Each week CV Weekly will examine the candidates running for a variety of offices. This week we present the candidates for Assembly District 52: Ari Ruiz, David Girón and Jessica Caloza.

Assembly District 52 is comprised of South Glendale, East Hollywood, Silverlanke, Los Feliz, Echo Park, Hermon, Glassell Park, Cypress Park, Highland Park, Eagle Rock, Elysian Valley, Montecito Heights, Lincoln Heights, El Sereno, Atwater Village, Monterey HIlls, Mt. Washington, Arroyo Seco and unincorporated Los Angeles.

Ari Ruiz

The journey for Assembly District 52 hopeful Ari Ruiz began when he walked out of his high school in protest of HR4437, a 2006 law protested at the time throughout California for being anti-immigration. Born in Mexico, Ruiz immigrated with his siblings and mother after his father passed away to Los Angeles at the age of 10. He brings over 15 years of experience working with California legislators, most recently as a deputy district director for Assemblywoman Autumn R. Burke (D – CA, 62^nd District) and as a congressional aide for Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D – CA, 43^rd District). Ruiz grew up an undocumented student before receiving his U.S. citizenship in 2019. Ruiz told the CV Weekly this experience, among others, drives him to create a constituent-service approach to his campaign.

In his view, the role of an Assembly member is to be in the community and to be available for the community. Ruiz said he will make his cellphone and landline available for people to call him at home as well as at his office.

“As elected officials, all of us need to understand the reason anyone ever calls the office is not because they’re having fun or because they want to talk to you. They’re calling because somewhere along the line, another government agency, failed them and they need your help. It needs to be our job to connect the dots,” he said. “I want to go into my communities, I want to be able to understand what’s happening in my district on the ground.”

Homelessness and Housing

“What we’re doing right now is not working. You know, people live in the street – it’s not okay,” he said. “And then we talked about making sure that people are treated with dignity. So I just cannot accept the fact that I get to go home with my mom, sleep in my bed, and still see people on the street.”

Ruiz supports the new Community Assistance, Recovery and Empowerment (CARE) Court, where Californians who sign up and are eligible for the services receive a court mandated health plan after completing a government hearing.

In the 2023 homeless count, 195 total people were counted as homeless in Glendale, the majority of whom were homeless due to unemployment. Ruiz views unemployment and housing issues as inextricably linked.

Ruiz said he will use the leverage he has with state representatives and Congress people to support and bolster renter protections. He plans to outreach to ensure people know their rights as tenants and understand the new protections afforded to them. He also said he will work with the city council in Glendale to ensure more renters are represented at Council meetings where many decisions are made about housing in the community. On a state level, he plans to push for down payment programs for low-income families and focus on constructing low-income and public housing projects. Overall, he believes the state needs to redefine what affordability means for most working class people.

“Someone who is working paycheck to paycheck can’t afford a $7 cup of coffee every day, let alone their rent,” Ruiz said.

As a renter himself, Ruiz supports the eviction protections and caps on security deposits enacted by California Governor Gavin Newsom in October 2023.

Economy “that works for everyone.”

For Ruiz, funding an economy for working, middle and high income people means providing pathways to jobs currently missing from the workforce, mainly in skilled trades. While he was working in Congress, Ruiz said representatives passed protections to fund trade school programs throughout the country, including in California (AB 290). Ruiz believes that by working with local schools, such as the Glendale High School constriction pathway, he can ensure vacancies in Glendale and elsewhere for skilled trades are filled by funding and promoting skilled trades apprenticeship programs. On this issue, Ruiz says he views trades as an essential skill in a 21^st century economy.

Ruiz said he also recognizes that kids face barriers to education and financial stability that affect their employment prospects. Ruiz would work with Assemblymember Autumn Burke, his former boss, to ensure the passage of AB 1520, a bill aimed at allocating state funds to eradicate child poverty. He has experience with passing similar bills under Burke, namely the Young Child Tax Credit, which provides up to $1,117 for eligible incomes.

“We need to be able to educate people about the opportunities that are out there,” he said.

