Local cities
West Covina
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City Council
District 2: Leslie GarciaRecommended
West Covina District 2 offers voters three distinctly different choices after several years of visible division and instability at City Hall. Incumbent Mayor Letty Lopez-Viado has served on the council since 2018 and has frequently aligned with its governing majority. In 2024, she joined three other councilmembers in opposing Los Angeles County’s proposed Pathway Home project at the Five Star Inn, which would have converted the unused motel into interim housing with supportive services for people experiencing homelessness. Lopez-Viado has also been part of a council marked by significant internal conflict, including multiple clashes with Councilmember Brian Gutierrez.
Carlos Yado is a more conservative alternative, focusing his campaign on fiscal restraint, stronger law enforcement, streamlined permitting and enforcement against encampments and public drug use.
Leslie H. Garcia offers the clearest progressive contrast, with a platform centered on ending the city’s Flock surveillance contract, strengthening renter protections, preventing data-center development, and investing more in parks, youth recreation, and green space.
This election is a race between continuity under Lopez-Viado, Yado’s more conservative approach to city government, and Garcia’s emphasis on affordability, civil liberties, environmental protections, and community investment.
LA Forward recommends you vote for Leslie H. Garcia, who is endorsed by the CA Working Families Party.
District 5: Frederick SykesRecommended
West Covina District 5 pits longtime Councilmember Tony Wu against former Councilmember Fredrick Sykes in what could be a referendum on both the tone and direction of City Hall. Wu has been one of the council’s most influential figures for years, after the 2018 election gave him a reliable governing majority of aligned councilmembers. Since then, West Covina politics have become more contentious, with repeated personnel disputes, lawsuits, recall efforts, investigations, censures and very public infighting among councilmembers.
Sykes’s earlier service on the council was hardly free of difficult issues; he was mayor when a 2015 state audit exposed serious longstanding financial and management problems. Sykes is a retired Los Angeles County deputy sheriff and is campaigning on public safety, accountable government, and support for local businesses.
In District 5, voters face a choice between two well-known candidates and two different futures: either maintain the current leadership, with Wu acting as the de facto political leader at a chaotic West Covina City Hall, or elect a former councilmember whose previous term was marked by less personal and institutional conflict.
LA Forward recommends you vote for Frederick Sykes.
Rowland USD
Board of Education
Area 5: Kevin HayakawaRecommended
Analysis forthcoming.
Area 3: Brandon MaciasRecommended
Analysis forthcoming.