On September 21, Marqueece Harris-Dawson will officially replace current L.A. City Council President Paul Krekorian, who is set to leave City Hall at the end of this year due to term limits.
It was in May, with a unanimous 14-0 vote, the Los Angeles City Council confirmed Harris-Dawson as the next council president.
Encouraged by his colleagues to assume leadership responsibilities, Harris-Dawson told L.A. Focus, “I love to serve and work with the community, and this seemed like a good opportunity. I believe that my experience and relationships position me well to provide leadership, and fortunately, my colleagues were supportive in getting the city on the right track.”
He steps into this role just two years after a scandal that marked one of the most troubling chapters in the city council’s history, where three council members and a top union leader were secretly recorded making racist remarks and discussing redrawing City Council districts for their own benefit. The council was also embroiled in turmoil following the indictment and suspension of former councilmember Mark Ridley-Thomas and the subsequent indictment of Councilmember Curren Price, who has pled not guilty to criminal charges of conflict of interest and remains on the council as he is awaiting trial.
Acknowledging a shift in the council’s internal dynamics, Harris-Dawson asserted that the controversies from the past had imparted crucial lessons regarding the harmful effects of a transactional and overly competitive environment in city governance.
“Things are drastically better than they were two Octobers ago,” Harris-Dawson states. “I give a lot of credit to council president Paul Krekorian for guiding the council through such a tough time. I believe the people of Los Angeles, and certainly the press, have helped settle things down and foster a new working environment for the city.”
Reflecting on lessons learned, Harris-Dawson reflects, “We witnessed how corrosive a competitive atmosphere can be, which does not mean competition for ideas, resources, or the hearts and minds of Angelenos should cease; rather, it highlights the need for doing so in a more principled and thoughtful manner.”
The 54-year-old politician was elected to the L.A. City Council in 2015 to represent the Eighth District, which includes Baldwin Hills, Chesterfield Square, Jefferson Park, Crenshaw and sections of South L.A. During his time on the council, Harris-Dawson has held prominent positions, including vice chair of the budget committee and chair of the Planning and Land Use Management committee, where he championed the expansion of tenant rights and eviction protections. He notably co-authored Proposition HHH—a $1.2 billion bond measure aimed at developing permanent supportive housing, substantially increasing affordable housing options in the Eighth District— and his advocacy through the Community Safety Partnership has fostered reparative relationships between the community and the LAPD, enhancing safety and security in the district.
As president, Harris-Dawson will oversee council meetings, assign committees, and manage parliamentary duties. A clear priority is the rampant homelessness crisis plaguing the city.
“The biggest challenge that we have in the city of Los Angeles continues to be homelessness,” the L.A. native said. “There’s not a single member of the city council that does not have a freeway on ramp or off ramp where we have encampment problems.”
He recognized the recent Supreme Court’s recent Grants Pass v. Johnson ruling (granting cities more power to arrest, cite and fine people who sleep outside in public places) as a catalyst for immediate changes in Los Angeles’s approach to temporary housing solutions, envisioning both a substantial increase in temporary housing and continued progress towards permanent housing.
Unarmed response is another issue Harris-Dawson is bullish on. One that sure to be near the top of the list of those things he wants to advance as city council president.
“I intend to set up ad hoc special Committee on our crisis response and care first intervention models,”Harris-Dawson explains. “I think it’s an important work that many members of the council have done and are doing, and I want to bring it to scale. We have all had the experience —especially in Black families—where you have a family member who’s having a mental health episode and you need to call someone, but you’re afraid to call the police, because you don’t know what the police are going to do when they get there.
“There ought to be other folks you can call and that applies to a variety of situations,” he continues. “All of us have witnessed someone at some intersection having a mental health crisis and we all kind of shake our heads and think, oh, that’s really sad and then keep it moving. Yet, if I see a building on fire, I can pull up my phone and call 911 with the expectation that something is going to be done about it.
“I believe Angelenos can empathize when they see that person on the street corner screaming at a person who isn’t there. We all know that that person is likely to do something that eventually lands them in the criminal justice system, but there’s nothing for us to do before that.”
Recognizing that the current system often forces people to wait until a tragedy occurs before action is taken, calling it a “cruel, backwards, and ineffective” approach, his goal is to establish a more responsive system where communities can access help without escalating the incident to police involvement.
Another issue facing the L.A. City Council is expansion. In June, councilmembers voted to create a commission to look at expanding the size of the council, but the Harris-Dawson says he has not heard a compelling case for it.
“I have not heard anything that this is going to make life better for the average Angelino, be they black or anything else and one thing I never hear in the community is I want more politicians,” Harris-Dawson reports.
“You always hear people complaining, I can’t get to my city council member and it’s impossible for you to attend all the neighborhood council meetings. But I will tell you when I do go to the neighborhood council meeting (and this is just my sort of Christian humility speaking). I understand very clearly that they want me there because they believe I can deliver services. And I think expanding the council and not expanding the services that are available means that when I show up, my ability to deliver services is decreased.
“In cities like New York and Chicago,” he goes on, “leaders often voice a desire for quicker city responses and enhanced equity across services and we all want greater equity. We don’t want a situation where the nice areas are taken care of, and the poor areas have to wait or there’s always an excuse why the work doesn’t get done. I don’t know that having more councilmembers changes that equation.”
