Comments
ELECTION 2024 - When you know the story of how Heather Hutt became the Councilmember for CD 10 in 2023, without being elected, it’s hard not to root for her opponent, attorney Grace Yoo, a community advocate and grassroots favorite.
The race pits a talented, ambitious insider, a protégé and good friend of veteran politician Herb Wesson, against a fire brand outsider who casts herself as a fighter for solutions to the needs of ordinary people in the district’s diverse neighborhoods.
Another distinction is their motivation to lead the district, which stretches from Koreatown through Mid-City, the Crenshaw Corridor to Baldwin Hills. Hutt didn’t really want the job. In a 2023 LA Times article about Hutt, she “confessed that she never really wanted to join the City Council,” the reporter wrote.
She had higher aspirations in state and federal government which made sense. After heading up the CA state office for then Senator Kamala Harris, Hutt ran for state assembly in AD 54, but lost to Isaac Bryan. Undeterred, Hutt then set her sights on joining the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
For Yoo, meanwhile, winning the council job has been her passion and focus for almost a decade. The daughter of South Korean immigrants, Yoo, 53, came to the district when she was three years old and has stayed ever since.
For the last 30 years, Yoo has been advocating for her neighbors, seniors, working-class families, at-risk youth, and those who have been neglected by the city. As an attorney Yoo represented abused and neglected children at LA County’s Children’s Law Center. In her role as Community Engagement Director at St. Barnabas Church, she helped seniors get the city services they needed.
Yoo successfully sued the city twice. She halted an illegal real estate development and then got the city to change its policy of chopping down trees when they fixed sidewalks. Thousands of trees have been saved as a result.
“I have been a formidable critic of City Hall which at times has failed to follow the law,” explains Yoo. “If elected, I want to implement ethical policies to make sure city government serves the people and not political insiders.”
This is Yoo’s third election run for the CD 10 seat. It is Hutt’s first.
In 2015, Yoo ran in a crowded field of candidates and came in second to Herb Wesson who won the race. Next, she ran for the seat in 2020, against Mark Ridley Thomas, a giant as it were in state politics, and she garnered forty percent of the vote in the general election.
“What that shows you about Grace,” says Dorsay Dujon, founder of the annual MakeMusicLA event, “is her determination and deep commitment to our community and her enduring belief in herself that she is the best person to lead it.”
The big question around city hall in March 2023 was how to fill Mark Ridley Thomas’ seat on the council after a jury convicted the former state senate and assembly member, of fraud and bribery during his tenure on the Board of Supervisors.
City leaders were required to look at “all options” before filling the seat, including holding a special election. Held outside standard general election years, when circumstances lead to a political vacancy, a special election invites qualified members of a district to run for an office.
Community pressure mounted for a special election. “They owe constituents a voice in the process so we can choose our own elected representative ourselves,” insisted the Southern Christian Leadership Council.
A special election did seem almost inevitable. The sixth council district of North Hollywood, Sun Valley and Van Nuys had one last year, in March 2023 to replace disgraced council president Nury Martinez, after she resigned over crude, racist remarks caught on the secretly recorded audio tape leaked in 2022. Imelda Padilla won that race. And in 2019, John Lee won the special election in CD 12 (Chatsworth, West Hills, and Reseda) to replace his former boss Mitch Englander, who was convicted of lying to the FBI.
But that didn’t happen in CD 10. There would be no special election. It would cost too much money, council president Paul Krekorian decided. They would wait a year for the 2024 general election to fill the seat.
Money wasn’t the only concern. Holding any election, special or general, could draw five or more candidates, including Grace Yoo, which could be risky. Yoo’s popularity might well upset the plan City Hall had in mind.
This is when the wagons began to circle around only one option: appointing someone to fill Ridley-Thomas’ seat and ensuring that only one person—Heather Hutt—ended up in the circle’s center.
Hutt meanwhile, as Wesson’s senior staffer, had been filling in for the district on a temporary basis until Ridley-Thomas’ felony case played out.
