Name: Eric Michael Garcetti
DOB: February 4, 1971
Took Office: 2013
Relevant Relatives: Gil Garcetti (Father, Former LA District Attorney)
Notable Past Roles:
Who does he represent?
Everyone who resides in the city of Los Angeles
Where’s he from?
Garcetti is from the Valley. He famously attended Harvard-Westlake School, the prestigious private school for the rich and famous. His paternal grandfather was born in Mexico which makes Garcetti Mexican-American.
How did he get here?
Garcetti did his graduate work in international affairs at Columbia. Garcetti was a Rhodes scholar. After his academic studies abroad, he came back to LA and taught diplomacy, world affairs and human rights at USC and Occidental. Soon after that, he was elected to City Council representing the 13th district.
In City Council, Garcetti served three terms and was President of the City Council for six years. He was elected as Mayor in 2013 and reelected in 2017.
What does he care about?
For his first term, Garcetti ran as a “back to basics” mayor with a focus on economic recovery. He had a reputation early on for being a friend to the entertainment and tech industries and even launched a flashy open data initiative. In office, two of his main messages have been about bringing the Olympics back to LA and ending homelessness–two goals that honestly do not at all work together.
He has some minor accomplishments for his time as Mayor like the opening of the Expo Line extension from Downtown to Santa Monica and something else that’s not coming to mind. Mostly, it seems like he may have had some goals when he took the mayor’s office but that over time he realized being mayor was hard. It was a lot easier to do guest spots on TV shows, go to celebrity parties and smile for any camera nearby.
Like most politicians, Garcetti keeps his eye on the next step which at the time of this writing is Washington D.C. This ambition has kept him away from LA for such long periods of time to garner press attention.
