Go deeper:\u00a0<\/p>\n
Anthony Bryson, restaurant manager<\/p>\n
Anthony Bryson says he has been a community organizer in Long Beach for a decade and attended Long Beach City College and Cal State Long Beach. He said as a renter living in the 90813 ZIP code \u2014 which he said has the highest crime rate in Long Beach \u2014 he believes it\u2019s time for District 1 to have \u201ca councilmember who will show up for renters, workers and families \u2014 not for developers and donors.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said his role as a community organizer and chef have prepared him to serve as an effective councilmember: \u201cI know how to put aces in places \u2026 making sure the right people are where they need to be so that things are executed properly.\u201d<\/p>\n
In his own words<\/p>\n
Bryson has identified renter protections, non-violent crisis response, environmental improvements and safeguards against ICE as some of his top priorities. Bryson said that recently, he\u2019s volunteered with neighborhood anti-ICE patrols, helping alert residents to immigration raids.<\/p>\n
Bryson is also the co-founder of SoCal Uprising<\/a> \u2014 a nonprofit and self-described \u201crainbow coalition\u201d that organizes demonstrations across Southern California in support of equal rights for all. He said he\u2019s been a longtime member of both Black Lives Matter and the Democratic Socialists of America.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need more AOCs, we need more Mamdanis, but we don\u2019t have enough that are coming into these arenas,\u201d Bryson said.<\/p>\n If elected, Bryson said, his first priority would be expanding supportive programs for the unhoused community. This means potentially expanding shelter hours, revising policies to allow families (and pets) to remain together and creating a designated encampment zone \u2014 a safe space where \u201coutside city dwellers\u201d can live. Bryson said this outdoor facility could be built in a green space in an area with a dense unhoused population, insulating it with a fence or other protective border and bringing in unarmed police officers to maintain peace for the residents.<\/p>\n He said all these efforts take on new urgency with the upcoming Olympic games, which will have a significant footprint in Long Beach and attract watchful eyes from all over the world.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s imperative to me that we\u2019re not shuttling out homeless people and that we\u2019re not experiencing mass gentrification to be more appealing while we\u2019re being televised,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n More voter resources:<\/p>\n Go deeper:\u00a0<\/p>\n Brock Goleman, trucking business owner<\/p>\n Brock Goleman<\/p>\n Goleman says he owns a small trucking business, serves on the Citizens\u2019 Advisory Committee for the Long Beach Police Department and is a member of the Coast Guard Auxiliary. He said he was inspired to run for office after experiencing the financial roller coaster of running a small business.<\/p>\n \u201cIf something disrupts the economy, I mean, truckers are the first people to go,\u201d he said. \u201cYou know, we\u2019re the first people to work real heavy, and we\u2019re the first people to lose our jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n In his own words<\/p>\n Long Beach is in the middle of a financial emergency, Goleman said. If elected, he said he would institute an internal review of each governmental department to ensure that available funds are being spent efficiently and transparently.<\/p>\n One way to conserve funds would be to restore more power to law enforcement \u2014 that way, they wouldn\u2019t need to spend as much on additional resources, he said. So he supports giving law enforcement more \u201cdiscretion\u201d in handling incidents involving complaints about disturbing the peace. As an example, he said that if someone is standing in the middle of the road \u201cwith their pants over their head,\u201d instigating fights and drawing a crowd, Goleman thinks police should be empowered to intervene.<\/p>\n He said that as the climate shifts away from what he calls the \u201canything goes approach\u201d to a \u201cmore practical \u2018fix things\u2019 mindset,\u201d this is slowly happening. But the LBPD needs to change the hands-off policies it has been operating under, Goleman said, referring to those as policies shaped by past mandates and public opinion.<\/p>\n \u201cIn a Democratic stronghold, you don\u2019t want to use violence as a means,\u201d he said. \u201cBut you have to change the attitude a little bit to where you know when to be cool and when you can go full stop on being cool.\u201d<\/p>\n When it comes to federal law enforcement like ICE, Goleman said he doesn\u2019t want them in Long Beach and thinks they set back law enforcement \u201cabout 70 years.\u201d But he also thinks the city needs a new, \u201cinnovative\u201d approach to diplomacy, so as not to antagonize the federal government and risk financial repercussions.<\/p>\n More voter resources:<\/p>\n Go deeper:\u00a0<\/p>\n Deb Kahookele, real estate agent\/business owner<\/p>\n Debra Kahookele<\/p>\n (<\/p>\n Courtesy of the campaign<\/p>\n )<\/p>\n Deb Kahookele received a bachelor\u2019s degree from Cal State Long Beach with a double major in management and operations management. She moved to Long Beach in 2010 and now works as a real estate agent. She\u2019s an executive board member of Long Beach Pride, which hosts the city\u2019s Pride festival each year, and is the president of the Promenade Area Resident Association.