Only 11.8% Showed Up. Now We All Pay.
253,923 people live in CD13. About 30,000 voted. That’s roughly 11.8%. That’s it.
So let’s be crystal clear: an 11.8% sliver of this district just decided the future of our streets, our students, and our livelihoods. The rest stayed home, and we’re the ones getting crushed.
You don’t get to whine about street vending chaos, tents on every corner, trash piling up, shuttered storefronts, neighbors moving out, and a dead-looking commercial corridor if you couldn’t be bothered to vote. Because the people who did vote just handed more power to the one guy driving this mess: Councilmember Hugo Soto‑Martínez.
Hugo Soto‑Martínez: Not For the Community, For His Base
Let’s stop pretending. Hugo Soto‑Martínez isn’t some neutral "for everyone" councilmember. He is laser-focused on the people and organizations that put him in office: unions and Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
We see who gets meetings. We see who gets policy wins. We see who gets cover when their actions steamroll small businesses and community markets like the LACC Swap Meet.
Meanwhile, the vendors and families who depend on the LACC Swap Meet for rent, tuition, groceries, and survival? We get ignored while illegal street vending explodes right on top of us, no enforcement, no plan, no protection.
This is not representation. This is abandonment.
LACC Swap Meet Is Being Strangled While the City Looks Away
The LACC Swap Meet isn’t some hobby. It’s a community marketplace that helps support thousands of families and connects to the education of roughly 17,000 Los Angeles City College students.
Now those 17,000 students are staring down the very real possibility that we have to shut down the LACC Swap Meet. Not because we failed. Not because the community doesn’t want us. But because we are being choked out by illegal street vending that the City of Los Angeles refuses to properly regulate or enforce.
We operate with permits. Insurance. Rules. Rent. Oversight. We do it the right way.
Yet we’re forced to compete with unpermitted, unregulated street vending that spills into our space and our customer base, while City Hall looks the other way. The message from the City and from CD13 leadership is loud and clear: if you follow the rules, you’re a sucker.
City Hall and CD13: This Is on You
Let’s name names so no one hides behind bureaucracy:
Hugo Soto‑Martínez, CD13 Councilmember – you have watched illegal vending spiral in your district while regulated markets like the LACC Swap Meet get crushed.
City of Los Angeles – you created vending frameworks, but you don’t enforce them. You made rules then abandoned the people who actually comply.
Los Angeles City College leadership – you benefit from the Swap Meet’s presence and revenue, yet you aren’t fighting like hell to keep it alive.
Everyone loves to talk about "equity" and "community" until it requires hard choices and enforcement. Then suddenly, it’s silence.
Meanwhile, vendors who’ve invested years building businesses at the LACC Swap Meet are being told, in practice, that we’re expendable. That it’s fine if we disappear. That 17,000 students losing a vital economic engine is just collateral damage.
11.8% Participation, 100% Consequences
Some of you have been sounding the alarm for a long time. Sites like nogohugo.com have been warning about exactly this. About what happens when you elect someone whose loyalty is to organized power blocs and ideological clubs instead of the people trying to survive in CD13.
The turnout numbers prove it: this wasn’t some overwhelming mandate. This was apathy handing the keys over by default.
And now we’re told to just swallow the fallout: more illegal vending competition, more disorder, more trash, more closed businesses, more displacement, and a Swap Meet on life support.
No. We’re not swallowing it. We’re naming it. And we’re putting it on the record.
Our Demands: No More Hiding, No More Excuses
We’re done begging. Here’s what we demand, clearly and directly:
From Hugo Soto‑Martínez: Stop pandering and start governing. Enforce existing street vending rules in CD13. Protect regulated markets like the LACC Swap Meet instead of letting them be undercut and strangled.
From the City of Los Angeles: Either enforce the vending laws you passed or admit publicly that legitimate operators mean nothing to you. Put resources behind oversight, inspections, and fair enforcement.
From Los Angeles City College leadership: Step up. Publicly defend the LACC Swap Meet. Fight to keep it open. Make it clear that the survival of this market is tied directly to the wellbeing of your 17,000 students.
From CD13 residents: Start acting like your vote is the difference between a functioning district and a collapsing one. If you didn’t vote, fix that next time. If you did vote, hold Hugo Soto‑Martínez accountable every single day he’s in office.
We will not quietly let the LACC Swap Meet die so City Hall can pretend this is all "just the market" or "just how things are." This is a political choice.
Hugo Soto‑Martínez, the City of Los Angeles, and Los Angeles City College: keep the LACC Swap Meet open, enforce the law, and stop sacrificing our community for your cowardice and convenience. We’re not going away, and we’re not shutting up.