Nikki’s Story
Since being elected to the Burbank City Council, with the then-highest number of votes in the city’s history, Nikki Perez has been our champion in city hall, breaking down barriers and opening doors for us all.
Born and raised in Burbank, Nikki is the daughter of parents who immigrated from El Salvador and Guatemala. She attended Burbank public schools and began her career in public service with her first job as a City of Burbank CREST worker. She then spent her career in public service as a social worker and homeless services project manager. Before being elected to Council, she served as Chair of the Burbank Library Board of Trustees.
Her election made history. Nikki became Burbank’s first Indigenous and openly LGBTQIA+ councilmember. She went on to serve as the youngest Mayor in the city’s history and the first Burbank Mayor to become a mother while in office.
But for Nikki, breaking barriers has never been about collecting titles. It is about opening City Hall to the people who have too often been overlooked, unheard, or told to wait their turn.
During her first term, Nikki brought that commitment into every decision she made. She fought for renters struggling to remain in their homes, helped secure millions of dollars for homelessness services, expanded support for local nonprofits, protected immigrant families, invested in Burbank’s firefighters and emergency response teams, and worked to preserve the entertainment jobs that support thousands of local households.
She has pushed Burbank to become a city where working people, young families, immigrants, renters, and vulnerable residents have a real voice in the decisions that shape their lives.
Nikki’s approach to public service comes from her career as a social worker. She earned degrees in Psychology and Music Performance from UC Riverside and a Master of Social Welfare from the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs.
Her work has brought together schools, government agencies, nonprofits, young people, and families to help those facing homelessness and other barriers find stability and opportunity.
It also comes from her own life. Nikki is a renter, a working mother, and a lifelong Burbank resident raising her family in the same community that raised her.
She understands the pressure of rising costs such as childcare, grocery bills, job uncertainty, and a shrinking entertainment industry because her family is facing those pressures too. She knows that representation matters, and that representation must lead to action.
Nikki is running for re-election to continue breaking down the barriers that keep people from building a good, quality, life in Burbank.
She is fighting for a city where families and individuals can afford to stay, workers can find quality jobs, renters are treated fairly, children have access to opportunity, and every resident knows that their city government works for them.