We are just a little over a month until the Los Angeles primary mayoral election takes place on June 2.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Incumbent mayor Karen Bass, District 4 councilmember Nithya Raman, and conservative reality star Spencer Pratt currently lead the race, but a poll<\/a> released early this month by the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs indicates unsteadiness and volatility ahead. 40% of voters remain undecided \u2014\u00a0and without a majority vote, two leading candidates will have to face off in a runoff election on Nov. 3.\u00a0<\/p>\n Some are hoping for an underdog to swoop in, and the Blade spoke with one of these contenders: LGBTQ+ artist and creative director, Bryant Acosta<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Born in West Covina, Acosta attended The Art Institute of California, Los Angeles in the early 2000s, where he experienced a bursting energy that defines the county\u2019s reputation as a major hub and global beacon for success. \u201cEverything felt limitless. There was so much opportunity,\u201d Acosta told the Blade. \u201cThe city felt alive. You could feel the heart and soul of what L.A. was, and I just don\u2019t see that anymore.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Acosta hopes to revitalize the county with fresh perspectives, a creative tech-forward approach, and a reboot of how City Hall operates when it comes to transparency and efficiency. His career has spun through several evolutions: he\u2019s been in charge of multi-million dollar budgets and large teams as a creative director, both in the corporate world and on his own terms.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Blade sat down with Acosta to discuss his pledge for the county\u2019s queer residents and other minority community members, his vision for an app that would streamline accessible city services, and how he sees his identity as a \u2018superpower.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n What are your ideas about how you would concretely support queer communities? I was at City Hall a couple months ago when the TransLatin@ Coalition was there to ask for $4 million in direct funding<\/a> from the county. There\u2019s a big wave and throughline of struggle when it comes to queer communities having to advocate for themselves. How would you support them as Mayor?\u00a0<\/p>\n Being queer myself\u2026I just feel like you don\u2019t have to shrink yourself to survive in the city, at least not on my watch. This campaign is for the people who have felt unseen, who have had to build their own community and opportunities. But it isn\u2019t just about visibility, it\u2019s about affordability, safety, and opportunity. Because what good is being seen if you can\u2019t afford to live here or feel protected?\u00a0<\/p>\n Education [is] a big [priority] because right now there\u2019s so much misinformation \u2014 specifically around trans issues. I want to be able to bring people along on the journey of: Hey, this is who they are, this is what they\u2019re asking for [and] make it so that people see them as humans. Being able to bridge that gap between the misinformation on social media and bridge it to actual science-based information so that people can really understand what it is to be trans and that they\u2019re part of our community.\u00a0<\/p>\n When I spoke with trans leaders and advocates, many explained that City Hall does not lack funds \u2014 it\u2019s simply not prioritizing their organizations into the county\u2019s budget.\u00a0<\/p>\n I know Kenneth Mejia, our [City] Controller, has been working on having more visibility into the budget \u2014 but if we were able to have an application like my LA Now app idea<\/a> where people can track every dollar [and] every penny spent, it\u2019s not going to be a fight. This minority group of people is asking for this much money. It\u2019s well within the budget. Why wouldn\u2019t we do this? It\u2019s an essential service for them. Just as the trash or the water are essential services for your neighborhoods, these are things that they\u2019re asking for to continue to operate and be a part of our community. That\u2019s why I\u2019m making that my main touch point, because without accountability, transparency and trust in City Hall, we don\u2019t have anything else.<\/p>\n Can you tell me more about your LA Now app idea and how it adds to your mission of transparency for LA county residents?<\/p>\n I worked in tech for a while, so I learned how to use technology to better\u2026communications, advertising, and all of the things. So, I [thought]: I should be able to use that and be a really future-forward mayor.\u00a0<\/p>\n I developed this app, where basically, you could have civics in the palm of your hand. You\u2019d open the app, [and] you\u2019d have a dashboard. Organizations will be loaded into it so that when you have problems with housing, the streets and anything in your community, it\u2019ll geo-target your area so they\u2019ll have all the services listed that you can contact.\u00a0<\/p>\n You\u2019d also be able to pay parking tickets. If you get towed by the city, it\u2019ll give you a notification. So, there\u2019s no more of those predatory towing fees. [You\u2019d also be] able to get push notifications for jury duty, so it has a lot of those civics built in.\u00a0<\/p>\n And with what Kenneth Mejia is doing right now \u2014 he\u2019s giving us a full data dashboard<\/a> of where the money\u2019s going. I want to simplify that and make it more accessible so that, [for example], my mom and my cousins can read it. [I want to] really put it in the palm of your hand so we see every dollar, every penny spent in real time.\u00a0<\/p>\n I created a section where, essentially, you can rate your leader. So basically it\u2019d be like Yelp, but for leadership. So, when you see things like Nithya [Raman] spending a million dollars on bathrooms<\/a>, that would trigger a warning to the Controller, and then we\u2019d be able to see: Hey, what\u2019s going on here? If leaders want to have five stars, they need to respond in real time. It would just keep that extra layer of accountability \u2014 a digital accountability on leadership.<\/p>\n Last but not least, I want to develop an anti-Amazon feature [on the app]. Essentially, we would have an E-commerce marketplace [that] only local businesses would be able to get on, so that they could maximize their profits.\u00a0<\/p>\n Would the app include surveillance protections? With fears over ICE and online safety, would there be a way for people to feel secure while using the app?<\/p>\n How I\u2019m thinking of this as an operating system is that we would use ID.me, which we use at the DMV, to be able to log in. So it already has all your information, and that way you\u2019re not having to input everything a million times. But for people who are undocumented, you\u2019d have a back portal where you\u2019d have access to essential services. I [also] thought about people who don\u2019t have cell phones. We could also have kiosks in public libraries, grocery stores, any place that has public access, so that everybody would have access to these data points and things that they may [need].\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n You\u2019re forward about being at the intersection of marginalized identities, as a queer and Latino person. How does this affect how you think about the mayoral race and how you\u2019re building connections with LA residents?\u00a0<\/p>\n Being queer and Latino [doesn\u2019t] hold me back. It\u2019s actually a superpower for me. In some ways, it forced me to figure things out \u2014 not just to find a seat at the table, but to build my own. Understanding people [in] these kinds of ways is invaluable. Also, being first-generation American and openly gay, you see this country as both an opportunity and an exclusion at the same time. No matter how smart, accomplished, or creative you are, there\u2019s still a ceiling you hit, especially when the system was never built with you in mind.\u00a0<\/p>\n That perspective really changes how [I] lead because you don\u2019t just want access to the system \u2014 you want to fix it so that it actually works for everyone.<\/p>\n To learn more about Bryant Acosta and his mayoral campaign, you can visit his social media page <\/a>and website<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Kristie Song is a California Local News Fellow placed with the Los Angeles Blade. The California Local News Fellowship is a state-funded initiative to support and strengthen local news reporting. Learn more about it at\u00a0fellowships.journalism.berkeley.edu\/cafellows<\/a>.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t