McOsker, a lifelong San Pedro resident, has a background in native authorities, having served as the highest aide to then-Metropolis Atty. James Hahn from 1997 to 2001. When Hahn was elected mayor, McOsker moved over to the mayor’s workplace, serving 4 years as Hahn’s chief of employees. He labored with Hahn on the hiring of a brand new police chief — William Bratton — and the marketing campaign to defeat a poll proposal that will have let the San Fernando Valley break free from L.A. and kind its personal metropolis.
Regardless of these achievements, that interval was fraught for the Hahn administration. State and federal prosecutors performed investigations of contracting at Metropolis Corridor, ensuing within the conviction of considered one of Hahn’s airport commissioners on corruption costs. Additionally convicted have been executives of an organization discovered to have overbilled the Division of Water and Energy.
After Hahn misplaced reelection, McOsker joined a high-powered regulation agency, choosing up a variety of shoppers with metropolis enterprise. As a registered lobbyist, he represented actual property builders, a lodge affiliation, contractors and the union that represents rank-and-file law enforcement officials. In 2018, he grew to become chief government of AltaSea, a nonprofit targeted on science, ocean sustainability and job creation on the Port of Los Angeles. He additionally serves on the board of Linc Housing, which builds reasonably priced housing, and different nonprofits.
Sandoval has additionally been politically lively, serving on two neighborhoods councils — one based mostly in central San Pedro, one other in L.A.’s Harbor Metropolis neighborhood. She was additionally a member of the Neighborhood Council Funds Advocates, which produces suggestions for metropolis spending.
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A resident of Harbor Metropolis, Sandoval has highlighted that volunteer work and mentioned the financial hardships she has confronted as a working mom and an entrepreneur. Certainly one of her companies was Caliente Cantina, a restaurant that opened in downtown San Pedro in 2014 and closed inside a 12 months.
Sandoval’s enterprise background got here again to hang-out her through the marketing campaign, after The Occasions reported that the state’s labor commissioner discovered that Cantina Investments LLC, an organization Sandoval helped kind, did not pay 4 of the restaurant’s employees — a violation generally often known as wage theft. Sandoval initially distanced herself from the enterprise, then mentioned she fired a few of her employees for theft and drug use. After a number of supporters rescinded their endorsements, Sandoval apologized and commenced negotiating fee to these employees.
Throughout the marketing campaign, Sandoval has criticized McOsker over his lobbying work and the political assist he has acquired from actual property teams. McOsker, in flip, has despatched mailers to voters specializing in Sandoval’s wage theft woes — and the endorsers who fled her marketing campaign after studying of these circumstances.
