A fourth-generation Angeleno, Eric Garcetti grew up in Los Angeles and was elected to the Los Angeles City Council in 2001, becoming one of the youngest city councilmembers elected in the city's history. In his first term in office, he has emerged as an effective local problem-solver and a progressive voice on citywide and national issues. Councilmember Garcetti serves as the council's Assistant President Pro Tempore and chairs the Housing, Community, and Economic Development Committee. Since his election, Councilmember Garcetti led the creation of the nation's largest Affordable Housing Trust Fund, overseen the economic and cultural revitalization of Hollywood, initiated programs to build more parks and clean up our drinking water, and helped fight to reduce the city’s business tax and bring more than five thousand new high wage jobs to Los Angeles and his district. 

The Los Angeles Times writes that Garcetti “offers refreshing idealism,” while Garcetti was featured in LA Weekly’s Best of Los Angeles issue and the Los Angeles Alternative Press readers named him “L.A.’s Favorite Elected Official” of 2003. In 2004, The Los Angeles Business Journal named him one of the 25 Angelenos who stand out for their potential to shape lives in Los Angeles.

In his district, Councilmember Eric Garcetti has focused on bringing government and local services closer to the neighborhoods he serves. During his first term, he has built thirteen new parks, helped fifteen new schools break ground, taken more than 2 million pounds of bulky items off city streets, and painted out more than 100,000 square feet of graffiti. Eric has met face-to-face with more than 1,200 constituents during his trademark office-hours and he is well-known for his monthly neighborhood walks and community coffees. He has also launched innovative new programs to train community members such as the Grassroots Neighborhood Leadership Institute and the Local Government 101, Planning 101, and Housing 101 workshops. In 2004, he launched Uniting Neighborhoods to Abolish Graffiti (UNTAG), an initiative to reduce graffiti in his council district by fifty percent by 2006. During his time in office, he has helped add more than five hundred police officers to the streets, crime has fallen by double digits in all three police divisions in his district, and he has doubled the amount of money spent on youth and gang intervention programs.

Councilmember Garcetti authored more than 200 successful resolutions, including legislation to indemnify the neighborhood improvement activities of community groups; open the doors of opportunity to high school students through the innovative Free Cash for College program; reduce and simplify the city’s business tax; open homeless shelters year-round; create the country’s largest environmentally conscious “green building” initiative; establish the city’s first Office of Immigrant Affairs; expand spay and neuter programs; fund a new Neighborhood Land Trust to build new parks in the city; grow jobs through the Healthcare Jobs Career Ladder initiative; increase funding for gang intervention programs; expand partner benefits for the employees of city contractors; and launch a system of citywide “furniture-buster” crews to remove bulky items from city streets.

He has also led efforts to promote responsible economic development in Los Angeles through his supercenter initiative and co-chaired ballot initiatives to hire 3000 more police officers and to clean up the city’s rivers, lakes, and bays.

Prior to his election, Eric Garcetti taught public policy, diplomacy and world affairs at Occidental College and the University of Southern California and was active with numerous community and non-profit groups including Human Rights Watch, the Pobladores Fund, and the Roth Family Foundation.  He has worked on human rights issues on four continents. Eric Garcetti studied urban planning and political science at Columbia University , where he received his B.A. and M.A. in International Relations. He studied as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University and the London School of Economics. He is an avid photographer, jazz pianist and composer. He lives in Echo Park with his partner of ten years, Amy Elaine Wakeland.