On Nov. 3, votes will be cast in a slew of midterm elections to choose who represents voters at the state and federal level. But those aren’t the only races on the ballot. Meet the two candidates that are running for the Los Angeles City Council seat that covers USC.

Los Angeles City Council District 9 encompasses most of South Central, spanning from L.A. Live in the north to Avalon Gardens in the south, including the entirety of University Park Campus. Two candidates advanced from the June 2 primary: career public servant Jose Ugarte and community organizer Estuardo Mazariegos.

Ugarte received 39.45% of primary votes, while Mazariegos came in second with 26.21%. Although Ugarte appears to be ahead given his lead in June, another four candidates in that race won a combined 34.34% of the total vote. Either of the two candidates could win those extra votes in November.

District 9 is currently represented by Curren D. Price Jr., who has served on the city council since 2013. Price’s tenure was marred by allegations of embezzling government funds and other corruption charges. In August, he was ordered to stand trial on 12 felony charges.

Estuardo Mazariegos promises to weed out past corruption

Mazariegos was born in Guatemala but emigrated to the United States at a young age due to political instability in his home country. The long-time L.A. resident said he has spent the last 20 years as an organizer — including as co-director of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment — fighting for workers’ rights and community empowerment.

Considering that District 9 has the youngest constituency in the city, Mazariegos said he’s running for city council to lift future generations out of poverty and take proper care of them. In a district with billion-dollar institutions like the Crypto.com Arena, Exposition Park and USC, Mazariegos said that South Central’s children have been left behind.

“The reason I’m running is because I want to ensure that all of those institutions are good partners to our neighborhood,” Mazariegos said in an interview with the Daily Trojan, “that we’re able to bust those 37% of children living below the federal poverty line out of poverty by increasing wages, by building parks in our community, by ensuring that people have access to good quality services and making our streets clean and walkable.”

Mazariegos said that the biggest issue currently facing District 9 is the alleged corruption of the current officeholder. He said that Price’s behavior has worsened services and decreased the quality of life in the district, tying Ugarte, his opponent and Price’s former deputy chief of staff, to the alleged misconduct. 

Ugarte said that he left Price’s office last year and denied any connection to his former boss’s ongoing legal proceedings.

“As a candidate, I have taken a pledge of [a] clean-money campaign, meaning I’m not taking any money from corporations,” Mazariegos said. “I’m only accountable to the community. In doing that, I’ll be able to address a lot of the issues of unaccountability.”

Mazariegos said that he believes better education on tenant rights, improving non-automobile transportation infrastructure and increasing the minimum wage will uplift the USC community, which will in turn benefit surrounding communities.

“I want to make sure that we have a minimum wage that’s also attached to something called the consumer price index, which measures inflation. So as inflation rises, the minimum wage stays with it,” Mazariegos said. “I think that would help a lot of students that are working in low-wage industries.”

Once in office, Mazariegos said he wants to adopt a co-governance structure that involves monthly meetings between members of the community and their District 9 council member.

“I’m listening and hearing from the people, producing the policies they want directly with their advice and recommendations, turning around and fighting for that at city hall,” Mazariegos said,“and when needed, engaging each other in a way to campaign together for the type of policies that we need to improve the conditions of life.”

Mazariegos is endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, L.A. City Controller Kenneth Mejia, L.A. City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez and the Los Angeles Chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America.

Jose Ugarte’s upbringing propelled his political career

Born in Mexico, Jose Ugarte’s parents brought him to the South Central area when he was four years old. Ugarte said that his experience as an undocumented child sparked his interest in politics, beginning in 1994 with an effort by Republicans to ban undocumented immigrants from K-12 education. Ugarte recalled attending a march related to the cause with his parents.

“When I turned 17, I found out I was undocumented the whole time,” Ugarte said. “I was fighting for civil rights or my own rights, my own human rights [and] my own immigrant rights.”

Shortly after, Ugarte received his green card. Ugarte said that immediately after college, he began working on various political campaigns for labor unions and political candidates like Jerry Brown and Xavier Becerra. He then transitioned to work as an aide in the California State Assembly and, in 2013, the L.A. City Council.

Ugarte said that cleaning up South Central’s streets is his top priority. He said that the city council cutting the sanitation budget by 25% at the end of the COVID-19 pandemic had a devastating impact on the South Central community specifically.

“Every district gets an equal amount of money to clean the streets,” Ugarte said, “and you give Porter Ranch a million dollars, they’re going to make a new park. You give South L.A. a million dollars, we’re gonna have to clean the streets up. We’re just playing catch up. Cleaning up the streets is something about equity. People deserve to have a clean place to live.”

Ugarte also said that he wants to improve public safety in the district by increasing the number of working police officers, trying to draw a comparison to his opponent, who he claimed supports  defunding the police. Mazariegos’s website does not mention that defunding the police is part of his platform.

“Right now, when you call a police officer, it takes about 30 to 45 minutes to get here,” Ugarte said. “We live in a high domestic violence district. I come from a domestic violence home, and if an officer doesn’t come, it could be life and death. … I want to make sure that our police department is fully funded. I want more women in the police department. I want more officers on [patrol].”

Ugarte said that he plans to open two more district offices in the community if elected. He also plans to have a dedicated USC liaison on his staff that will deal directly with concerns of the USC community.

“My No. 1 concern in the campaign is that I don’t want anybody to say they didn’t have the opportunity to speak to me,” Ugarte said. “I think every politician needs to be accessible.”

Ugarte is endorsed by the Los Angeles County Democratic Party; current City Councilmembers Heather Hutt, Monica Rodriguez, Tim McOsker, Adrin Nazarian and Price; and former L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.