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Two Korean Americans throw in names for LA City Council

November 10, 2014
[left] David Ryu, candidate for Los Angeles City Council District 4 (The Korea Times file) [right] Grace Yoo, District 10 candidate for Los Angeles City Council

[left] David Ryu, candidate for Los Angeles City Council District 4 (The Korea Times file)
[right] Grace Yoo, District 10 candidate for Los Angeles City Council

General elections may be over for 26 Korean Americans who ran for office, but for two more political hopefuls — District 4 candidate David Ryu and District 10 candidate Grace Yoo — the race for the Los Angeles City Council in next year’s March 3 election has just begun.

Yoo, 42, is currently the executive director of the city’s Korean American Coalition, a non-profit, non-partisan organization. She threw in her name for the seat Saturday.

Her decision to run came from a desire to see the political advancement of the 7,000 Korean Americans who live in District 10, which includes a part of Koreatown, she said.

She plans to collect 1,000 voter signatures by Nov. 25 before beginning her campaign for city council. Yoo faces a difficult opponent in Councilman Herb Wesson, council president and the seat’s incumbent since 2005.

Meanwhile, 38-year-old Ryu, who is looking to take Councilman Tom LaBonge’s termed-out seat, has already begun his fight against a dozen other candidates.

He raised more than $100,000 in campaign funds from July to September, for a total so far of $265,000 in the last seven months, his office said.

Ryu, a community advocate, said he felt he could change the world and incorporate a diverse range of community voices as an honest politician after working as an aide to a county supervisor.

2 Comments

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  2. RedDonnaAnn

    March 2, 2015 at 8:45 PM

    And if you want to see all diversity in South LA destroyed, vote for a woman whose agenda is to advance ONE ethnic group: Koreans. What a disgusting stance to take in America. I will be voting Wesson, whom I have had the pleasure to work with on several occasions and who has served South LA very well.

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