Stern May Run For Kuehl's Seat

Agoura Hills CA

26 April, 2021

8:56 PM

Description

AGOURA HILLS, CA — Sen. Henry Stern told The Acorn that he's "seriously looking at" a run to replace retiring L.A. County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl in 2022. Stern, 39, who has represented California's 27th Senate District since 2016 and was re-elected last year, said on The Acorn's "Branching Out" podcast that he's strongly considering a run for the L.A. County Third Supervisorial District that Kuehl, 80, has represented since 2014. Kuehl's 430 square-mile district includes the Conejo and Las Virgenes valleys, much of the San Fernando Valley, the entire Santa Monica Mountain range until the Ventura County border, Venice, Hollywood, Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, and West Hollywood. It has a population of 1,956,453. That is almost twice the population of Stern's current senate district, which includes Malibu, the Conejo Valley, the northwest San Fernando Valley, and a large portion of neighboring Ventura County. Stern, the first millennial to be elected to the California State Senate, told The Acorn that he's deciding whether or not he's up to a job that has grown much more high-profile since the start of the pandemic. "Supervisors matter now more than ever," he said. "Everyone knows who their county officials are now and they may not have before [the pandemic.] The pressure and the importance of doing right by the people in a position like that, it's really compelling. I'm doing a lot of self-assessment and if I feel like I can do a competent job for everyone and deliver, I'll jump in." A Malibu native and the son of actor Daniel Stern, Stern is an environmental lawyer who ran on a platform of environmentalism in 2016 and was endorsed by Senator and former Agoura Hills Mayor Fran Pavley and the Sierra Club. In Sacramento, Stern has chaired the Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee, where he has pushed to improve wildfire preparedness and provide clean water to the most vulnerable. He also sits on the Senate's Budget, Judiciary, Environmental Quality, Election & Constitutional Amendments, and Energy, Utilities & Communications committees. Stern, who lost his home in the Woolsey Fire, has become known for his opposition to housing development. He told The Acorn that he would consider allowing for new housing if it's carefully planned. New housing is directly tied to the region's ballooning population of unhoused people. Stern said that he wants to find a way to combine current funding to get "an army of social workers and psychiatrists" to help get the 1,000 most at-risk people off the streets in the next two years. If Stern chooses to run, he would go up against two other well-known opponents: Assemblymember and former Santa Monica Mayor Richard Bloom, who announced his run in January, and West Hollywood Mayor Lindsey Horvath, who has received Keuhl's endorsement. The election will take place after the supervisorial districts have been remapped based on the census, which is expected to be completed by August.