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Pick L.A.'s Next Mayor: Final Debate Blogged Live*****
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UPDATE: KCBS2 posted video.
The fourth and final major mayoral debate before Tuesday's election was more of the same, only less so:
Jim Hahn poked back at his tormentors a little more vigorously, Richard Alarcon, Bob Hertzberg, Bernard Parks and Antonio Villaraigosa attacked Hahn less viciously than usual, trying to focus instead on solidifying their own images in voters' minds and cozying up to the Neighborhood Councils who sponsored the debate.
Meanwhile, the latest L.A. Times poll puts Villaraigosa, Hertzberg and Hahn in a near-dead heat (24%, 21%, 20%) for that third floor office.
And LABlogs is inviting all the candidates to answer some probing questions by bloggers about everything from transit and traffic to gay representation on the police commission and the high cost of housing in L.A.
Here's the live transcript of Monday's debate:
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(earlier)--------------
Here we go - blogging live from the radio transmission by KFWB radio.
This is the last full-fledged debate among campaign's five top money-raisers before the election next Tuesday.
As before, please note that I'm transcribing this live, so the transcript will be almost illegible until a few hours after the debate, by which time I'll have had time to correct all the typos. What will remain This is a rough - and I always stress, rough - accounting of what was said during the debate.
The candidates speak incredibly fast - and frequently in sound bites that have been honed and spat out so frequently in countless debates and public forums that the words are nearly impossible to catch before the next sound bite is piled on top.
It's torturous work - cleaning up my frenzied typing takes nearly three times as long as the debate itself - and I think the purpose has been served. I did my best, but since this is the last debate before the election, these guys are pretty much repeating themselves, and there should be plenty here and in the earlier debate transcripts to help voters make up their minds, it'll be my last full debate transcription.
If there's a runoff, I'll be happy to sit on the sidelines and bang out the occasional comment when/where appropriate.
Note: CBS2 is scheduled to broadcast the debate Tuesday at 6:30 p.m.
(The moderators are KFWB anchors Laura Diaz and Paul Magers - their questions are identified only as "Q" while Neighborhood Council members are identified here generally by either their name or the name of the neighborhood they represent. )
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Q: I'm Lewis Perry, a Neighborhood Councilman from Sylmar; (A broad question about reducing the flow of trash into Los Angeles' landfills - how would you address this?)
Mayor James Hahn: I think that the clear message is we can't do what we've been doing, and that's burying it in our backyards, and that's why I'm committed to ending the use of landfills in the city of Los Angeles, closing both the Sunshine Landfill and the Bradley landfill - to stop sending city trash there, to push curbside recycling to have more households and businesses involved in that, and to work more on source reduction so the package that comes in doesn't have to be as big and bulky, and finally find places outside the city of Los Angeles to send our trash. We've routed 60% of our trash away from landfills, but I think we can do better, but it's not fair to the cities of the San Fernando Valley to have the trash back up in their communities.
State Sen. Richard Alarcon: I live in an area that has a history of 35 landfills. I know about landfill, my family built ... with the aggregate that came out of those landfills. The question is, do you trust that the city is going to negotiate in good faith with the companies that take your trash dollars while disposing of your waste. All the stories that LA would not step up to the plate and reduce their use of trash, are ... We can close the landfills, but not if we let major corporations dictate control of these decisions.
Councilman Bernard Parks: Recycling - we still have 4,000 tons a day go into Sunshine Canyon. I don't think our goal should be to eliminate landfills in the city of Los Angeles and create others outside the city. We need to start the recycling program for multi-family units. We have a task force plan that 's not been implemented. We have to also realize we're subsidizing single-family residences by $200 million a year. Are we going to accept the $80 million to $100 million in increased costs and accept (paying) $200 million for the current subsidy?
Bob Hertzberg: This is a great city. This is Los Angeles. What we do is on the cutting edge. There's no reason why we should have urban landfills. Everybody should come here on tours to see what we're doing, instead of us going overseas to other nations and other cities to see what they're doing. You can eliminate 90% of the trash with recycling. Intelligent planning with accountability, to make sure we move away from landfill use - 90% of the trash can be recycled, there's no reason why we should be stuck in the mud.
Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa: the question is, what have we done in the last 4 years? We're here tonight because we've done very little in the last 4 years to address trash problems in the city of Los Angeles. I'm very committed to not put trash in Sunshine Canyon and to close down Bradley, to do everything possible to increase recycling from commercial businesses and places that are not doing it currently. We need to focus on waste-to-energy programs, on biomass ... As mayor of the city of Los Angeles, I'll provide the kind of leadership to do that.
Q: Mayor Hahn, What have you done in the last 4 years to address these issues?