The leaked audio tape conversation among city power brokers revealed Hutt as someone who would be their ally. “We need a woman. An African American woman,” comments Nury Martinez. “Yes,” says CD 1 councilman Gil Cedillo, “the one who will support us is Heather Hutt.”
At first, city council members pushed back against appointing Hutt. “An up-or-down vote on just one candidate is not a democracy,” former councilman Mike Bonin said during the meeting. “That’s what they did in the Soviet Union. Here in this country, we get to choose between various candidates, and I believe the residents of the 10th District deserve to have options.”
If councilmembers had any reservations that an African American woman should get the job, the large group of women that came to council chambers the day of the vote, made their demands clear with their signs: “Black Women Are Watching.”
The district has had Black leadership for more than 30 years, but it is much more diverse now. African Americans are among Yoo’s strongest supporters. “My neighbors wonder whether Grace can represent them fairly,” says Quintus Jett, President of the West Adams Neighborhood Council who holds a Ph.D. from Stanford School of Engineering in Management Science/Organizations. “I’ve seen her do it,” Jett tells them. “Grace came to our church and connected with the congregation. So I say, yes she can. And yes she will. Grace is the epitome of fairness, and she is plugged in to all our neighborhoods.”
Besides, Jett adds: “It shouldn’t be a race thing anymore with the district now so diverse. It’s about the person’s character and how well they connect with all of us. Grace is that person.”
Why wasn’t Yoo considered for the appointment? “Grace was a logical choice,” Dujon says. “She is honest, independent and ran a straight-up up campaign against Ridley-Thomas for the council seat in 2022 and came in second with 36,486 votes. That means she was already vetted by the community, but the political machine knew they couldn’t corrupt Grace.”
Yoo explains the appointment oversight simply: “They know I won’t kowtow to them.”
But the fix was in. If the full council wouldn’t confirm Hutt’s appointment, council president Nury Martinez with Herb Wesson’s blessing, could. Martinez called a late evening meeting with just the Rules Committee and Hutt won the appointment.
With Hutt’s appointment came the valuable gift of the incumbent title, generally reserved for those who’ve already been elected. At one time, being the incumbent was almost a guarantee of re-election. A big boost in name recognition and donations for an incumbent usually ensued.
Incumbency gave Hutt a big advantage going into the 2024 election. Yoo came in second to Hutt’s lead in the March primary and they face a run-off in November.
Even with City Hall backing Hutt, Yoo outraised her two to one in the official August 2024 tally, with donations of $161,001.00 to Hutt’s $82,594.01. “I am deeply humbled and grateful for the overwhelming support from the community,” Yoo said at a press conference. “This is a clear reflection of residents’ fatigue with the current incumbent in the 10th District. I believe residents have become strongly motivated to seek change and community reform after seeing a series of corruption allegations against those leading in our district.”
Many question the legitimacy of Hutt’s incumbency. “Hutt was placed in that seat, not elected,” insists Dujon. “It is completely unfair and not earned. It was a unilateral decision made by corrupt public officials who robbed our district of the democratic process, and nothing has been done about it. It was a colossal mistake.”
When East Area Progressive Democrats endorsed Yoo heading into the March primary this year, Andrew Westall, Hutt’s chief deputy wanted to know why the club had not considered Hutt for the endorsement. “We do not recall Councilmember Heather Hutt ever winning an election for the CD 10 seat,” club president Hans Johnson advised him. “Thus, we do not recognize any assertion of prerogative by you, a staffer, that she be granted an audience for requesting endorsement.”
EAPD endorsed Yoo in all three of her elections since 2015. “Grace personifies hope and perseverance” explains Johnson. “Her tenacity in taking on machine politics in LA at its worst time during a period of brazen corruption shows her independence from entrenched interests and her focus on fighting for solution for her diverse neighbors make her an excellent candidate.”
The editorial board of the LA Times also doubted whether Hutt was right for the job. The primary election for the seat in March drew five contenders, among them Hutt, Yoo and community activist Reverend Eddie Anderson. The board endorsed Anderson, but Hutt and Yoo were the top two vote getters.
