforce the ordinance and work to transition the unhoused into temporary shelters.

“That’s the more humane and progressive approach, rather than allow them to continue to suffer and wither away in our streets,” Yebri said.

Yaroslavsky said that while she supports not having encampments next to schools or daycare centers, she believes the ordinance would be more effective if it were paired with services and engagement. There aren’t enough resources to fully deploy the ordinance, she said.

“Moving people from one corner to another is not how we solve homelessness,” Yaroslavsky said, adding that she believes Yebri is overstating the benefits of the ordinance.

On public safety, Yebri has committed to working to increase the number of police officers at the Los Angeles Police Department to 10,000, and would call on the city attorney to enforce penalties for misdemeanor crimes.

Yaroslavsky doesn’t support cutting the police budget, but wouldn’t commit to a specific number of officers she would like to see hired.

Yebri’s three biggest issues facing the district are public safety, the mental illness and addiction crisis impacting the unhoused, and the lack of affordable housing. For Yaroslavsky, they are homelessness, public safety and impacts from climate change.

The two criticized each other over their backgrounds. Yebri claimed that Yaroslavsky would “carry the water of the political machine” and that he “doesn’t owe anything to the special interests of City Hall insiders.”

Yaroslavsky countered that Yebri was a “private sector guy” lacking government experience, which isn’t helpful “given the state of the city and the seriousness and complexity of the problems we’re facing.”

Koretz, a three-term councilman, is running for controller to replace the termed-out Ron Galperin.

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