Streetsblog is happy to honor the leadership of L.A. County Supervisor Holly Mitchell - and to announce the date and time for our reception honoring Supervisor Mitchell where we will present her with the Streetsie Award for 2022 Elected Official of the Year.
The in-person reception will be Wednesday October 12 at the Oaxacalifornia (café juice bar) and the Bazaar at Mercado La Paloma from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m.
Mitchell has a long history of community service, as a nonprofit leader, a state elected official, and now as a Metro boardmember and the Chair of L.A. County Board of Supervisors.
As a County Supervisor, Mitchell has continued to chip away at historic structural injustices by championing equity and livability in her own initiatives and pushing to ensure they are included in those put forward by other members of the board. She wrote two of the motions aimed at phasing out neighborhood oil drilling, has advocated for L.A. to be a Housing First county, co-authored a first-of-its-kind countywide Poverty Alleviation Policy Agenda and Guaranteed Income Pilot Program, proposed an RV encampment pilot to help better connect people to services, co-authored motions taking aim at Deputy gangs in the Sheriff's department and seeking the power to remove rogue a Sheriff altogether, advocated for better conditions for the oft-overlooked population at Nidorf Juvenile Hall, and after the recent horrific Windsor Hills car crash, underscored the need for the the county to recommit to Vision Zero and the prioritization of infrastructure that would prevent future traffic violence there.
On the Metro board, Supervisor Mitchell has consistently pressed for the board and the agency to focus on the needs of transit riders, the vast majority of whom are lower-income Black and brown folks. She has been a strong advocate restoring service after the pandemic cuts. She held Metro's feet to the fire with regard to its chronically under-enrolled low-income fare program, eventually getting Metro to actively enroll people, allow online enrollment for the first time, and offer three months' free transit rides to incentivize enrollment. She has been a compassionate voice in efforts to reimagine public safety onboard Metro transit, including fostering solutions that help unhoused people taking shelter on the Metro system.
