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Volume 3, Number 4 * May 2005 * www.cd13.com
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IN THIS ISSUE
CITY HALL UPDATE:
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Now that I'm blogging on my CD13 website, there's so much content that I've decided to split last month's e-news into two halves. Below you'll find an update on policy and politics inside and outside City hall. Next week, look forward to news from the neighborhoods. And please check back at CD13.com to read the news as it's posted to my council-blog!
Councilmember
Eric Garcetti |
A Word From Eric
Next month officially begins my second term as councilmember for the city of Los Angeles. I will have more to say about my goals for term two in next month's e-news. But just as last month I wrote about the individuals in our community who have made a difference, this month I would like to highlight a few more individuals who I have worked with in CD13 who will be going on to new adventures.
Late in the year 2000, as I began to think about serving CD13, I took a look at each of its neighborhoods. Talking to people who lived in or knew something about Atwater Village, I heard a common refrain: you've got to talk to Jim Omahen. Jim literally opened doors for me in Atwater, introducing me to the people he knew in their homes and helping me win my strongest margin of victory in that part of the district. I was eager to bring him aboard my district staff. He was tested almost immediately. Before my first summer in office was over, Atwater was thrown into crisis. There were five homicides in as many months. Jim's assistance was crucial in setting up meetings that brought the community together to heal, and to fight.
Jim was indispensable in implementing a vision in the neighborhood. That vision's first bloom is apparent in the Glendale streetscape and the opening this month of the Atwater Village farmer's market. Jim's touch can be seen in the new signs proclaiming Atwater's identity, in the success of its pedestrian overlay district, and in the yearly growth of the community's street festival. His great heart (and his great hair) will be missed by the whole CD13 team, and our greatest comfort is knowing that he will remain a pillar of the community.
Only a short drive from Jim's house on the L.A. River is the Silver Lake neighborhood where I met landscape architect Glen Dake on the Committee to Save Silver Lake's Reservoirs. Glen was also active in the campaign, and shortly after my victory party, I sat down with him, too. I doubted I would be so lucky as to convince him to give up his practice to work as a public servant, but I suspected he might know someone who shared our mutual passion for environmentalism on both local and global levels. I didn't have to look far. Glen signed on.
During the campaign, I realized just how few open spaces the children of CD13 have to play in. I decided that if elected, I would double the number of parks in our district if I had eight years to do it in. Knowing that talk was cheap, I decided not to float it as a campaign promise, but I told Glen about my idea. He signed on, and with him as my “green” deputy, presiding over all of my open space projects (as well as over my environmental agenda in general), we accomplished ninety percent of that promise in my first term. And without taking his eye off of more than fifteen different parks construction or renovation, Glen also shepherded the passage of LADWP's Renewable Portfolio Standard, the country's largest municipal green building initiative, and changes to our landscape ordinance that will save whole reservoirs full of water for our thirsty city. Now Glen will have a chance to tend to the plot in his community garden that he surrendered when the call of public service plucked him from what he calls his “simple, quiet life.” I suspect we won't have heard the last from him either.
While the transitions inside CD13's offices are at once quiet and momentous, at the same time other changes have transpired with plenty of attention. As you know by now, voters have chosen Antonio Villaraigosa to be the next mayor of Los Angeles and picked Bill Rosendahl to be the next councilmember from District 11. I have known them both for some time and have a lot of respect for each of them. I endorsed Mayor Hahn in this election. He was a great partner in the work we have done in CD13 and on policy initiatives like the Affordable Housing Trust Fund and the Supercenters Ordinance. I will miss him in City Hall.
At the same time, Antonio Villaraigosa has long been an inspirational figure in local politics to me. I worked for my former Assemblymember's campaign for mayor in 2001 before throwing my own hat in the ring to run for City Council. I have tremendous respect for his ability to unite and inspire. It's a tough business to be in, when two friends are in the same race.
I had the opportunity shortly after the election to extend my sympathies to Mayor Hahn. I think history will treat him kindly. He kept the city together in the face of secession and accomplished quite a lot with this council over the last four years.
I also congratulated Antonio, who has already electrified the city and who will have a powerful enough mandate to launch the ambitious policy initiatives that he campaigned on, and, I believe, can deliver. I look forward to a great four years together.
In Council District 11, Bill Rosendahl, who hosted a number of public affairs shows on Century and then Adelphia Cable, and who knows probably as many people as any incoming councilmember in city history, walked away with the election runoff. Bill was in high spirits on Election Night and visited council on Friday with Cindy Miscikowski. He will be a great addition to the council. He makes history as the first openly gay man to join the City Council. He has a national network, a very creative mind and a strong work ethic. Like Antonio, he has a broad enough mandate to lead his district and make tough decisions in the interest of the entire city.