Hahnn; What we have done is implement some of the things we've been talking about ... We need to start the multi-family recycling program, it should have been done before I was mayor, but we're committed to doing that. We just recently purchased a big transfer station in downtown Los Angeles so we can bring it to a central location and move it awwy from landfills, and we're making sure the recycling program has improved over the years. We've made a lot of progress, but we still have a long way to go.
Q: (If you don't put landfills in the valley, where do you put them?)
Alarcon: There's a report by Waste Management that says that their trying to haul the trash outside Los Angeles could cost the city $50 million, but I don't think that's the solution, necessarily. But we're only $50 million away from reducing our trash and increasing the reuse of materials and encouraging people to increase recycling more and more ... You know you go to businesses like Costco, and you see things come in these huge packages that are very wasteful - we needc to work cooperatively with stores that have these huge packages, to reduce the waste stream.
Q: (Why shouldn't we close Sunshine Canyon?)
Parks: First of all we don't have the authority. That's one of the big lies of the campaign. The other side is that if we move out, other people will move their trash into the city of Los Angeles. But if our goal is to stop burying trash, do we really want our goal to be burying it in another state? What we need is a five- to 10-year plan to move forward -
Q: Councilman Parks, I must interject at this point -
Parks: Ooookay (referring to some time's-up indicator at his podium) Does this thing work?
Q: We'll be your clock . All right - before we go too much farther, we should go over the rules of this debate. (They outline them - there will be questions from Neighborhood Council members to all the candidates, and questions from the KFWB moderators to each of them individually)
Q: Do you believe that the city's Department of Neighborhood Empowerment is doing enough to increase participation in city government?
Villaraigosa: I don't I think it's very important that our Neighborhood Councils be independent of the city. I think it's important that we promote outside nonprofits to engage in the training of those Neighborhood Councils. We need to offer early notice when the city is engaging in a practice that is impacting our neighborhoods. The key to the Neighborhood Councils is advise and consent. It needs to be early and often.
Q:: (Renee Chavez, Boyle Heights Neighborhood Council): Los Angelses is widely acknowledged as the gang capital of the world. What will you offer to our kids to compete with the gang culture?
Alarcon: I was trained as a teacher, and I believe that violence is something that can be solved only through education. We have a 53% dropout rate in our schools, and that is unacceptable ... I would establish an office of education under a deputy mayor and make that person responsible to get our kids to school, I believe it's the mayor's responsibility to make our children safe going to shcool. (We should establish a) dropout prevnetion unit where city would work with school district to the library system (so that after school, children are working in homework systems so they're not out on the street.
Parks: First of all, I was pleased to be part of of the Los Angeles Police Department between 1992 and 1999, when we saw the crime rate dropped in half. ... The two greatest needs for young people is education and jobs. If we begin to look at that with after-school activities, they'll find there's something to them and be less willing to go into gangs. But we also have to understand the environment and the culture that draws them into gang acitivity ...
Hertzberg: There's a lot you can say to answer that question. Education - 53% of ninth graders are not graduating - I mean, it's just a staggering number, so my notion is to make schools the center of neighborhoods. It's not just something I'm talking about now, when I was speaker of the Assembly, I co-authored a bill that put $100 million into parks and libraries and health centers in the right places. ... Because at 3 or 4 in the afternoon, the school's closed up, and there's a chain on the fence (now). We know that when teachers and parents and principals are in charge of a school, there's a fundamental relationship built between the students and the community. that''s That's why I want to break up the Los Angeles Unified School District, because the place is a morass, and you can't do anything.
Villaraigosa; I was very privileged to be in an afterschool program growing up in Los Angeles in the 1960s ... I'm committed as mayor of the city of Los Angeles to continue that effort. ... as a councilmember, I helped put together the Earn and Learn progrm, working with students in the projects. We worked to get a gang intervention program to focus on Boyle Heights. I believe we need to do more of that. Intervention and prevention are the key to reclaiming our youth.
Hahn: Thank you very much, Councilman Villaraigosa, for mentioning that gang intervention program. We thought that was something we needed, to ... reach out to them to make sure they get training so they can get a job on the outside. Let's not kid ourselves, there are some vicious, violent predators on the street, and that's why they need to be caught. I'm very disappointed that two of my opponents voted not to give their neighborhoods the police they need. Those hours right after school are the ones that are most vulnerable. If they make bad choices and we don't give them good choices, that is our fault.
Q: Mayor Hahn, 20 yrs ago your father the late Kenneth Hahn, said to a reporter, "Somewhere in south Los Angeles, there's a mother crying." He was talking about gang violence and how it shatters families. It's still true today. What do you say to a mother who's lost a child, who's crying?
Hahn: It's hard to say know what to say. There's not much you can say to them. (He describes the shooting death of 14-year-old Byron Lee, caused by assailants who are still at large) We can try to prevent violence by that by bringing back community policing, and by giving these kids the opportunities to make choices, and to get them on the right track, to work with our Neighborhood Action Program ... it's about education, it's about jobs, it's about making sure that people who would kill a 14-year-old boy are arrested and locked up.
