Twelve years after he was first sworn in to the California State Assembly, Anthony Rendón will leave the California Legislature next year as the second-longest Speaker in the state history (March 7, 2016 to June 30, 2023) and with a number of other personal accomplishments.
Atop the list for him is bringing “equity” in the legislature. “We reached gender pay equity in the Assembly,” he said in a telephone interview, adding that under his watch the number of women committee chairs also grew from four to eleven.
The Assemblyman for the 62nd district—which encompasses eight Southeast Los Angeles County cities, spanning Lakewood, Lynwood, Maywood, Paramount, South Gate, Huntington Park, Bellflower, and Walnut Park—also pushed for “geographical equity”.
“We fought to erase the inequalilty between smaller and bigger cities, from water and transportation, among others,” he noted. That also includes getting COVID testing centers when they were most needed during the pandemic.
He is also proud of a cadre of “incredible young councilmembers” who are now leading many of the cities in his district, replacing many who had been accused (and convicted, in some cases) of abusing their power for their own benefits and creating a “corridor of corruption” in the public’s mind.
“For me it was always important to make sure we had leaders whose hearts and minds and ethics are in the right place,” Rendón said. “The legacy for me is what this next generation of officials can accomplish.”
A Cultural Arts Legacy
Another major accomplishment and one that will have a lasting legacy in generations to come is the Southeast Los Angeles (SELA) Cultural Center to be built along the Los Angeles River in South Gate.
Designed by renowned and visionary architect Frank Gehry, who forever changed the downtown Los Angeles landscape with his futuristic looking Disney Hall, the SELA Cultural Center will bring together world-class design, high-caliber arts programming and a cultural renaissance to a portion of the county long forgotten in the arts world.
In 2015, Rendón authored Assembly Bill 539, spurring the revitalization of the lower portion of the Los Angeles River by establishing the Lower Los Angeles River Working Group involving Southeast Los Angeles cities.
The SELA Cultural Center is a a product of that effort, and something Rendón has championed since then, raising over $124 million of funding from the state since 2017 to make it a reality. Since 2018, he’s also organized the annual SELA Arts Festival to showcase the many different artists and talent in South Los Angeles.
The building of the SELA Cultural Center will bring those arts to a higher level.
“That’s one of the things I’m most excited about,” Rendón said of the Center. “Something that’s very much community-driven. We were trying to find out what the community wanted, that they thought was missing and they were the ones who came out with the idea for an Arts Center. It’s been six, seven years of hard work and we’ve raised in excess for $100 million for it.”
The approximately 85,000-square-foot campus, which would sit along Imperial Highway, near the upcoming South Gate’s 30-acre “Urban Orchard” and the future Metro’s West Santa Ana Branch Light rail line, will feature a performance hall, a music education space, recording studios, a dance theather, a cafe, galleries, and workshops.
“We picture LA as having a great cultural mecca. But very few of those venues are in Southeast Los Angeles,” Rendón said. For many people in this area of the county, getting to the arts venues in downtown is simply not feasible, “particularly if you’re a working class person,” Rendón noted. “So we’re brining a lot of those resources into the community.”
The Center also serves another important purpose. “To show off the local talent. There are a lof ot great artists in our commuty,” said Rendón, who admits that even he was surprised to discover the level and how much local artistry talent there is. “This will be a place where artists in our neighborhoods will show their arts. They finally will have a world-class venue and a facility they deserve.”
Rendón said the project has already put his community in map bringing a level of “hope and excitement” that’s never been there before, but all the money raised is “meaningless if we don’t build programs that work for the community.”
For that to happen, Los Angeles County needs to get involved, providing matching funds and long-lasting support to the Center.
Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn, who represents the area, has visited the site and praised the project, and would be a great ally in support of the Center.
“We’re having those conversations but no agreement has been reached,” said Rendon, who plans to dedicate his last year in the legislature to the Center project.
SIGN PETITION: SELA Cultural Center Petition
What’s next?
After that, he will campaign for California State Treasurer in 2026, a post no Latino has held in the modern era.
He said his knowledge of the legislature, where he served during one of the state’s biggest rainy day funds, and his advocacy for fiscal accountability and responsibility make him well suited for this job that also oversees the investment portfolio of the state.
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