Small Businesses

One of his goals is to fund a technology center in the district, an estimated cost of $4 million. If he isn’t able to pass bills with the needed resources for businesses or communities, he can network with other representatives to add those requirements to something called a trailer budget, earmarked for pet projects in each district. Examples of earmarked projects, said Ruiz, include Maxine Waters’ LAWA training program, which gave aviation hopefuls $1 million for training.

He wants to create programs and presentations so businesses and individuals in the district can make sense of government. For small businesses specifically he wants to emphasize the existence of the state small business office, which assists California small businesses with permits and other regulations. By giving businesses access to the state’s lending programs, he hopes to support businesses in South Glendale and elsewhere in Assembly 52.

Environment

Ruiz said he feels South Glendale, the portion of the city within his jurisdiction, is neglected when it comes to housing and green space concerns. He cited the lack of parks in South Glendale.

District-wide, Ruiz plans to hold companies environmentally accountable that contribute lots of pollution to the Los Angeles, especially Exide, the corporation responsible for lead poisoning in East Los Angeles. Ruiz said that along with community cleanup, they will pass laws like AB 2722, which would place regulations on companies like Exide to prevent local residential and industry pollution.

David Girón

Girón was raised by his mother, a Salvadoran refugee, who worked three jobs to help them get by. He was born in Boyle Heights and raised in Koreatown and the Pico-Union neighborhoods of Los Angeles. From his mother’s work in the janitorial union he grew up understanding scarcity and the need for representatives who can advocate for community interests. He has years of experience in campaign management and consulting for private companies as well as representatives at city levels of government. Girón credits his deep understanding of Los Angeles legislative needs to his 13-year experience as a legislative deputy, field representative and legislative director for the City of Los Angeles and three members of the city council. He formed much of his thoughts on Los Angeles’ environmental needs from his work as a climate and environment policy advisor for Los Angeles City Budget chairman Bob Blumenfield.

For Girón, District 52’s environmental impact, unemployment and housing mobility are tied together, and the responsibility of state and private entities working with cities to get funding that meets their specific needs is dependent on how each city uses its land and what priorities are for community members. That information only comes from being in the community, and thinking about what works for many different Los Angeles neighborhoods – not just the ones in his district. It also requires a desire to be out in the community, asking about community priorities.

“What makes a good Assembly member is not if I can pass a bill, but how much time I spend in the community. I’m only as strong as you allow me to be, and that’s very important to me,” Girón told the CV Weekly of his responsibilities as an Assembly hopeful. Here we list some of Girón ’s views on policies most considered in this election.

Economy and Employment

Girón wants to invest in what he calls the economy of the future – education from CSUs, community colleges and trade schools. According to Girón, local governments should be setting up job programs that invest in what people will want and need in the future, such as electric vehicles and solar power, to prevent their workforce from getting left behind.

“[State and local governments] should be paying kids to be electricians, to be linemen, and women to be welders because if you talk to the people making things, one of the biggest challenges is the human expertise that we’re lacking. We just don’t have enough people right now. We need to take schools back to vocational training. We need a reorientation of our state spending.” he said. “There are a lot of competing interests and we need to be hyper-aware.”

Housing

From his work in city government, Girón said he has seen how local government is the area that most influences housing production. As such, Girón said he believes in incentivizing both the state and local businesses to build affordable housing by making it easy for jurisdictions to create better tools for that incentivize development. He said the specifics of the tools [needed] and [knowing that] what is an incentive for one city can differ from the next are reasons why networking with city and community partners will be so important.

“Knowing who I’m working with, knowing Glendale, knowing the council members, where the focus of the city is, knowing the electorate and the challenges here – not only in my section of Glendale but in Glendale [as a whole]. Also taking that same approach to other parts of my jurisdiction,” he said.

Girón told the CV Weekly, the question that needs to be tackled is affordability.

“Is $22,000 enough to move out? People are a little incredulous, I think, because how could that not be enough? Well, the reason it’s not enough is because that money is going to go away really soon. That’s how expensive it is to live here. Which, of course, has a lot of reverberating impact,” he said.

He supports the eviction protections and rental protections passed by Newsom, and acknowledges some housing laws need to be revisited.