<\/p>\n Kahookele said the issues at play in this election cycle \u2014 homelessness, public safety and housing \u2014 are the same that have been debated for decades.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy is it that we\u2019re here today, still saying the same things?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n In her own words<\/p>\n Public safety is Kahookele\u2019s top priority, she said, and her plans to improve it vary by the neighborhood. For some places, it means installing more lighting on public corridors and recruiting residents to serve as community watch. For others, it requires a tougher stance on homelessness, she said. For unhoused individuals who don\u2019t want to live outside, the city needs to be proactive about getting them into transitional housing. For \u201cdrug addicts,\u201d who are resistant to help and continue to engage in illegal activity, police officers need to step in and either arrest them or give them the option to go to rehab, Kahookele said. Either approach gets them off the street.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to enforce the laws that are on our books,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re not.\u201d<\/p>\n Kahookele said some residents don\u2019t even call police anymore because they\u2019re convinced officers won\u2019t respond. She added that some small businesses that have been burglarized multiple times are no longer even repairing their broken windows or doors; they\u2019re just boarding them up with plywood.<\/p>\n Kahookele said this isn\u2019t the image Long Beach wants to project \u2014 especially with the upcoming Olympics.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd we have one shot to make an impression,\u201d she said. \u201cIf we lose our tourism here, we\u2019re done.\u201d<\/p>\n More voter resources:<\/p>\n Go deeper:\u00a0<\/p>\n Lori Logan, retired laboratory technician<\/p>\n At time of publication, Logan had not responded to LAist\u2019s requests to participate in our Voter Game Plan.\u00a0<\/p>\n Logan is a member of the Washington Neighborhood Association. In 2020, she participated in organized marches to call attention to acts of violence in the neighborhood and to pressure local government to address the high concentration of liquor stores in the area.<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone is frustrated because we\u2019re trying to work with the City Council, we\u2019re trying to work with the police, and neither party is doing anything,\u201d Logan told the Long Beach Post<\/a> at the time.<\/p>\n More voter resources:<\/p>\n Tamika Wagner-Osio, nonprofit executive director\/entrepreneur<\/p>\n Tamika Wagner-Osio<\/p>\n (<\/p>\n Courtesy of the campaign<\/p>\n )<\/p>\n Tamika Wagner-Osio says she\u2019s a single mom who fought her way out of poverty and homelessness, and it\u2019s this firsthand experience that drove her to pursue a life of service and advocacy.<\/p>\n \u201cI know what instability feels like,\u201d she said. \u201cI know what it\u2019s like to be stuck in a failed system.\u201d<\/p>\n So after she and her family found stable footing, Wagner-Osio said she founded Connections for Women<\/a>, a nonprofit that began by collecting donations for homeless families and evolved into a shelter that provides temporary, emergency housing. Since then, Wagner-Osio also started a therapeutic home for foster youth boys coming out of juvenile detention, and she\u2019s currently a co-chair for the Long Beach Continuum of Care for Homelessness.<\/p>\n In her own words<\/p>\n Wagner-Osio said City Council members are elected, but in reality, they\u2019re also \u201chired\u201d positions, paid by Long Beach taxpayers. So candidates should have the r\u00e9sum\u00e9, references and proven outcomes to get the job done, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I hear other candidates \u2026 they use the language of ‘We need compassionate care, we need solutions, and we need plans,’ but nobody is talking about their plan of how they would actually do that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n If elected, Wagner-Osio said she\u2019d first increase shelter space by building on city-owned property in commercial zones. This would create more housing options without affecting libraries, schools and residential neighborhoods.<\/p>\n Wagner-Osio said she\u2019s a \u201csystems builder,\u201d and in fact has already designed a program called SheltrLink to address homelessness in Long Beach. She said it’s a central database where providers can identify available bed space, file incident reports and track the estimated costs of sheltering a person and transitioning them into permanent supportive housing. If implemented widely, Wagner-Osio said it could save the city millions of dollars in duplicative efforts and other inefficiencies in the current system. She said that this same, data-based approach could also be used to streamline the permitting process for small businesses and to lower the barriers to entry for entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n More voter resources:<\/p>\n Go deeper:\u00a0<\/p>\n Campaign finance<\/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 ![\"a](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1777519815_523_.jpeg\")
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