SGV Connect 129: Interview with Hilda Solis

Damien Newton  0:00  

Hi. So we are recording on Zoom. We were lucky enough to be able to catch up with Supervisor Hilda Solis to talk a little bit about Measure G, which is the upcoming ballot measure to increase the size of the LA County Board of Supervisors and do a few other things. But rather than me talking about it, we thought you'd rather hear the supervisor talk about it. So welcome and thank you for being with us today.

Hilda Solis  0:24  

Thank you. I'm happy to be here. And Happy Friday. 

Damien Newton  0:29  

Thank you. Yes, well, we won't be probably putting this up till Monday, so probably Tuesday. We're not publishing Monday for Indigenous People's Day.

Everyone should have enjoyed their three day weekend, and now we're ready to talk about Measure G. So if you haven't voted yet, it might be helpful for people to just start with a quick overview of what is Measure G and what was the idea behind placing it on the ballot. 

Hilda Solis  0:56  

Measure G is about expanding the Board of Supervisors from its current membership of five to nine, and this has been an ongoing discussion for several decades. In fact, couple years ago, both Supervisor Hahn and myself actually had a motion to explore this and actually put it out there. And I've always been a proponent of expansion of the board, because I do believe that it helps government to have better representation. And right now, as you know, it's great we have five women, but when you think about it, we don't have an AAPI representative and LA County has over 1.6 million people of AAPI, Asian, Pacific Islander Heritage. And in my district, I represent about 25% of that population alone. And they have also been talking to me for several years about about their wanting to see more diverse representation. And quite frankly, I understand that, because I also am the only Latina representing, you know, the Latino community, which makes up close to 50% of LA County. It's impossible for me to be able to, could I say, represent all of those individuals. And I do think, quite frankly, when you look at the county, it has changed from over 100 years, right? They, they used to count, what do they say? Cows before they counted people, and they cut the districts up in geographic areas. And when you think about it, 2 million people are represented by each of the five members. And they are, they are very diverse. So for example, I represent now East Hollywood, downtown Skid Row, all the way to the city of Pomona. Can you imagine the different languages and the diversity that that is represented there? It's truly international, and I think that's also a positive. But I do hear from people that they want to have better representation, much like the city council in Los Angeles...maybe not that many members, but certainly at least a million that could be represented by nine members in a new Board of Supervisors. And I would say to you that for me, as someone who started out in politics, I actually started out at Rio Hondo College, and I ran for a specific seat that was set up for someone who could run in El Monte and South El Monte, because they never had representation. It was always, at that time, an at large election, election. So you never got to see people with different interests representation, and ...how could I say more...more of a grassroots and person who really cared about increasing access and representation. And so for me, I come from that school of thought: civil rights, voting rights and empowering people to have their voices heard. So that kind of, for me, is the premise really behind this. But it also includes reforms. One of the big game changers will be an ethics commission that will be independent and that won't have to have any ties with any of the board members appointing people on that commission? So it will be a different commission that will be independent, and they will look at any any structural changes that have to happen? Because we know we've had some issues with ethics in terms of people who work for the county, or who have worked or who have, uh, you know, even board members. So we know that this is very important, and it's something that we saw in our polling that that polled very high. So we know that that is a big game changer. The other is to make sure that we create an elected CEO, kind of like a mayor like the city of Los Angeles. And I know some people are wondering, well, isn't it going to politicize? Well, quite frankly, when you look at the City of Los Angeles, you have someone who actually has to talk to everybody, all the members of the city council, and has to have a good understanding of what some of the public policy that is being discussed at more of a local level. And right now, we don't have that. We have an appointed CEO who actually oversees a good part of the budget. Yes, we vote on it, but much of it, in my opinion, hasn't been as transparent. I think it will also allow for our department heads, we have, like, 30...38 departments, they will come up and justify their budgets and can hear from the board, but also hear from the public about how they're spending their money, something that really does not happen, and that's that's also unfortunate. So again, transparency, good government, ethics reform, an elected CEO who will have to represent the concerns of our various residents, which I don't think is impossible, and there will be creation of a legislative office just like Sacramento and just like the city of LA so they can do analysis on the motions and so-called bills that we put forward to give you the pros and cons and that would be made public, and they would have to be noticed to the public with five days. And there will also be what I would call a budget office that will actually have people who will be able to go through, scrutinize the budget, make sure that it's valid, and also articulate any concerns or foreseeable problems that the board offices and the public need to hear about. So it kind of takes away from just a handful of politicians, but allows for more transparency. So that's kind of what Measure G is in a nutshell. And as you know, it was placed on the ballot by three members of the board. The lead was Chairwoman Lindsay Horvath, Supervisor Hahn and myself.