Q. Mr. Hertzberg, a friend of mine mentors in south Los Angeles, and he sees a lot of good kids who are at risk .The biggest problem they have is getting to schools and getting back home. What do you say to that kid?
Hertzberg: I'll tell them I'm gonna give it everything I've got, and I'm not going to let it go. I'm going to put officers on the street that that need to protet you, I'm really gonna engage in the most passionate way I can, ... you put the police on the streets, you don't prioritize some issues ahead of them, you get the officers you need out on the streets. The city has grown by $450M in the past four years, and the money went someplace else. (He reiterates the need for better accountability and expense of city funds).
Q: (A rep from the downtown Neighborhood Council) Given the public's concern about waste and fraud in city spending, would you support appointing a special Neighborhood Council committee to oversee waste and fraud (investigations)?
Parks : I would support what' s currently coming before the council, where the city controller who's - by the city charter - given that responsibility, (handles such investigations). I'm not against the city controller having input from the nncils, but I believe that it's a charter responsibility of the controller to do that. I would support the fact that they increased funding for that unit, and I believe that - as we do with many commissions, that we have civilian involvement, that we should continue to look for fraud. I'm not inclined to support a separate and independent Neighborhood Council committee, without understanding how it would impact what is already our responsibility.
Hertzberg: i don't know, I'd have to give it some thought. As I'm a candidate who's outside government and trying to gather information, I empathize with that. Last week, I proposed to triple Laura Chick's budget, to go department by department in the city of Los Angeles to look at waste, fraud and abuse., But I clearly want to try, department by department, to make Laura Chick - to make the city controller your partner as opposed your enemy so we can pay for the police officers we need to pay instead of raising taxes.
Villa: I proposed a waste and fraud unit to look at that very issue, to look at the Department of Water and Power and the airport and the port where we're giving out more than $l billion in contacts. I've said that we should televise those meetings so that the public has an opportunity to see what's going on. I also, as mayor of the city of Los Angeles, will ensure that those commissioners meet on a regular basis throughout the city so that neighbors don't have to go all the way to the port or the airport to see those meetings. I believe that he most important responsibility for the next mayor of Los Angeles is to restore confidence and trust in our city's mayor again.
Hahn: What we've done is eliminate 1,000 positions (in some city departments). We have to live within our means, unlike those people up in Sacramento who reach in your pocket ... We've had upwards of $60m taken out of your pocket and sent to Sacramento ... Antonio Villaraigosa and Bob Hertzberg and Richard Alarcon are part of the problem that's causing a problem here. What we need to do is exactly what you're saying ... Neighborhood Councils - It's your money after all, you have a role to look at city departments to see where we could eliminate waste and inefficiency.
Alarcon: I want the Neighborhood Councils to be strong, I want them to have more power than they have now. I want them to have control over the decisions that have an impact on neighborhoods across the city. I think they can do a better job. On the way over, we were looking at the city, we saw more barbed wire on restaurants of all things, to protect against the violence. I absolutely want them to audit the city departments, under the controller. the ... voters have already decided, to give Neighborhood Councils the opportunity to get control over the city. I want you to have planning authority. I want you to design communities that uphold the history, the heritage, the cultural values of the city, but downtown, City Hall doesn't get it.
Hahn: I've worked with the city controller to be sure the city controller is that entity....
Q; Mr. Villaraigosa, would you consider it to be an appropriate function of this council?
Villaraigosa: I think I can support the role they play. You know, I've been called worse than a Sacramento politician, in fact, I've been called worse by him (Hahn). What people aren't looking for is the blame game, they're looking for someone that can work with Sacramento to get the job done, to work to get the resources from Sacramento to improve our traffic systems and our shcools and to hire more police.
Hertzberg: Look at what politicians do - they blame each other when it should be their responsibility, and they take credit when they don't deserve it.
Q: Is that from observation or experience? (laughter from the audience)
Hertz : You can see it's fuzzy math where he says we took money from one pocket and yet we put hundreds of millions of dollars into the schools, we put money into programs to synchronize the lights, we put money into the parks ... On the one hand, you're out there saying there's hundreds of millions of dollars coming to Los Angeles, and on the other, you're saying, look, this pocket of money over here didn't have it.
Alarcon: As the other part of that cabal you mentioned (referring to Majors' earlier remark about the three Sacramento veterans being a "cabal" as framede by Hahn): I have to tell you, I agree with Mayor Hahn: The public does not trust politicians. The exact reason I'm running in this race is to change the way the game is played. I want developers to stop funneling hundreds of millions of dollars into campaign coffers and then expecting favors out of City Hall ...
