As the clock struck nine, the eager crowd began to grow antsy. The hundreds of friends and supporters who had arrived at the Avalon Club in Hollywood to celebrate the re-election of their man, City Council President Eric Garcetti, had been eating, drinking and dancing to funk music for about an hour. Most were ready to hear the triumphant victory speech. 

But as the man of the hour finally danced his way on stage, the band refused to fade. So instead of moving directly toward the podium, Garcetti approached the keyboard and took a solo. 

Garcetti cruised to an easy victory over his opponent, Gary Slossberg, in Tuesday's city election, winning 72 percent of the vote. He has already served eight years as the 13th district's councilman, and thanks to his broad, diverse coalition of supporters, he will sit in his seat for a final term. 

Garcetti wore a constant smile Tuesday night, often taking the opportunity to dance alongside his supporters, but the celebratory mood didn't keep him from looking ahead to the daunting laundry list of chores waiting on his desk. 

"We are staring at the largest budget deficit in a generation," Garcetti said, competing with the booming soundtrack. "I really don't want us to fall into that trap where we just continue to delay and delay the budget."

Garcetti is known among his colleagues as a politician with a unique sense of vitality about his job. His policy director Sarah Dusseault, who served as deputy mayor under James Hahn, said after so many years in politics, working for the council president is refreshing.

"It's great to work for someone who is so progressive," Dusseault said. "He has so much energy and it really sets a tone." 

Dussealt recalled taking a particularly overwhelming wave of calls from constituents complaining they had been evicted from their apartments after their landlords defaulted on mortgages. As a result, she said, Garcetti pushed through a piece of legislation that protected against such cases of eviction. 

Although Garcetti ran for re-election virtually unchallenged, new people will join Garcetti on City Council and replace the well-known city attorney and controller, changing the dynamic in Los Angeles government. But according to David Bloom, a former professor at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business and a longtime friend of Garcetti's, adapting to a new set of colleagues will do little to slow the Council President's progressive momentum.

"He's a very warm, engaging person," Bloom said. "He is the kind of person who brings people together, and bridges things. That's what he does." 

Bloom said he met Garcetti about 10 years ago while Garcetti was working toward a Ph.D in political science at USC. During his time as a political reporter for the Los Angeles Daily News, Bloom had covered Garcetti's father, Gill Garcetti, who served as the Los Angeles District Attorney from 1992 to 2000. When Bloom met the younger Garcetti, he said he was immediately impressed. 

"He had an encyclopedic knowledge of issues around the world," Bloom said. "He was always the gifted one. But he also had this human quality that you don't usually see in people that bright." 

Los Angeles political insiders are already speculating what campaign Garcetti might be running in another four years, when he could conceivably run for mayor. 

"This is a guy who belongs on a very large stage," Bloom said. "Whether that means federal government or mayor, I don't know." 

But Garcetti himself wasn't giving anything away just yet. 

"I really love Los Angeles and I plan to stay here for a while," he said. "What that means specifically, I'm not quite sure."