Supervisor Janice Hahn was sworn in Monday for her third and final term as a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, continuing the Hahn family’s legacy of public service.
Hahn, 72, was sworn in by her brother, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge James Hahn, during Monday’s ceremony at the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration, named for the supervisor’s late father, Kenneth Hahn.
“I can’t tell you how proud I am of my sister… Wouldn’t you all love to have a sister like Janice Hahn?” Judge Hahn said this during the ceremony.
KCAL News
Hahn was first elected to the Fourth District seat on the Board of Supervisors in 2016. Her district includes most of the Gateway Cities, Avalon and parts of the South Bay area and San Gabriel Valley. At the end of this four-year term, she will have served the maximum permitted term of three terms, namely twelve years on the board.
Before her time on the LA County Board of Supervisors, Hahn served in Congress as a U.S. Representative from California, served on the Los Angeles City Council, and also served on the Los Angeles Charter Reform Commission.
During Monday’s ceremony, the Hahn siblings spoke about the service of their father, who served on the LA City Council from 1947 to 1952 and then as a county supervisor from 1952 to 1992. “Our father announced his run for county supervisor just a few days before I was born,” Janice said.
“We witnessed from a very young age the power that a Los Angeles County supervisor has to improve people’s lives. Over the course of his four decades as a supervisor, our father made a difference, not just with major policy decisions and programs, but also by solving people’s individual problems.”
The supervisor highlighted some of her plans for the next four years, including converting six vacant buildings at Metropolitan State Hospital in Norwalk into a village where people with mental illnesses can be treated.
Top priorities also included public transportation safety, expanding public transportation in Southeast LA, improving air quality in the communities surrounding the ports, medical debt relief for low-income people, an arts center for Southeast LA Los Angeles, a pledge of commitment to Latino communities. dominated the communities she inherited during the redistricting process, and continued to work with UCLA on the Mobile Stroke Unit.
“I know I won’t accomplish as much as my father did in the 40 years he served on the Board of Supervisors, but I have big plans and a lot of fighting ahead of me for the next four years,” said Supervisor Hahn.
She also thanked voters for passing Measure A, a half-cent sales tax increase intended to generate funding for more homelessness prevention initiatives.
Hahn also referenced her work as a supervisor when she spearheaded efforts in 2021 to return part of the Manhattan Beach estate known as Bruce’s Beach to the Bruce family, nearly a century after it was given to them illegally taken because they were black.
The county returned the property in 2022, becoming the first government agency in the country to return land stolen from a Black family during the Jim Crow era, according to Hahn’s office.
Mayor Karen Bass congratulated Hahn during the ceremony: “We are fortunate to have someone of your caliber fighting for our communities.”
“For the past eight years in this role, our supervisor has been a champion of solutions and a champion for her constituents, with a commitment to addressing the homelessness crisis, improving our transportation system, strengthening our mental health system, and her strong leadership on the implementation of the 988 suicide and crisis lifeline and alternative response, to name a few.”