(There is a break here for a quick KFWB newscapsule on the candidates and their positions)
Q. Mr. Hertzberg, your "Commuters Bill of Rights" says you'll install turn signals that will allow at least two cars to turn before making (the oncoming lane) a green (asks him to expound on the problems he sees in traffic)
Hertzberg: The mayor has fixed 25 intersections a year in city that has 4,000 intersections. There are intersecitons that you're lucky to get even 2 cars through before the light changes, that's why we need to address that, we need to we need to explore the notion of stopping construction during rush our, and of getting trucks of the road for two hours in the morning ... It took me almost an hour to get here tonight. I you know, I'm frustrated!
Q: (Rep from the Palms Neighborhood Council - the city's newest) - Many futurists, forecasters and philosophers have called Los Angeles the most important city on the Pacific Rim in the 21st Century ... how will you make that (a reality)?
Hertzberg: This is an electric, incredible, energetic city. If you look at our history and what we've accomplished, I'd argue that we're the most important city in the world. So I've already formed a Los Angeles Intelligence Foundation that will help bring businesses here. If I'm fortunate enough to be elected your mayor, I will put a lot of attention into getting businesses here. There's a lot of businesses that have already left. It's a place where you get up literally every single day and you fight for the city. You've got a situation where Boeing was going to expand to this city, and Chicago got it instead. The same thing happened with Virgin Airlines and Robinsons-May.
Villaraigosa: I often say that Los Angeles is the city of America's hope and it's future, This is the place where we come form every corner of the earth to realize our hopes and dreams. ,.. Wer'e the most diverse population in the world, If we connect people here with the port and the airport system, we will be the Venice of the 21st century .We will never beat China in the manufacture of goods, but we will be the city that moves those goods ... across the United States. We've done nothing in the past four years to capture that greatness.
Q: (Mayor Hahn, what have you done in the past 4 years)?
Hahn People come here because they see this as a magnet, a place of opportunities. I created the Mayor's Office of International Trade so that small businesses can think about being involved in local trade. (He then mentions the Cal Grants program) I found out that the lowest participation rate was in our own LAUSD. That's why we started the Cash for College program - I'm proud that we created 40,000 jobs in Los Angeles (ed: ??) while Chicago has los tjobs over that time. We can connect all of our assets together, and also connect our assets to bring the jobs of the 21st Century here.
Alarcon: I'm very concerned about the global economy. We are the 12th largest economy in the world, but many people are not benefiting from that. Wer'e creating a third-world country right here in Los Angeles, where we're dividing the haves from the have-nots. My father was in business for 45 years, a small businessman, in fact he probably never made more than his top-paid employee, but he created job opportunities and the American dream, because just about everyone he ever employed was able to buy a home some day. ... If they can succeed in their businesses, we can build a new economy for Los Angeles. I want to empower them and make them the benefactors of our economy.
Parks: l think it's (wrong) to talk about bringing in business from the Pacific Rim when we're talking about losing jobs faster than we can create them. We know that we've lost 39% of jobs out of South Los Angeles in the past 10 years. Businesses refuse to expand and stay in Los Angeles because of the bureaucratic process and the inability to attract and keep employees. We need to stop the bureaucracy, we need to move forward and eliminate many of the ordinances that are sending messages to businesses big and small not to come to Los Angeles. (We need to improve education in L.A.) and bring jobs in at every level. We should not debate whether a $10-an-hour job is inappropriate.
Q : (What would you do to make the port more efficient and competitive? )
Hertberg: I think one of the most important elements of the port is this issue of goods movement. (During my time in the) Economic Development Corporation (ed: ??) - we spent time discussing this (talking) about ways to get goods from the port to their destinations in a way that is environmentally sensitive. ... We just read in the New York Times months ago about a bunch of ships bound for the Port of Los Angeles that actually went to New York City and docked there because we were so jammed up. (This can be alleviated if) you allow the Alameda Corridor to be used so that cargo can be put on these big trucks and moved out. Secondly, we need to be able to get goods out of there as quickly as possible into the mainstream.
Villaraigosa: Absolutely, we should do something about making the port a 24-hour port. the idea that you'd have that port open only 8 hours a day is absolutely ludicrous. It's why we have so much traffic on the 710. We need to do something to complete and improve the Alameda Corridor east, but we also need to maximize use of the Alameda Corridor west (and we need to) use alternative fuels on our trucks and locomotives so we don't have so much pollution.
Q: (Donna Schwam (sp?) - Van Nuys Neighborhood Council): Los Angeles has the world's - world-class gridlock. Night and day, rain or shine, whether school's in session or it's out for the summer. Realistically, what can we do to break it open, and how are you gong to pay for it?