Miguel Contreras, R.I.P. | I would be remiss not to mark one more transition, final and tragic. It has been nearly a month since the untimely death of Miguel Contreras, the leader for nine years of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. Los Angeles is still mourning his loss, and whether we know it or not, will be for some time to come. In addition to the rosary that saw lines out the door of St. Vincent's and the mass that saw the Cathedral bursting with union colors, we honored Miguel in a council adjournment. Nearly all of my colleagues shared stories about Miguel, none failing to mention his laugh and his mischievous smile. We recalled his commitment to training a cadre of new leaders, just as Cesar Chavez had nurtured him. At his mass, his widow Maria Elena Durazo recalled an interview with Cesar Chavez during Miguel's time as an organizer. The interviewer asked, “How come, everywhere we go, you receive such an outpouring of affection from the farmworkers?” Cesar replied, “The feeling is mutual.” This, too was Miguel: happy to schmooze power brokers, every hard handshake girded by the strength of and affection for Los Angeles's toiling millions and their burning desire for justice.
CITY HALL UPDATE: Public Safety
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Rusty spots the tags and taggers | Disclaimer: UNTAG block captains are not encouraged to personally chase down criminal suspects. It's dangerous. Call the police! That said, three cheers for UNTAG block captain Rusty Millar, who spotted a pair of vandals defacing a wall on Hyperion in Silver Lake on Tuesday morning. He took pictures, followed the suspects as they left the area, and got a neighbor to call police, resulting in an arrest. Rusty was one of our initial UNTAG block captains, and like the more than fifty others in the district, he has taken responsibility for reporting and painting out graffiti on his block. In this case, he's gone beyond the call of duty. Thank you, Rusty! (Tina Farash from the East Hollywood and Melrose Hill area has also been nabbed a tagger or two).
At the exact same time as Rusty was chasing taggers, I was encouraging an "aye" vote on item 42 on the council agenda, the expansion of UNTAG to a city-wide program. It's time to replicate our success from San Pedro to Granada Hills. Council voted 12-0 to create a version of our home-grown program for all of Los Angeles. It will be directed by Operation Clean Sweep, the agency responsible for administering graffiti eradication contracts. It will replicate our system of block captains, surveillance cameras in graffiti "hot spots", and anti-graffiti techniques such as vining to curb blight and vandalism.
Following council, the budget committee met in the afternoon. I made sure that we included $500,000 in the FY 2005-6 budget to support the citywide UNTAG program. Now we know that we'll be able to reach our goals.
Budget
Moody’s, one of the nation’s top bond-rating firms, has upgraded our Department of Public Works/Bureau of Sanitation’s Wastewater System Revenue Bonds to a rating of Aa3. I know bond ratings sound incredibly boring and arcane on the surface, but this is actually terrific news for us. A higher bond rating means lower bond fees paid by the city on the infrastructure investments we make in our future. In their decision, the people at Moody’s cited the recently enacted five-year sewer rate increase program, last year’s settlement of the Santa Monica Baykeeper lawsuit, and progress we’ve made in key capital improvements. They acknowledged that we’ve shown responsibility and strong management of the debt we carry on our sewer system, and that we’ve invested widely, with demonstrable improvements in the area of wet-water spills. Here’s what it means: Los Angeles is getting the sewer system it paid for and more, and because we’ve done it right we will be able to do more in the future. See the press release from Public Works (pdf alert).
After 40 hours of deliberation over two weeks, the Budget Committee of the City Council has finished making its recommendations. The budget, which consists of adjustments made to the original budget proposed by Mayor Hahn, will next be forwarded to the entire City Council for approval. Here are some of the things that I personally fought for in this budget, that the committee passed today:
- $500,000 to establish a citywide version of Uniting Neighborhoods To Abolish Graffiti (UNTAG), our highly successful, volunteer-based, CD13-grown initiative
- $100,000 for the Neighborhood Land Trust, which turns small lots into community parks
- $500,000 for Domestic Abuse Response Teams (DART), intervention teams that roll-out on domestic violence calls and help survivors of abuse extricate themselves from dangerous home situations
- Restoration of all of the Fire Department's 10-member task forces and of a 24-hour ambulance presence in all fire station houses
- $741,000 for the creation of a Department of Gang Violence and Youth Development, an idea, originated by my colleague Martin Ludlow, whose time has come
- $608,000 for 9 city planners, one of whom will implement the Silver Lake-Echo Park Community Plan update
- 23 positions and funding for illegal sign enforcement program, which will encourage creative signage in commercial areas while relieving our neighborhoods of ugly, illegal advertisements
- $50,000 for a street light on Santa Monica Boulevard, to prevent future accidents like the one that took the life of 9-year-old Seily Rodriguez
Also of note:
- End of the citywide hiring freeze, enabling departments to better serve the public
- $1.5 million in new materials for our libraries (after all, what good is a brand-new library without any books?)
