The Los Angeles City Council Wednesday confirmed a new director for the Department of Public Works’ Bureau of Street Lighting.
Miguel Sangalang will lead the bureau’s upkeep and improvements of the city’s 220,000 street light infrastructure assets.
“Miguel is a proven leader with an innovative approach and the expertise to make our communities safer, more livable and more equitable through our street lighting infrastructure,” said Los Angeles Board of Public Works Vice President Aura Garcia. “As the new director of L.A. Lights, Miguel will continue to passionately serve Angelenos and guide the future of street lighting and emerging technologies.”
Sangalang previously worked for Mayor Eric Garcetti as deputy mayor for budget and innovation, where he had a range of responsibilities, including overseeing the city’s annual budget, performance management, personnel, risk management, procurement reform, technology infrastructure, sustainability, equity in service, gender equity, data, emerging technologies and the implementation of the census, according to the Department of Public Works.
“Working to make Los Angeles a better place to live has been both humbling and a great joy, and I am deeply honored by Mayor Garcetti’s and City Council’s confidence in my abilities to do more in this new role,” Sangalang said. “I am excited to work with the women and men of Street Lighting to make our lights not just infrastructure, but neighborhood assets that are essential components of quality of life and a shining reflection of our communities.”
Before working as deputy mayor, he worked for Garcetti’s clean streets initiative with the Los Angeles Clean Streets Index, also called CleanStat. The system provides grades for every street in Los Angeles and changed the city’s method of addressing illegal dumping from a reactive request-driven process to a proactive data-driven model, according to the Department of Public Works. Sangalang also worked with MyVoiceLA, the city’s centralized tool for reporting harassment and discrimination.