In California’s June 2 primary election for Los Angeles City Comptroller, Zach Sokoloff is the challenger facing incumbent Kenneth Mejía.
The comptroller’s role is to audit the city’s finances. Although it does not manage the municipal budget, it has the authority to investigate how much is spent unjustifiably. His office has about 160 employees.
La Opinion considers that of the two, Sokoloff is the most suitable to face the difficult financial challenges facing the city and recommends its readers vote for him.
In 2025, Los Angeles went through a severe budget crisis. Its remnants still persist. It had a deficit of almost a billion dollars, due to a combination of factors such as a drastic decrease in sales, business and hotel tax collections, the immense costs related to the fires that caused 24 deaths and losses of up to 250 million dollars. Additionally, $287 million in liability payments. 53% of them, awarded for the conduct of municipal Police Department officers, including civil rights violations, excessive force and vehicle collisions. In addition to payments of more than 35 million, for the effects of defective infrastructure such as potholes and damaged sidewalks.
By the end of that year, the worst consequences of the crisis – the layoffs of thousands of municipal employees – had been avoided through consolidation and restructuring of departments, reduction of general expenses and cancellation of some 1,700 vacant positions.
However, the consequences of that year of emergencies continue to weigh on municipal finances.
The comptroller must take part in addressing these consequences and rectifying the course of Los Angeles’ development.
In those days, Mejía proposed ways to make money, and mentions imposing a vacant home tax on owners of empty properties. In turn, Sokoloff is preparing to appoint a chief revenue officer (Chief Income Officer) in charge of finding new sources of income on an ongoing basis, as well as auditing basic city services (roads, sidewalks, street lighting) to see where the money goes.
Kenneth Mejía came to office in 2022 promising transparency and accountability, riding a wave of criticism of the metropolitan establishment, especially the Police Department. It is a difficult position, which requires cooperation, and not confrontation, with the different organizations that represent the living forces of the second most populated city in the country.
Mejía, a certified public accountant (CPA) with a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Woodbury University in Burbank and a populist activist, won the 2022 election by a landslide when voters pinned their hopes on him, with a promise of transparency.
Zach Sokoloff earned a BA from Yale University, followed by a master’s degree in politics and education from Loyola Marymount University, and a joint Juris Doctor/Business Administration (JD/MBA) from Harvard University.
Sokoloff comes to this election from the world of finance, as senior vice president of asset management at Hackman Capital Companions, a leading condominium firm in Los Angeles, which he joined in 2018. He has worked on multimillion-dollar projects that transform legacy studio lots. He was previously a public school teacher, a job he considers to be service to the community.
He is running, he says, to ensure that taxpayer money is spent to make Los Angeles a “safe, prosperous, affordable and inclusive city for all.”
He promises to bring his vast experience converting studio lots to increase housing construction and “bring results” that “balance accountability and collaboration” with other departments.
He serves on the boards of the LA Economic Development Corporation, Heal the Bay, LAFHBUILDS, an organization that organizes and coordinates homeless housing, and Equality California PAC, an organization that advocates for the rights of LGBTQ+ people.
For his part, Mejía has the support of several of California’s major unions and local populist organizations, as well as the California Working Families Party.
Sokoloff has in turn received support for his candidacy from U.S. Senator Adam Schiff and Congressmen Tony Cárdenas and Ted Lieu, California Attorney General Rob Bonta, State Treasurer Fiona Ma, as well as Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas and Assemblymen Be aware González, Mike Gipson, Rick Chavez Zbur and Jesse Gabriel. Additionally, council members Bob Blumenfeld and Mónica Rodríguez and former municipal leaders such as Laura Chick, Paul Koretz and Wendy Gruel, as well as a number of unions and business organizations.
Kenneth Mejía’s purposes were and are laudable. But right now, they are more of a distraction than a help. Los Angeles is in a crisis from which it urgently needs to emerge if it wants to avoid a cascade of temporary suspensions (furloughs), layoffs, loss of services and drop in income. It needs a coalition of the main elements that support the city and not the distraction of structural reforms. For all these reasons, we reiterate our support for Zach Sokoloff as the next comptroller of Los Angeles.