- 5% increase in planning fees, which will help us hire new planners and eradicate the backlog in the planning department
- Boosted the reserve fund to about 3.5%, the highest rate in years
Human Rights
At a luncheon hosted by the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy I was honored to join Councilmember Wendy Greuel in presenting Torie Osborn, the outgoing head of Los Angeles’s Liberty Hill Foundation, with a city scroll honoring her dedicated, uninterrupted decades of creating community in the struggle for justice here in Los Angeles and in the United States.
Wendy, Eric and Torie | After first tasting protest in an anti-war march 40 years ago, Torie has dedicated her life to social change. At Liberty Hill since 1997, she doubled the foundation’s revenue. Before that, she headed the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force in Washington, D.C. as well as L.A.’s own Gay and Lesbian Center. If a community organization has contributed to grass-roots economic justice or social change in Los Angeles, it’s a good bet that Liberty Hill has nurtured and funded it. What’s more, Torie is a fellow blogger: you can read her work at the Huffington Post.
The luncheon, though open to all, was held to honor the contributions of women to grass-roots change. I was particularly honored to attend with my partner Amy Wakeland, a dedicated activist who organized the event and who chairs LAANE’s advisory committee. The sunny banquet room at USC held women from labor, community groups, the foundation world, City Hall and the clergy. Torie quoted this passage from Marianne Williamson, which, in tribute to the wonders of the Web, is commonly misattributed to Nelson Mandela:
“...Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we’re liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
Eric, Alanna Bowman, Rocky Delgadillo | We said farewell to Alanna Bowman, a longtime activist who made us more aware of and more responsive to the crisis of domestic violence. She headed up the City Attorney’s domestic violence unit, the first in the United States. She became a national spokesperson on violence against women, and now she has become an international spokesperson! She left Los Angeles to consult for the United Nations in New Zealand for a coalition of domestic violence shelters. She asks Los Angeles to take note: in New Zealand, a performance measure against which every governmental agency is scored is What are you doing for women and girls in your agency?
Economic Development
In August of last year, the City Council passed the Superstores Ordinance, a policy that deals with the entry of big-box grocery into urban areas not by barring the door but by raising the bar. I wrote a blog entry explaining the ordinance and the process of passing it for WalmartWatch.org.
The Hollywood and Vine development, recently passed by the CRA and council, is what happens when you ask the right questions about a city's growth: what kind of jobs are we creating? Are we locating them close to transit? Are we putting density in the right places? In an opinion piece published in the Daily News, CRA commissioner Madeline Janis Aparicio explained why it's so important to ask every development how it will help the neighborhood in which it locates, and how the city can work smarter—not just harder—to attract business to Los Angeles.
Fighting for a just contract | I attended the Banquet in the Streets put on by Local 11 of UNITE HERE to call attention to the fight for justice in Los Angeles' hospitality industry. The workers of L.A.'s hotels have called a boycott until the companies sign a fair contract that protects wages and health insurance and allows the union to bargain with a national voice—which seems right, considering that the companies they are bargaining with are no longer local businesses but are multinational names. At the banquet, supporters dined in the middle of the street outside the Century Plaza Hotel as a group of workers, organizers and supporters served salad and sparkling cider. It was a unique and festive alternative to the picket line, and results are showing: the Hyatt Regency Los Angeles has acceded to the union's demand for a two-year contract, and the general manager of the Wilshire Grand has indicated his willingness to do so as well. Meanwhile, please continue to support the boycott!
Open Space and the Environment
Take a bike or a bus | Bike To Work Day was terrific this year. In past years, I've joined local bicyclists, other councilmembers and the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition to bicycle either to City Hall or to my field office. But, as this year's events showed, bicycling is just one piece of the road-congestion/pollution puzzle. While bicycling is probably the most fun, taking the bus, carpooling and walking all get cars off the road, making it easier for everyone to breathe and get around town. So this year, I bicycled down to the corner of Sunset and Echo Park as usual. Once I was there, I loaded my bike onto a bus (see below) and headed for Good Samaritan Hospital, where, in what I thought was an only-in-LA twist, a group of clergy presided over the Blessing of the Bikes.
Turning 100 | We celebrated in Council Chambers the centenary of Ed Peterson, founding board member of the Theodore Payne Society. Mr. Peterson, a UCLA grad and Hollywood native helped create the Wild Seed Collection program at the foundation, which is dedicated to the protection and appreciation of California's wildflowers. Chief Legislative Analyst John Wickham, also pictured, is the president of the Society.
We observed National Composting Week in May. The City of Los Angeles officially supports composting and can help you get started. Composting is enlightened self-interest at its best: not only do you prevent our landfills from filling up, you get free nutrient-rich soil for your home garden or potted plants.