Speaker 1  6:54  

Okay, so I had a list of questions, and you just blew through all of them, except for one. So I only have one remaining question, which is, "a lot of people, when I've been talking about this, I did a little community meeting in my own neighborhood where we were talking about ballot measures, people had the question of, well, do we know what district we're going to be in? Are we going to lose, quote, unquote, lose our supervisor? And I happen to live like right on the border area between people that Janice Hahn and Holly Mitchell and so even had people in the meeting that had different supervisors. But we don't know yet what the districts are going to look like. There's going to be a redistricting process that happens afterwards if the measure passes,

Hilda Solis  7:32  

That wouldn't take place until after the census. So we're really talking about, you know, 2030 right? In terms of coming up with the actual mapping, and we just went through our own remapping redistricting, what almost two three years ago, and my district changed completely, and I didn't have anything to do with it. Our hands were off, and it actually cut out seven to eight cities that I represented in southeast Los Angeles, that now is a part of of supervisor Hahn's area. And now I represent the largest portion of unincorporated areas, which is Hacienda Heights, Diamond Bar and, of course, East LA as as a remainder. But I'm just saying that things happen totally different, and not to say that, you know, there are challenges, but I do think having better representation locally is going to have people be more nimble, and our departments to be more nimble, because we have issues all the time. People call, well, they didn't pick up by trash, they didn't do the road repair. What about the homeless on my street? Where are they being sent to to get interim housing is, you know, what are all these issues? Where can I go if I need to see a doctor and I don't have insurance and fire department, all of that is under our purview. And to be honest, we're kind of like super mini gubernatorial people, if you think about it, because we have a lot of concentrated power. But I think by allowing for more voices to be heard and to have a system that is clear and transparent and also is accountable to the public in a better way, because think about it, we haven't changed for 170 years. This is crazy, so I'm saying I won't even be there, because I will be termed out, but I wholeheartedly support this effort, and want to encourage people to please read the ballot statement, talk to your neighbors and listen to what is being said out there, not just from people who've already made up their minds, but think about what the possibilities are for LA County.

Damien Newton  9:36  

Well, you'd be able to run for county executive.

Hilda Solis  9:41  

No, no, no, no, no, I don't think so. I mean, I've, I've spent over, what I want to say, close to 30 some years, and I started, I started out early, not even knowing that I would ever be in politics. I mean, you don't go to college and you. Get a master's in your family tells you, are you crazy, Hilda? And sure enough, something happened in my life, and people said, "Hilda, why not get involved and represent our voices?" And that was my interest, because I was really headed toward just being a public administrator and working inside government to change lives, especially for young people that didn't have a shot at going to college, didn't have a shot at getting a better job and having having, how could, I say, a wayward few, you know, a path to the future, and for me, that's always been my guiding light.

Damien Newton  10:36  

Alright, well, we are up against the time limit we agreed to. So thank you so much for your time today. Do you have any closing thoughts, or should we uh, or do you feel we've covered ,easure G, well enough? 

Hilda Solis  10:46  

I just want to encourage people to vote. Overall, this is going to be such a consequential election for all of us, whether it's the top ticket from the President to the Senate to the Congress, the local level representatives as well as these measures, not just local, but statewide, will have major implications in terms of the direction of our country. And right now, as they say, and I'm adopting that saying, I don't want to go back, I want to go forward. So this is a way of moving forward,

Damien Newton   11:18  

Thank you very much for your time today, and we usually get a chance to chat with you once or twice a year, so we look forward to chatting again soon.