Small Businesses

“People want a way of new business. As we plan our budgets, we have to be hyper-aware where people are making their investments,” Girón told the CV Weekly. He said he will invest in small, local businesses to make sure they are producing items people will need in the future.

Environment

Girón said he would ensure people know about the deals utility companies often have to make [for] services [to be] cheaper, such as incentivizing eco-friendly options.

“A utility has an incentive for you to buy in cash or lightbulbs to get away from incandescent light to get into LEDs. Well, one measure is anyone using this? Are you actually paying people out? And you’d be perhaps surprised as to how many incentive programs we have that don’t go anywhere either because we’re not advertising them or it’s annoying to get in,” he said.

In Glendale, Girón said following this type of incentive would involve working with city council and with Glendale Water and Power to create a plan that could work in the future.

Girón believes that the government has a major role to play in incentivizing private developers and private businesses and companies to do [environmental] work, whether that’s a small business not using plastic bags or straws or a big corporation not polluting the air.

He has also worked with local organizations like Walk-Bike Glendale to see what the needs are for biking mobility in Glendale. He also wants to increase dependence on buses.

Jessica Caloza

Jessica Caloza began her career as a staffer for the Obama Administration. She oversaw more than 5,000 employees. She was in charge of infrastructure projects as a commissioner of the board of L.A. Dept. of Public Works, and specialized in strategic planning and coordination when she worked for Mayor Eric Garcetti and for the Office of Immigrant Affairs. She was the first Filipino woman to serve on the board for the Dept. of Public Works and will be the first Filipino American woman to hold the office of assemblymember for District 52, if elected.

For Caloza, the job of assemblymember is about being on the ground representing constituents and ensuring representatives leverage relationships to get resources for their district.

“Knowing what’s happening in Glendale and LA, East LA, so that I can make sure to represent the values of the district in votes that I take and the policies that I push in the budgets I pass – that’s the job, to represent your constituents and to ultimately make sure you fight for resources. So the question is not only who can win, but who actually has the relationships and the votes to actually be effective,” she said.

Her focus points as a representative will be on supporting small businesses and staving off unemployment, as well as passing laws protecting the rights of women. She also said reforming the budget and prioritizing the immediate needs of districts will be her goals, if elected.

“By knocking on doors – I mean, literally going door-to-door – talking to voters all across the district, I understand. What are you and your family going through? What are you seeing? What do you want to happen in your neighborhood, whether it’s at the local level, the state level, the federal level? What do you care about? Most people that we talked to [said] it is a question they’ve never been asked,” she said.

Unemployment

Caloza said she will make sure to reach out to city councils in each city within District 52 to understand what their unemployment issues are, specifically what the retention rates are. In the City of Los Angeles, one in six jobs are vacant. Caloza said the high vacancy rates cause an increase in the cost of paying someone because overtime is need because so much staff has been lost. Caloza said she would work with each city to do outreach so people would be encouraged to stay working in the city where they live, rather than commuting out of the district.

“How do we make living and working in the city attractive? How do we make it easier for people to enter city service? You get benefits. They’re stable jobs and there are lots of openings, so I think the message for constituents is that California is open for business, Glendale and LA [are] open for business,” she said.

Small Businesses

Caloza said increasing the viability of small businesses in her district will be about competing for resources. She said that, if elected, she would try to leverage her relationships with the City of Los Angeles to encourage more funding.

“The first challenge is that it’s not going to be a battle asking for more, but the battle will be working with what we have. The second challenge will be to do as much outreach as possible in the district to really understand and to prioritize what are the things that our community needs with equity in mind. And that’s going to be tough sometimes because it’s going to mean; maybe one neighborhood doesn’t have as many resources because they already have structure versus another neighborhood [that] needs an infrastructure built up,” she said.

Environment

Caloza said her experience in implementing pedestrian safety, bike safety and public safety projects for the Dept. of Public Works uniquely prepares her to get funding back for active transportation grants that have been cut by the state. She plans to work with organizations like the California Bicycle Coalition to understand the priorities of each part of her district

“I’d like to understand what legislation they really plan to push and then coming back to really promote more safety for pedestrians and just really active transportation as a whole,” she said.

Additional candidate profiles for Assembly 52 will be in future issues of CV Weekly.