The six-month pilot program offering hybrid vehicles free parking at city meters has been extended for another nine months, until March of next year. Remember, hybrid drivers: the time limits still apply.
Global warming | I traveled to Iqaluit, the capital of Nunavut, Canada, in order to raise awareness about global warming and its effects on Los Angeles and on the arctic north. Iqaluit is just under the arctic circle, a town of some 6,000 residents, most of whom are native Inuit.
I was there as part of a project called Arctic Wisdom, a collaboration between Global Green USA, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Inuit people. Our delegation was about a dozen strong and included business executives, climate scientists, two actor/environmentalists—Salma Hayek and Jake Gyllenhaal—and some elected officials who, like myself, are focused on local issues that tie into global warming. Personally, I have worked closely with Global Green on everything from expanding the use of solar panels on affordable housing in Los Angeles to use less fossil fuel to passing the nation's largest green building ordinance to reduce the pollution used in municipal buildings.
From Iqaluit, we took to the polar ice cap with about 1,000 locals to create a piece of art called "Arctic Warning" designed by a local Inuit artist and implemented with the help of John Quigley, the Eagle Rock-based artist who came to mass attention when he sat in Old Glory, a more than 400 year-old oak tree slated for destruction in 2002 in Santa Clarita.
The north and south poles of our planet act as filters for much of the earth's pollution but also as early-warning systems for the whole planet. Pollution washes out to our oceans and eventually make their way up to the north via ocean currents, where they have become increasingly concentrated in the fatty tissues of marine mammals that form the core of the Inuit diet in many places. It has become so bad that many Inuit can no longer breast feed their children, so concentrated are these toxins in their bodies. At the same time, the polar ice caps are melting away due to global warming, at a rate that will see it disappear entirely by the year 2080.
In Nunavut, we met with Sheila Watt-Cloutier, the elected chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, who recently was honored with the Sophie Environmental Prize for her work on behalf of the 150,000 members of the Inuit people, spread across four countries. She told us that many Inuit have seen themselves move from the Ice Age into the Space Age in a single lifetime, and that they have struggled to adapt to this change while still hanging on to the ancient wisdom that their elders have passed down from generation to generation. Now, faced with the effects of environmental degradation and global warming, they wanted to meet with us in order to coordinate the work that we are doing in the United States, in California, indeed in Los Angeles, with the work that they are doing as well. In her words, "we are not looking for saviors. We are looking for allies."
I told an Inuit reporter that our environmental goals in Los Angeles, like trying to move away from consuming coal and other fossil fuel and building up our Renewable Portfolio Standard of green energy at the Department of Water and Power, can help turn this crisis around. Unsatisfied with my own answer, I added that it is not just a matter of what we can do for you, it is what you can do for us, too: the ill effects of our actions are more subtle in Los Angeles (we see it in smog, in asthma) but are thrown into sharp relief in the north. Salma Hayek, who speaks powerfully about climate change, added that we are not trying to save the planet, as the planet will long outlast any of us. We are trying to save ourselves.
Cable and Technology
Many e-news readers already know how to access city council agendas online, and a few of you probably know how to track the progress of an individual item using the Council File Index. But there are—or were—pages of information related to every item in the form of staff reports that could not be accessed by any means other than coming downtown to the Clerk's office. Since taking office, I have sought to make those staff reports available electronically, not just inside City Hall but to the public at large.
Now, if you pull up any City Council or Committee agenda online at the city's website, each agenda item appears with a hyperlink that brings up the actual documents online. It's still on a go-forward basis (the archives haven't been added), but now you can review the agenda at home, and, if an item piques your curiosity, you can click and read the staff reports as .pdfs. Here's an example: for agenda item 15 from Tuesday April 12th's council agenda, here is the original motion followed by the legislative analysis. (.pdf links)
CONTACT US
Tell us what you think. ..... garcetti@council.lacity.org
Councilmember Eric Garcetti represents the Thirteenth Council District which includes all or part of the communities of Glassell Park, Atwater Village, Elysian Valley, Echo Park, Historic Filipinotown, Silver Lake, East Hollywood and Hollywood.
Councilmember Garcetti serves as Assistant President Pro Tempore of the Los Angeles City Council. He chairs the Council‘s Housing, Community, and Economic Development Committee, is the Vice-Chair of the Environmental Quality and Waste Management Committee, and sits on the Information Technology and General Services and Budget and Finance Committees. He also sits on the Council‘s Ad Hoc Stadium Committee and the Ad Hoc Committee on the Los Angeles River.
Councilmember Garcetti and his staff can be reached via e-mail at garcetti@council.lacity.org or by mail or phone at City Hall, 200 N. Spring Street, Room 470, Los Angeles, CA 90012, (213) 473 7013 and 3525 Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90026, 323/913-4693.
www.cd13.com
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