Villaraigosa: [He pauses, and explains after an awkward silence that he's making some notes] First all, we're the city of gridlock wtih the dirtiest air anywhere in the nation. We've got to get out of the single-passenger automobile, we've got to incentivize telecommuting, we've got to synchronize the traffic lights and do the small things, but we need a mayor to do the big things as well, and that means investing in transit. We should complete the Red Line to the ocean, and we should bring it down at the other end into North Hollywood. The Green Line to LAX should go to LAX. We're already payign for it - $11 billion a year in lost productivity. On average we spend 93 hours a year stuck in traffic. The question is, are we willing to invest - not just for today, but for the next 20 years. That's what my plan does.
Hahn: We're right now paying for the lack of vision of the people who were making these decisions l0 years. ago We can make a lot of little improvements, but the big decisions take time. I believe the Red Line should go to Santa Monica, and the Green Line should go to the airport. I believe the Exposition Line should go from USC to the west side. ... Building a network of light rail lines and heavy rali can be an alternative to getting into our cars, we don't have that alternative now. The 25 worst intersections are getting fixed, that's affecting 1 million passengers a day. We have to build a network of rail that will get people out of their cars.
Alarcon: Nobody's gonna disagree with these fanciful ideas about building light rail to the airport and the beach and down to Wilshire and to Catalina, for that matter. (laughter from the audience). The problem is we don't have the money, and nobody is telling you the truth about getting the money, so they're selling the promise, but they don't have a plan to deliver on that promise. But there's something Los Angeles can do right now, we need to create a Green Business program, to get businesses to get employees off the freeway, to encourage their employees to commute, to carpool , to take the burden off the system. And finally, we have to give the Neighborhood Councils more power to say no to developers who are trying to squeeze your neighborhoods and ruin the traffic flow.
Parks: In my judgment, there's several things we have to do. Number one, we have to have strong leadership at the MTA. We can't have a mayor that misses 30% of the meetings. Number two, we have to make sure we're contributing more (ed: did I hear this right?). We have to make sure we're looking at he big things, becaus if we don't commit more - we expect 5 to 10 million people moving into LA county over the next 10 years. We have to look at ways of synchronizing our traffic signals, but we have to convince the public that public transit is on time, it's clean, it's safe and it's not going to cost them more.
Hertzberg; I live in Sherman Oaks, not too far from you. Clearly, there are big ideas that are critical for the future, and the funding issues are difficult. I promised that when I got into office (in the assembly) we'd complete a transportation system cross the Valley. We got the $145 million and ... I've gotta get a fix on things early. I've gotta get in on day one and stop road construction during rush hour. That would be 14% less traffic for 2 hours in morning, 2 hours in the evening. We saw Jet Blue having a brilliant thing, by having their reservation agents call in - they let them stay home and they got paid at home. There's l00 things we could do like that.
Q: Mr. Parks, you're the only candidate who's been a police officer. You know that after the the Devin Brown shooting, the Los Angeles Police commission made tighter restrictions on an officer's ability to shoot at a suspect in a moving car ... Did they go too far?
Parks; The false premise is that people are looking for how to not have this happen again. As long as there are (suspects who try to get away) and as long as there are policemen out in dynamic, dangerous situations you're gonna have mistakes, and over-reactions, and even an officer doing the right thing with the wrong outcome. Only time will tell if it's a good policy, but we do know that over a year ago they said they'd fix it.
Helen Coleman, (Neighborhood Council ) -
(Ed: 60-second gap here - needed to settle a squabble between my kids)
Hahn: ... on commercial corridor streets that were no longer viable as commercial corridors, make them viable. You can bring in housing and still protect our neighborhoods.
Alarcon: Whenever I talk about Neighborhood Councils having the power to control planning and land use in their neighborhoods the first thing that comes up is, "They're just a bunch of NIMBYs - not in my backyard." I come from the San Fernando Valley, and I can tell they don't want to be NIMBYs, they want to be YIMBYs - yes in my backyard. Yes, bring us parks, yes, bring us street lighting, yes, bring us traffic signals, and that's what they need. When I was on the city council, I developed l,200 units of housing in one district, affordable housing, and every single project was encouraged by the community. Yes, we blocked a few projects that were inappropriate, but we built more than every other council district at that time.
Parks: When we think about housing in general, we need about 20,000 housing units a year, and we're not building anywhere close to that. We need to be sure to build all types and levels of housing throughout the city. We've not had a great planning exercise in the city of Los Angeles. In my district for the first time in in l5 years, a market-rate development was approved just last month. That is not fair that the 8th District, the 9th District, the 1st District is a dumping ground for affordable housing and all the other neighborhoods are getting market-rate. The middle class has been run out of our community to find housing in the Inland Empire, and San Diego and Ventura county. We need to bring those people back into Los Angeles. We need to make sure schools are available to educate the children. ... A combination of affordable, student, senior and market rate - that 's how you build a community. Without that, we will have the haves and the have-nots, we'll have only people (in this city who are) able to buy a certain kind of housing.
