Two candidates will compete to replace Councilmember Al Austin — who will be termed out after this year — as the Eighth District representative on the Long Beach City Council during the Tuesday, March 5, election.
Sharifa Batts, a small business owner, will vie for the council seat against nonprofit president and CEO Tunua Thrash-Ntuk.
Both candidates have run for office before: Batts ran for the Long Beach Unified School District’s Board of Education in 2022; Thrash-Ntuk ran for the Eighth District seat against Austin in 2020.
The Eighth District includes various neighborhoods, including a part of Bixby Knolls, Addams, Dairy, Jackson, Coolidge Triangle and more.
If either candidate receives a majority of the votes on Election Day — which, with only two candidates, will happen — they will win the race outright without needing to run again in the November general election.
Batts and Trash-Ntuk are campaigning on similar issues, including public safety, promoting economic development in the district, fixing infrastructure issues and addressing homelessness.
Batts, a lifelong North Long Beach resident and community advocate, decided to run for City Council to address struggles she, and many other Eighth District residents, have faced.
“I know what it’s like to make a living, raise a family — I understand the struggle, because I’ve been through it myself,” Batts said in a Thursday, Feb. 8, interview. “I want to really see this city transform, and there’s so much possibility for the Eighth District.”
Among Batts’ key concerns, she said, is helping to promote economic development in the Eighth District — and bringing better quality jobs to the area.
“When you talk to business owners, (they say they don’t) feel safe,” Batts said, noting that she wants to help revitalize business corridors in the Eighth District.
“Just as Bixby Knolls has a Business Improvement District, we really need to start one going north,” Batts said, “for the businesses along the Long Beach Boulevard, Atlantic Avenue, and Market and South Street areas.”
Public safety goes hand in hand with bolstering the district’s economic status, she added, and it’s something she’d want to address by investing in additional police patrols, supporting mental health programs, building trust between residents and the Long Beach Police Department, and working to reduce homelessness.
Infrastructure is another key issue for Batts.
There are certain areas that have been historically neglected. They haven’t had their streets done in over a decade,” Batts said. “That’s something I definitely want to prioritize.”
She’s also concerned with bettering residents’ quality of life, especially when it comes to the environment.
Residents in North Long Beach have historically had worse health outcomes because of its proximity to various freeways and other pollution sources, and a lack of easily accessible healthy food options.
“(I’m) developing an environmental initiative,” Batts said, and trying to walk the talk, not just saying things that I want to do — because it starts small.”
She’s already begun organizing neighborhood clean-ups with the Jackson/Bret Harte Neighborhood Association, and has organized small-scale environmental initiatives in the district, such as tree planting.
“We need the neighbors to understand that you can rely on the city for some things,” Batts said, “but a lot of this is community driven.”
Thrash-Ntuk, similarly, wants to invest in the Eighth District’s infrastructure, bolster public safety, address homelessness and expand economic opportunity.
She is currently the president and CEO of The Center by Lendistry, a nonprofit that provides loans and other financial support to business owners and underserved communities.
“Every day, in my current role, I help to finance affordable housing, (and) also work with policymakers thinking about strategies around homelessness and housing production,” she said in a Friday, Feb. 9, interview. “I also support small businesses with access to capital and making sure that they have the capacity to be able to thrive in neighborhoods.”
That experience, alongside Thrash-Ntuk’s other past work in public service, prompted her to run for the Eighth District seat a second time.
“I felt like the constituency here in the Eighth District deserves their responsive leader who is committed to issues,” Thrash-Ntuk said. “I believe that I am the best candidate with the most experience on those topics.”
Thrash-Ntuk’s strategy to bolster public safety in the district, she said, will rely on investing in youth, activating commercial corridors, increasing the number of public safety personnel, and bringing additional employment opportunities to the district.
Investing in infrastructure is another key pillar of Thrash-Ntuk’s campaign.
“Some of our streets here in the Eighth District have remained unpaved for 20-plus years,” she said, “and you can really see now the wear and tear.”
She’d want to work with residents to identify key streets that need to be repaved — rather than just filling potholes as they develop.
“We can try and really even out some of the resources that are going across the city for those things,” Thrash-Ntuk said, “and give our local residents a better quality of life who’ve been waiting whole generations.”
Thrash-Ntuk, who also co-led Long Beach’s “Everyone In” Economic Inclusion Policy Task Force, also said she wants to help bolster the Eighth District’s business and job markets.
She has three main areas of focus when it comes to economic development, Thrash-Ntuk said: Attracting small businesses to parts of the city that need more economic vitality, ensuring residents have access to jobs with livable wages, and making sure Long Beach contracts and buys from local business when possible.
“Our major institutions, such as our port, our community college, our school district, and the fact that we’ve got a university in town,” Thrash-Ntuk said, “we’ve got some great places that are pipelines for work, and we want to make sure that our local residents are able to take advantage of that.”
2024 presidential primary election
Election Day: March 5, 2024. Polls close at 8 p.m.
Early voting: You can vote at the Los Angeles County registrar’s office beginning Monday, Feb. 5. The registrar’s headquarters are at 12400 Imperial Highway, Room 3002, in Norwalk. That office is open from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday to Friday.
Vote-by-mail: Ballots began going out on Thursday, Feb. 1. You can submit VBMs in three ways: By mailing them to the registrar’s office (VBMs include return envelopes with the correct address and postage already included); by placing them in an official drop box; or by dropping them off at any county Vote Center.
VBM deadline: VBMs sent via mail must arrive no later than seven days after the election, but they must be postmarked by March 5. The deadline to place VBMs in a drop box or deliver them to a Vote Center is 8 p.m. on Election Day.
Vote Centers: Vote Centers open 10 days before Election Day. This year, that’s Saturday, Feb. 24. You can vote at any Vote Center in Los Angeles County. Prior to Election Day, the Vote Centers will be open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. On Election Day, they will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.
About the ballots: In California, the order races are listed on ballots goes from local to federal, meaning the nominees for president will be listed at the bottom. Except for presidential races, California’s primaries for “partisan” offices – now known as “voter-nominated offices” have a top-two system. That means the top two vote getters in a given race advance to the general election, regardless of political party.
To find a drop box or Vote Center and for more information: lavote.gov.
Long Beach City Council District 8
Candidates: Small business owner Sharifa Batts, nonprofit president and CEO Tunua Thrash-Ntuk
Term length: 4 years
District boundaries: View a map of the district here.
Key issues: Infrastructure, public safety, economic development