By Sebastian Hernandez

My name is Sebastian. I’m a Culver City resident, and I’m the president of Our Culver, a non-profit grassroots group dedicated to community engagement, education, and equity.

In the year we’ve been organizing, Our Culver has knocked on more than 500 doors to talk with neighbors about the city budget, we brought many of those neighbors together for a budget town hall, we called on the City Council to fund our parks, and we hosted the only candidate meet and greet to feature every local candidate, including all 7 City Council candidates and all 3 School Board candidates. By the way, the School Board candidates weren’t even part of the program – they saw the community coming together so they showed up. We couldn’t have planned it better!

Shortly after we made endorsements in the city council race, a group of real estate developers formed a PAC (Political Action Committee) called “Our Culver City” with the apparent intention of confusing voters. Our Culver is raising political funds from our friends and neighbors, but “Our Culver City” is taking $49,000 checks from corporations that want to control this election.

When we say Our Culver, we mean all of us – every single person in this city – this beloved community in which we’re so grateful to be living.

When a group of real estate developers names their PAC “Our Culver City,” it is a cynical ploy to co-opt what Our Culver – YOUR Culver – has been building at the grassroots level. It sounds like they think they own us.

Where Our Culver engages the community to build consensus, “Our Culver City” wants to force pre-packaged talking points into our dialogue. They’re not interested in what residents have to say, or how we can come together. They believe that their money means more than our votes, that influencing this election is simply a way to increase their profits, extracting more and more from the people at the expense of democracy.

We believe in the people. We believe we can be better. And Our Culver will continue to put in the work to build a community for everyone.

Sebastian Hernandez is the Board President of Our Culver.