Los Angeles City Controller Kenneth Mejia faces a lone challenger for reelection in Tuesday’s primary — but that challenger has raised $1 million in contributions, and is also being helped by $7.5 million in so-called independent expenditures bankrolled by his mother.
Zach Sokoloff is a senior vice president for asset management at Hackman Capital Partners, a real estate investment firm. He contributed $1 million of his own cash to his campaign, in addition to $500,000 raised in contributions, campaign finance data show.
His mother, Sheryl Sokoloff, contributed $7.5 million in independent expenditures to the race, campaign finance reports show. That money has largely been spent on TV ads and mailers attacking Mejia.
Sheryl Sokoloff is the spouse of Jonathan Sokoloff, managing partner of private equity firm Leonard Green & Partners.
Mejia has reported raising $143,000 for his reelection campaign, according to his latest campaign finance statement, which has been supplemented by nearly $500,000 from the city’s matching funds program.
Mejia asserted that the Sokoloff family was trying to buy the elected position for their son.
“This is a prime example of why people are so fed up with politics,” Mejia said. “So much money gets dropped in and they’re just trying to buy a seat and I think that’s absolutely wrong.”
Sokoloff pushed back, saying that familial support in elections isn’t a new phenomenon.
A woman who identified herself as Sheryl Sokoloff hung up the phone when The Times called for comment on the campaign expenditures.
In his campaign, Sokoloff has criticized Mejia for conducting fewer audits than his predecessor, Ron Galperin. Galperin conducted more than 100 audits in nearly 10 years, compared with 11 audits conducted by Mejia since he was elected in 2022.
Mejia said that Sokoloff was misrepresenting how many audits his predecessor had done by counting the number of reports — not actual audits — released over that time.
“It really goes to show that he doesn’t know what an audit is,” Mejia said. “I’m not surprised. He’s not an auditor, he’s not a CPA. He doesn’t know the professional standard and what consists of an audit.”
The city controller acts as the city’s chief accountant and provides oversight on the city’s spending.
Mejia, who worked as an auditor at Ernst & Young before he was controller, won a runoff against former Councilmember Paul Koretz in 2022 and became the first Asian American to hold citywide elected office in L.A.
The city controller has no power over local policy, legislation or the city’s budget, but can often shed light on wasteful spending or fraud and pressure politicians by releasing audits and reports on city departments. The position is paid a yearly salary of $269,199.
Mejia, a 35-year-old certified public accountant associated with the Green Party, won the most votes of any controller candidate in city history in 2022 despite running against a then-sitting councilmember. He sits down and runs accounting data himself alongside his team, he said.
In the last 3½ years, Mejia said, he has worked to increase transparency and accountability in the city’s budget through audits and dashboards. He often highlights his work on social media and campaign billboards with pictures of his pet corgis, Killa and Kirby, with which he’s become synonymous.
His office’s investigation into a homelessness service provider, he said, became a catalyst for federal wire fraud charges in January amid allegations a man took $23 million in public funds.
Sokoloff, of Westwood, is 37 and graduated from Yale University. He has a master’s degree in education policy and administration from Loyola Marymount University and an MBA from Harvard University. He taught algebra at a Boyle Heights middle school and a Watts high school before joining Hackman in 2018, where he’s worked on multibillion-dollar projects transforming legacy studio lots for one of Hollywood’s largest landlords.
The controller is partially responsible for some of the budget woes that encapsulate the city, Sokoloff said, arguing that Mejia should have seen and shared warning signs that a hollowing entertainment industry would pose a budgetary risk to L.A.’s tax revenues, among other issues.
“I felt I needed to step up to present a different alternative, a different vision for the future of the city of L.A. To offer change from a status quo that is clearly not working,” he said.
Mejia doesn’t accept most endorsements from politicians or political parties, but has been backed by United Auto Workers and United Teachers of Los Angeles and earned a recommendation from the L.A. chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, among others.
Sokoloff has been endorsed by prominent Democrats including Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), business advocacy groups and the Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union representing Los Angeles Police Department officers.
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