{"id":296779,"date":"2026-05-02T16:11:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T16:11:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/296779\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T16:11:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T16:11:15","slug":"l-a-city-controller-election-guide-kenneth-mejia-vs-zach-sokoloff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/296779\/","title":{"rendered":"L.A. city controller election guide: Kenneth Mejia vs. Zach Sokoloff"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>p]:text-cms-story-body-color-text clearfix&#8221;&gt; <\/p>\n<p>Kenneth Mejia, 35, is a certified public accountant who lives in Westlake. In 2022, he won the most votes of any controller candidate in city history, despite lacking name recognition and running against a sitting city council member, Paul Koretz.<\/p>\n<p>Mejia, who is of Filipino ancestry, <a class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/california\/story\/2022-11-11\/kenneth-mejia-city-controller-race-first-asian-american-la-citywide-office\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">became the first Asian American<\/a> to hold citywide elected office in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n<p>He\u2019s well-known online, and his <a class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/california\/story\/2025-11-19\/la-city-controllers-race-gets-ruff-as-candidate-targets-kenneth-mejias-corgis\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">two corgis<\/a>, Killa and Kirby, are a constant presence in his campaign as well as on the official controller\u2019s website. He points to his audits of city spending on homelessness, police, housing and animal services.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe said we were going to provide more financial transparency and accountability and oversight, and we\u2019ve done that,\u201d Mejia said in an interview.<\/p>\n<p>The controller\u2019s waste, fraud and abuse team began investigating a homeless service provider after receiving a phone call alleging fraud. Mejia said it became the catalyst for a federal investigation into Alexander Soofer, who in January was <a class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/california\/story\/2026-01-23\/la-homeless-services-fraudster-enjoyed-l-authorities-charge\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">charged with wire fraud<\/a> amid allegations that he took $23 million in public funds meant for homeless people.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBecause of the work that we do, it also forces agencies to better look at their internal controls, to hold service providers accountable,\u201d Mejia said. \u201cThese events can lead to systemic change, and that\u2019s what it did.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Zach Sokoloff, 37, lives in Westwood with his wife, two kids and two rescue dogs. He was born and raised in the Westwood area. He graduated from Yale University, received a master\u2019s in education policy and administration from Loyola Marymount University and an MBA from Harvard University before teaching algebra at a middle school in Boyle Heights and a high school in Watts.<\/p>\n<p>Since joining Hackman in 2018, he has worked on multibillion projects transforming legacy studio lots. The company is considered one of Hollywood\u2019s largest landlords.<\/p>\n<p>Sokoloff points to his experience managing large-scale projects as key to navigating the city\u2019s budget and bureaucracy. He said he would work collaboratively across different departments.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAngelenos are tired of reports. They want results, and so my approach balances accountability and collaboration,\u201d Sokoloff said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"p]:text-cms-story-body-color-text clearfix&#8221;&gt; Kenneth Mejia, 35, is a certified public accountant who lives in Westlake. In 2022, he won&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296780,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[380,7166,20865,124644,17358,4579,1493,124642,48,52,51,47,50,49,35342,592,2211,124643,51114,688,124641],"class_list":["post-296779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-affordable-housing","tag-ballots","tag-candidates","tag-century-city-law-firm","tag-city-attorney","tag-district","tag-homelessness","tag-kuehl","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-officers","tag-people","tag-race","tag-use-attorney","tag-yaroslavsky","tag-years","tag-yebri"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296779","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=296779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296779\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}