City Council matters aside, Harris-Dawson is just as proud about some of the things he has been able to accomplish in his 8th district and the fact that he received 60% of the vote his first time out and in excess of two thirds of the vote in subsequent elections lets him know that the community is responding positively to what his efforts on their behalf.
Before being elected to the council through what he called “the People’s Campaign,” the Morehouse College graduate served as the President and CEO of the Community Coalition, a nonprofit established by Mayor Bass in 1990 to enhance the living conditions of residents in South L.A. His efforts there, which focused on community-oriented issues such as education, neighborhood safety, and fostering better communication between local government officials and residents, established a solid foundation for his subsequent role on the city council. Addressing the challenges within his district, Harris-Dawson emphasized the pressing need for equity in infrastructure.
“We must ensure that our main streets—Western, Vermont, Crenshaw, Manchester—receive the respect and attention they rightfully deserve,” he stated. “That’s really what we continue to work on and push while also improving the efficiency of the city. No big city in the United States has adequate resources to deal with all the problems that it faces, so all of us must work to be more efficient, to work smarter, to use the technology that’s available, to deliver more with less.”
Harris-Dawson also expressed pride in the successful community safety partnership established at Harvard Park, where violent crime rates have drastically reduced alongside an increased clearance rate for crimes. He believes that fostering communication between residents and local government about community-oriented issues, such as education and safety, is crucial for progress.
“We need to transform the city culture to ensure that South L.A. receives the same attentiveness as other areas. We have to change the culture of the city so that they respond to South L.A. like they respond to any other part of town.”
“I’m proud of our community safety partnership that we have at Harvard Park,” he adds. Through the South LA Community Safety Initiative, we’ve been able to drop violent crime dramatically and I get emotional when people talk about crime now, because I grew up in Los Angeles, when it was actually dangerous. That is not the situation now. When I was in high school, the city of L.A. had between 1200- 1300 homicides. Now we have less than 300.”
A sticking point for the councilmember is the Figueroa track known for human trafficking.
“We’re working with the city attorney and the mayor,” Harris-Dawson notes. “The state’s attorney and the FBI have been aggressive on enforcement, aggressive on addiction, and we’re trying to build aggressive services. We’ve rescued over 80 girls from that street, the average age between 16 and 17 though as young as 11.
“Part of what we’re trying to build is service infrastructure, so we have somewhere to place the girls. Oftentimes, those young people have run away from group homes, and so we pick them up and we take them back to the same group home they ran away from. That clearly is not ideal, so we want to continue to work on it. We do not criminalize the young women at all, because a young person cannot consent to sex.
“Instead, we’ve issued over 180 Dear John letters. So, if you’re on Figueroa at one or two in the morning driving and your license plate gets picked up twice, you get a letter at your house stating: For your safety, we wanted to let you know your car was spotted in an area known in an area known for very dangerous sex trafficking. Please make sure you’re safe at all times.
“Our hope,” he continues, “is that someone other than the driver opens the letter, cause oftentimes the letter the car is not registered to the person who’s driving it. So, we’re doing that again and the LAPD is making arrests. One of the challenging things about Figueroa is that it is overwhelmingly African American girls and overwhelmingly white and other customers.”
Harris-Dawson lights up when discussing he visual transformations occurring within the communities he represents, particularly evident in the growing number of housing developments springing up throughout the district.
“I’m proud of Destination Crenshaw. I’m proud of Vermont Manchester. I’m proud of the work we’re about to do —that has not been seen yet—on Broadway in the stretch from Manchester to Century Blvd. Broadway is also one of the most dangerous streets to be a pedestrian or bicycle rider, because people go so fast on probably such a big street. So, we’re going to slow down everybody and use street scape improvements.
“We’re talking about restoring those big boulevard medians. I can remember when those things were lush like gardens. When I was a kid, people to have weddings on those medians. We’re going to restore and bring them back as good or better.”
Set to open at the top of the year is Destination Crenshaw, which was originally conceived as a way to respond to the devastating impacts of the Metro LAX line construction project along Crenshaw and gentrification concerns around transit development by permanently stamping one of the city’s most historic neighborhoods as the cradle of Black American culture.
Created after years of community input, the $100 million project—estimated to generate 1,029 jobs; $63.6 million in labor income; and over $147.4 million in total output for business— is poised to revitalize the Crenshaw corridor with its efforts squarely focused on providing support for small businesses. When completed, the project also will have added 10, beautifully designed community spaces and architectural features to a 1.3-mile stretch of Crenshaw, becoming a local and international standard for public works projects in Black communities.
“Destination Crenshaw is a historic project for Los Angeles and the world,” said Harris-Dawson. “The stamp we will make on Crenshaw Boulevard with more than 100 unique art installations, a dozen African American-themed pocket parks, and culturally minded street and landscaping improvements will be a living reflection of Black L.A. and the creativity that pours out of our community.”
Ironically, while gentrification was the genesis of how Destination Crenshaw was started, Dawson notes that “community consciousness around the importance of keeping our neighborhood has changed in that time period. So, you don’t see families selling their houses. The people who can stop gentrification are the people who live there, and I think we got the memo.”
With a clear vision for addressing homelessness, enhancing crisis response mechanisms, and ensuring equity across city services, he is poised to lead with a focus on collaboration coupled with compassionate and effective governance. In championing initiatives like Destination Crenshaw in the run up to the 2028 Olympics and advocating for community-driven solutions, Marqueece Harris-Dawson embodies the spirit of a leader determined to create lasting change.