Hertzberg: It's hard to answer a question like this. The thought I have is that the most expensive part of housing - whether it's rental or ownership peroperty - is the land. The cos tofland here is so expensive. One of the things we have, we do have a lot of cash, we have to pay for police without raising taxes, but we have over 2,000 parcels of land. There are parking lots where I live in Sherman Oaks, Menorah Housing built a development right atop a parking lot where I got in the mornings to get my Jamba Juice. ... I'm going to put it all together and leverage the money we have, and (promote co-development of housing, schools, libraries) I want to put it all together.
Villaraigosa: The L.A. Times examined Mr. Hahn's claim that he's put $l00M in the Housing Trust Fund and they verified that that is not true - it's about $47 million over a 4-year period. I believe that affordable workforce housing should be in every community. When we have firefighters and teachers and librarians who can't afford to buy a house in Los Angeles, we have to invest in affordable housing. I want to help first-time home buyers ... I want to engage the Neighborhood Councils and all the stakeholders, because if they don't have a voice in the development of neighborhoods, they're going to reject it. I want to have a Planning Department that plans, I want to build housing along transportation corridors, I want to reclaim downtown ... as mayor, that's what I'll do.
Hahn: We committed to create a $l00-million Housing Trust Fund, we put in $47 million in the first year, and that fund did grow to $100 million over the years, that's why we have doubled the pace of housing production since I've been mayor. That's the fact.
Villaraigosa: The L.A. Times has reviewed that claim and says it's not true.
Parks; Even though the mayor claims we've doubled, every study we've looked at says we're losing 1,000 units of housing in the city every year. We need 20,000 units per year. At a minimum, the City of Los Angeles is building 10.
Q: As Mr. Hahn pointed out, the relationships between business and labor aren't that great. How do you get private industry more involved in building affordable housing?
Hertzberg: You incentivize them ... (As a private company), If you're losing money, you're gonna leave. The genius of the city is to marry principle with strong social policies. You can require certain projects to be done on time, makde decisions and set milestones, break the relationship between management and unions, and make them sit down at the table ...
Q: (Debbie Kincaid, West Hills Community Council) My question is, illegal immigration has been a controversial iusse in Southern California for a very long time. Whey aren't we talking about it in this campaign?
Alarcon: We have talked about it over time, but it is one of our greatest challenges. The fact is we don't get our fair share from the federal government to deal with this problem. California is a donor state - we give more to this problem than we get back. I would join with Sheriff Baca, and legislators to get our fair share. The federal government has to do a better job protecting our borders, but in the city of Los Angeles, we cannot deny opportunities to people in the city who want a job. We go to restaurants knowing that cooks are cooking food and hey don't have their documents. We need to build a better economy ...
Parks: It's more relevant when you get ready to vote in our federal officials, because it is a federal issue. We need to get our fair share but we also need to make sure our borders are secure. We have to remmber the person that was gonna blow up LAX came in from Canada. We need to be not partial to one border over another. ... Once they're here, there needs to be enforcement against those who will hire illegal immigrants. The local county government must put in place - I don't think anyone wants to live in a community where you drive by and see people sitting on the curb who are not getting medical treatment.
Hertzberg: In almost every debate I've been in, the issue has come up. Certainly it's come up in talk radio a lot, we're keenly aware of it. I hate the sound of this, but it's just true. We're in a situation where another government is responsible. My whole notion about breaking up the school district is I don't want any excuses - "Sorry, that's somebody else's department." In this issue, I'm gonna say that if someone breaks the law, they're criminal - deport them, get 'em out of here. But personally, we grapple with this on so many levels, we are in this difficult bind. You do have a lot tof peole who are employing illegal immigrants and ... I'm about to get cut off.
Villaraigosa: This question has been asked again and again. I've said from the very beginning, every country has immitgaion laws, and we live in a nation of laws, founded on the rule of law, we have every right to enforce our laws. We should be holding the federal government accountable for the lack of resources to ensure that people aren't here illegally, ensuring that we're enforcing our wage and hour laws and worker safety laws so there is an incentive to hire these folks. We have to say that in a great city like Los Angeles, we're committed to humanity and the humane application of our immigration laws, that we don't throw kids out of school, we don't deny people healthcare.
Hahn: Sometimes you just think it's crazy, you open the sports section and see the Dodgers may not be able to have a player come here because he's going to the minor leagues and not the majors because he's trying to immigrate illegally, and yet there are millions of people coming here illegally because the federal government isn't doing their job. I don't blame somebody for trying to have a better life. If I was somebody living in a country where I couldn't provide for my family, I'd be looking for a better life for my family as well. The employers who exploit them - ... there's not a lot that local government can do.
Q : All of you have on some level emphasized personal responsibility. Somebody who hires somebody knows they're here illegally. What about individuals who knowingly hire somebody without documents?
