NWWNC slate candidates aim to fulfill original campaign promises
Westwood Forward, the coalition that campaigned for the creation of the NWWNC released a group of slate candidates , who are from UCLA, Westwood and nearby businesses.(Farida Saleh/Daily Bruin)
By Sydney Coneeny
Oct. 10, 2018 1:16 a.m.
A group running for positions on the new North Westwood Neighborhood Council announced its slate of candidates Wednesday.
Westwood Forward, the coalition that campaigned for the creation of the NWWNC, released a group of slate candidates that features representatives drawn from UCLA students, Westwood residents and business owners.
There are currently 19 available seats on the NWWNC.
Some representatives from the slate also helped organize the original Westwood Forward campaign, including Michael Skiles, president of the Graduate Student Association, and Christian Green, former president of the Black Graduate Student Association.
Skiles, who is running for one of the General Residential representative seats, said the slate’s goal is to fulfill the platform it campaigned on when it pushed for the creation of a new council.
“The goals for the council are to obviously live up to our goals in creating the new council in the first place,” Skiles said. “We would be a council eager to eliminate a lot of (regulations) that have made it so difficult for housing to be built and student-friendly businesses to open and operate in Westwood.”
Westwood Forward originally campaigned on a platform of addressing student issues, such as a lack of affordable student housing in the region and nightlife in the Village. The group did not feel that the original Westwood Neighborhood Council adequately addressed student concerns.
Voting for the NWWNC will take place Oct. 25 from 12:30 to 6:30 p.m. in the lobby of the John Wooden Center.
Candidates by position
Renter
Gabriella Meza
Katja May
Homeowner
Kaveh Navab
General Residential
Michael Skiles
Andrew Lewis
Business
Alex Helmi
Josh Trifunovic
Kevin Crummy
Worker
Chantelle Eastman
Undergraduate Student
Ashraf Beshay
Melissa Tapia
Graduate Student
Paul Kurek
University Staff
Wren Reynolds
Faculty
Ryan Snyder
Organizational Stakeholder
Peter Clinco
Alisha Ranadive
At-large
Christian Green
Grayson Peters
Amir Tarighat
