My top priority will always be public safety – for the residents, business owners, and those who visit our city. To achieve this, we must ensure first responders have the tools and resources to effectively do their jobs; dedicate resources to social workers, mental health clinicians, and community outreach teams to focus on homelessness so LAPD can focus on fighting violent crime; and require our partners at LA County to provide more temporary healthcare beds for those with mental illness or drug addiction.
Our communities and neighborhoods cannot thrive if people cannot afford to live here. We must make it easier to build new housing and rehab old buildings. We need to streamline the permitting process, provide practical incentives for developers who build affordable housing, and make public transportation safe and reliable. We must also support small businesses that provide good paying jobs so people can live near their workplace.
City Hall needs to hear the issues that concern Angelenos, but our current leaders make it hard for our voices to be heard. City Hall meetings need to be held after work hours and in different parts of the city, so everyone has an opportunity to engage with the Council. District offices need to be accessible and staffed so that constituents can have issues addressed and problems solved.
Homelessness continues to be the number one concern of Los Angeles City residents and business owners. We vote to support ballot measures and fund programs, yet the number of those living on our streets only grows. While we need to implement solutions that provide shelter and long term housing, we must also make sure that we are developing solutions that address the root causes of homelessness: addiction, mental health, affordable housing, and financial insecurity.
The next significant issue is updating and revamping the City’s crumbling infrastructure. This must be a key priority with clear goals and timelines. In order to ensure that our city properly functions in all ways, we need to upgrade and repair our roads and parks as well as invest in technology that will be efficient and effective for decades to come.
There is no question that we need to reform LA City politics. Corruption has been so prevalent in City Hall that people are no longer surprised when the FBI conducts a raid. We must hold our elected leaders to a higher standard and restore trust so residents and business owners can rely on their representatives to provide essential city services.