Alarcon: It's clearly illegal to do so, but the fact is there's an identification market out there that produces false IDs and makes it easy for people to move around in our city and give an ID to an employer when the employer clearly knows the ID is questionable. These employers would like to be able to pay lower wages and provide services to the community, and the customers come in knowing the employees are not fully documented citizens ... it's not an issue where you could point to one particular group, it's a societal issue we have not dealt with well.
Q: Mr Parks, what should the mayor of Los Angeles be doing ... to effect a change on federal policy?
Parks: The mayor should be talking to our congressional leaders, talking to our U.S. senators, talking to people who can make that change. We need to make sure our borders are secure and we know who's coming in - not just at one border, but all the borders, to make sure meployers are acountable when they hire somebody.
(KFWB news break)
Q: (The planning director's position is vacant - What qualities would you look for in a planning director?)
Parks: We need a planning director that's willing to plan the city. We know homelessness is a citywide problem. We know affordable housing is only in certain parts of the city but we know the need is everywhere. I want a planning director who's willing to engage in the process - these are the things I would look for. I believe that Neighborhood Councils should not create a separate and distinct part of the city government, they should be on the planning commission, the area commission, you should be part of your neighbor tax impacts. ....
Hetzberg: I want somebody who's a really good planner who can plan. We've got significant problems in Los Angeles where we've grown and grown, not just in the city but in the region, in all the 88 cities around us. We need somebody who's a visionary, someone who will say, "L.A.'s back. L.A.'s got the great, cutting-edge stuff." I want somebody who's gonna capture my energy and implement my vision. I' m gonna be collaborative. ... I don't think you're gonna have a complaint because generally, I believe in the devolving of power.
Villaraigosa: I support a public process for the hiring of our planner, and the inclusion of the Neighborhood Councils in that process because I know how important it is for us to hire this new planner. It should be somebody who's visited well-planned cities all over the world, who's familiar with great architects, who's comfortable working with neighborhood leaders, someone who understands that a great planner in the city of Los Angeles has to be making great planning decisions on housing and transportation together ... to reclaim downtown, to address the fact that good planning is along transportation corridors, creating transit villages around light-rail stations, doing what we can to initiate the idea that a great neighborhood is a neighborhood where we're participating in the development of the future.
Hahn: I do want the Neighborhood Councils involved. I hope you'll come together and work with us so that I make the final recommendation only after I've heard from the Neighborhood Councils about the top candidate. Obviously, we need a good manager, someone who's a planner and someone who's a visionary. I want a planning director who will implement the vision of people around the city. We've got to have an inclusive process, not just so you'd be there to support what the mayor's doing, but so the mayor's there to support what you're doing, and all the city departments are there to support what you're doing.
Alarocn: I want a city planner who has courage, the courage to say no to the powerful developers who are ruining our neighborhoods, courage to stand with the neighborhoods and say that they must have the opportunity to speak and have real decision-making authority even though they're not giving massive contributions to my bosses. I want them to have the courage to stick to plans that are already in existence and not give up variances at every turn ... This city is Los Angeles, it's the city where every community is an angel waiting to sprout its wings and flourish and be beautiful and be respectd. The city planner is a key component of that, but the city planner has to realize that the neighborhoods come first, not the pocketbook of the big developers.
Q: You want to give Neighborhood Councils power, but if you do, they become an arm of the government ... (How do you reconcile that?)
Alarcon: This is a misnomer. In order to empower the Neighborhood Councils, we have to go back to the voters and get charter reform, and in that process, we would define how we would do this and stand up to the voting Rights Act, stand up to the laws of the land and draft a charter that cannot be challenged. I believe we can create Neighborhood Councils that provide decision for the community that will be more akin to what people want in their own neighborhoods.
Q: (Harry Sondheim, Pacific Palisades Neighborhood Council): What will you do to solve the homeless problem?
Hertzberg: It's so hard to solve this in 60 seconds. We get between $75 million and $l00 million in new money every year (from Sacramento and Washington, D.C.) The homeless problem has a number of dimensions to it, but one of the biggest problems is mental health and substance abuse issues - the dual diagnosis ... We emptied the mental health hospitals some 30 years, ago, and never lived up to our commitment to provide those services locally. We should go to Sacramento and get help.
Villaraigosa: The issue of the homeless is one of the big challenges facing Los Angeles. L.A. is the homeless capital of America. We need to do something about the fact that the face of homelessness has changed. Some 50% of homeless people are single women with children. We need to invest in one-stop shopping for drug rehabilitation, job training, and mental health services, all in the same center, like Pathway and other programs that have worked. We need to say in Los Angeles that we're not gonna be the dumping ground for the homeless in L.A. County, we need to say it's not okay for us to just walk over the homeless, we need to create a funding stream to address this important issue.
