Go deeper:\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sequoia Neff, small-business owner<\/p>\n
Sequoia Neff is a lifelong Long Beach resident, where she attended Poly High School and founded a youth track club and basketball league for underserved kids. She\u2019s spent the past 20 years working in real estate and currently owns a multi-state brokerage firm that handles residential and commercial properties.<\/p>\n
In her own words<\/p>\n
Neff said human trafficking is the major issue affecting residents\u2019 quality of life, physical safety and property values, as well as business growth.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want it to be addressed for the residents, but I also am on the victims\u2019 side of things,\u201d Neff said. \u201cA lot of these girls are manipulated; [predators] use different tactics to keep them in fear.\u201d<\/p>\n
Neff said she already works with nonprofits to help get trafficking victims off the street and into housing and jobs.<\/p>\n
If elected, Neff said she wants to higher penalties for \u201cJohns\u201d because the citations they receive now are comparable to a jaywalking ticket. She said she also wants to allocate more than patrol officers to the corridor and instead create a dedicated police unit.<\/p>\n
Neff said the city needs to start enforcing ordinances that already are on the books \u2014 such as nuisance-abatement laws for problematic motels. \u201cThey know it\u2019s there,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s been ignored, and they just let it go.\u201d<\/p>\n
Neff said another top priority is implementing individualized services for unhoused residents because people experiencing homelessness all have different needs. If the city is providing food and housing, it should also provide job training, mental health services and drug and alcohol addiction support.<\/p>\n
She said no matter what approach the city takes, it must be strategic and efficient with its spending \u2014 and avoid launching projects that can\u2019t be finished, such as the Tiny Homes campus that had to be scrapped last year<\/a>.<\/p>\n More voter resources:<\/p>\n Website: SequoiaNeff.com<\/a>Endorsements: Rachel Glenn, Olympian; Lashinda Demus, Olympic gold medalist<\/p>\n Go deeper:\u00a0<\/p>\n Campaign finance<\/p>\n No outside spending as of last reporting date<\/p>\n Independent or outside committees can raise and spend without limits \u2014 but they’re barred from coordinating with a candidate. A chart will appear above when any outside committees have spent money to support or oppose a candidate in this race. Updated every Tuesday and Thursday.<\/p>\n How to get involved<\/p>\n How to get involved with the Long Beach City Council<\/p>\n The Long Beach City Council meets most Tuesdays at 5 p.m. in the Civic Chambers at 411 W. Ocean Blvd. You can attend in person or watch online here<\/a>, as well as on the city\u2019s YouTube channel<\/a>. You can find the meeting agendas here<\/a>.In order to give public comment, residents must sign up with the city clerk, located on the left side of the room in front of the council dais. If you can\u2019t attend the meeting, you can still leave a public comment online. Here\u2019s more information<\/a> on how to do that.The public comment period for non-agenda items typically happens toward the start of the meeting, but there\u2019s also an opportunity to give public comment for each item on the regular agenda. If there are too many speakers on non-agenda items, be prepared to wait until almost the end of the meeting, which can last hours.If you want to contact your City Council member or other local elected officials directly, you can find their contact information here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What\u2019s at stake in this race The City Council is Long Beach\u2019s main legislative body. Its nine members…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292334,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[20812,106986,131,7188,133,132,124588,16607],"class_list":["post-292464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-district-9","tag-june-2-primary","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-city-council","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-voter-game-plan","tag-voter-guide"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292464\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"visualization\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1777517651_750_thumbnail.jpeg\")
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