About Hutt, the Times wrote “while she has been a capable caretaker for the seat, focused on bringing stability to the office and restoring constituent services…. Colleagues say she is thoughtful, hard-working and a collaborative presence on the council. But she doesn’t appear to have a vision for the future of the district or the city.”
Fast forward a few months to September 16 and the Times editorial board did a complete about face. The paper endorsed Hutt.
Bernard Parks, a former LAPD chief and council member who has long supported Yoo, maintaining that “Grace’s integrity and strength is sorely need on the council,” was stunned when he read the endorsement.
“The question is how has the Times come full circle to endorse a person they said had no vision just months ago? What could have changed?” Parks wonders.
What changed is that the paper got on board with City Hall’s choice. “The Times does not have a good record when it comes to their endorsements,” adds Parks. “Remember that they endorsed Mark Ridley-Thomas for the 10th district seat and dismissed his efforts to funnel money to his son as only a ‘questionable ethical decision’ which resulted in him being a convicted felon.
"Lately, achieving a Times endorsement is not necessarily the high bar of political endorsements as their decision-making leaves much to be desired.”
A year into the council job now, how is Hutt doing? Mixed reviews are not unusual for any councilmember. And addressing a flood of constituents’ complaints can be overwhelming for any staff office. Those who know Hutt say she is cordial, smart, committed to helping the district and doing her best.
Others complain that constituent requests for help can take months to get a reply if the office responds at all. And some say that Hutt makes empty promises of attending meetings.
Members of West Adams Neighborhood Council invited Hutt to attend their meetings several times, but so far, she hasn’t shown. Others were stunned when Hutt sent a staffer to represent her at a community Town Hall in January. “We believe that candidates should communicate directly with voters,” says Yoo, “not send someone else, especially when it’s an opportunity to engage directly with community members.”
Some in the district have had to call in the media and hire private lawyers to get help from Hutt’s office. Elsa Lopez, a homeowner in the West Adams neighborhood, called Hutt’s office several times over the period of a year about the rows of palm trees that needed trimming. Large, heavy palm fronds blew off in high winds, causing serious damage to cars and homes, and one injured a man when it fell on his head.
When a staffer finally responded, he told Lopez that the trees would be trimmed in February of this year. They weren’t and Lopez fired off a letter. “We are very discouraged and frustrated that we are ignored,” she wrote. “The palm trees are very dangerous and can severely injure people, even kill them. Please, do not ignore us.” No response from Hutt’s office.
Fed up, Lopez called Univision TV. The station did a video report, and the trees were finally trimmed in July.
Residents in Mid-City struggled to get help from Hutt’s office to close the illegal hostels along West View Street. Once a quiet, safe area, hostel tenants were ruining their neighborhood, with vandalism, illegal parking, litter, drug dealing, noise, and public nudity. “Hutt was anything but helpful,” says one resident. “We called Grace Yoo and she was the only one with knowledge of how to navigate the city system who came to our residents meeting.”
Hutt did file a motion to explore a solution, but it stalled in the bureaucracy. Desperate, residents hired a private lawyer who sent Hutt a letter. “The city is on notice,” the lawyer wrote, “that a lack of enforcement of the zoning laws despite clear evidence and knowledge of the dire situation will lead to liability in the future for dereliction of duty.” Most of the hostels are now closed.
Early in the race, Yoo called out Hutt’s ethical lapse of distributing a city resource guide which had Councilmember Heather Hutt’s name overlayed on top of the flyer—an election tactic forbidden by city ethics rules. Hutt’s office explained that the guide was printed outside their office and they had no knowledge of the error. Yoo doesn’t buy their explanation. “They got caught in a lie,” she says.
Those with a long view of city politics recognize what’s at play: “It could be that Hutt is identified with the old guard--Wesson, Ridley-Thomas, Garcetti who are gone,” explains one observer “while many may think that Grace Yoo is a familiar face who’s paid her dues and now merits a chance.”
In another realm, a fitting outcome might be: Heather Hutt is freed to pursue her true political dreams, while Grace Yoo is ushered into the job she deserves.
(Mary A Fischer is a journalist and Eastside activist.)
