After Councilwoman Gayle McLaughlin announced that effective mid-July she would leave her seat to focus on her campaign for lieutenant governor, last week the Richmond City Council recently appointed her replacement and it was a surprise. Young Latina woman, Ada Recinos, 26, was a unanimous selection to fill McLaughlin’s vacant seat.

Recinos was born in Los Angeles, is the daughter of El Salvadoran immigrants, and grew up on the Southern California towns of Hawthorne and Torrance.   She is a 2014 graduate of UC Santa Cruz, where she earned a degree in global information and social enterprise studies

Since October 2015, Recinos has been an advancement manager with Prospera Community Development, a non-profit committed to education and entrepreneurial opportunities for Latinas, where she leads the fund development team. Most recently, Ada was researching effective strategies to improve school meals for migrant farmworker students at the Migrant Legal Action Program and organizing immigrant tenants with Causa Justa in the Fruitvale as an Emerson National Hunger Fellow with the Congressional Hunger Center. She is the second youngest candidate to serve on the Richmond City Council and was recently appointed to the Richmond Human Rights and Human Relations Commission,  where she currently serves asVice Chair.

Recinos’s activism in the Latino community was a strong enough influence for current Council members and reaffirms their commitment to seek more Latina representation on the council, given the city’s  40% Latino makeup.  Furthermore, the Council expressed their excitement to have a younger candidate ready to take on a leadership role in the City. They also felt that a younger candidate taking a leadership role is good for Richmond.

Richmond City Council is a 6-person body, which includes the mayor, and members retain their private industry endeavors while serving. For more information about Recinos’ work with Prospera,  go to http://prosperacoops.org.

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