Hahn: A few year sago I was on Skid Row and ran upon a guy I went to college with, and I realized that anybody could end up there. He explained to me that his wife had had cancer, he didn't have any money, he had spent every cent of his money trying to save his wife's life, and lost his savings and his business in the process. Many of the people down there are just a paycheck away from you or me. (Shelter programs): We've taken 1,100 people off the street and put them into permanent housing. We need mental outreach teams, we need to bring people into stable situations where we can connect them with affordable housing ...
Alarcon: I agree with all the ideas that you've heard from my colleagues ... but I believe that Los Angeles is a compassionate place, and we have to find a way to deal with these issues in a more realistic way. Yes, we support agencies where the federal government does not, the drug programs that support people who need them, the families that are torn apart by single incidents - a fire, a prison sentence - but I also believe it's fundamentally an issue of education. We need to raise the skill level of our students so that more businesses will invest in our community, then more people will have jobs ...
Parks: Having been a police officer for 38 years, unfortunately, law enforcement has become the safety net for the homeless. It's symptom of mental illness, addiction, illiteracy - and also, convicts who come back to our community. Like Mayor Hahn's story of someone with a college education, these are not the core of the homeless community, they can go back to a normal lifestyle. But until this community is willing to invest in issues of illiteracy, addiction and mental illness, we'll continue to have homelessness. The fact that the L.A. County Jail is the largest mental health facility in the state of California tells you where the priorities are.
Q: Mayor Hahn, a number of your political appointees have come under criticism, or have resigned over allegations of campaign contributors' undue influence at City Hall. How do you respond to that?
Hahn: What we need to do is end this perception problem by addressing it. We need to eliminate campaign contributions from people seeking approval from the city. I'm still waiting. I think people expect that ...
(Closing statements):
Villaraigosa; I want to thank you for being here, all of you, for caring enough about your city. My grandfather came here 100 years ago to make a better life for himself, and I'm the beneficiary of that better life. I believe that here in the city of angels, we need someone who's gonna ensure that more people can walk through the threshold of opportunity. We need a mayor we can have trust and confidence in, a mayor who understands that a great city is one where we're growing and prospering together, not leaving other communities behind, a mayor who understands that means investing in education and jobs and making our neighborhoods safe ...
Hertzberg: This is an extraordinary place. It's a place of imagination and creativity, and I just don't think we're living up to our potential. I wanna break up the Los Angeles Unified School District into smaller districts because I believe schools need to be places where parents and teachers and principals are in charge, not downtown bureaucrats. We can't hire more police officers by raising taxes because we're not an island, and businesses are going to leave. We can't address quality of life until we deal with this traffic issue. I define success as doing the work and delivering - otherwise I'm just another hot-air politician. I'm gonna roll up my sleeves and work my heart out for the people of Los Angeles.
Parks: I wanna thank every one for being here. I'm running for mayor of Los Angeles for several reasons: Number one, when i grew up in the city of Los Angeles, every dream I could think of has come true, but I don't think the same is true for our kids. Our kids will not be able to realize their dreams .... The campaign has come down to three issues: One being, on every infrastructure issue we have, from housing to safety and transportation. We have to restore integrity back to our city government, and we need to address this issue of performance. The city of Los Angeles is owed a performance where their tax dollars are being used efficiently ...
Alarcon: I'm running for mayor because I've tried to do my best as an elected official for l2 years. We created jobs at the Ford Motor Company plant ... I even closed the Lopez Canyon landfill. I brought 200 natural gas buses to the MTA, I provided $500 million for affordable housing ... As mayor, however, I'm the only candidate that wants to root out these political contributions from the political process and give power back to the neighborhoods ... A vote for me is a vote for your neighborhood. I'm the only candidate who's introduced a ballot measure to eliminate these contributions. If you vote for someone else, you're keeping the same game in City Hal. Vote for Alarcon. I'll change Los Angeles for you.
Hahn: I'm very proud that over 85 Neighborhood councils have been created since the program started ... I brought in a police chief who agreed with me, and now crime is down 14%. Housing production has doubled in this city, and you can see this change in every neighborhood - Hollywood, Canoga Park, MacArthur Park - but making this city a safer city, we're changing Los Angeles. As mayor, I'm proud to continue that fight. I'm proud. If you want leadership in this city, I'm your guy.
Blog coverage:
LAObserved: Dead heat in mayor's race
BoifromTroy: Behind the Scenes at the LA Mayoral Debate
Mass media coverage:
Daily News: Hahn goes on offensive in final debate
L.A. Times: Hahn Takes Jabs at His Opponents
KCBS-2: Mayoral candidates face off in debate
Earlier LAVoice mayoral debate transcripts:
First Mayoral Debate (Dec. 2, 2004)
Second Mayoral Debate (Dec. 21, 2004)
First Neighborhood council Debate (Feb. 7, 2005)
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| Posted by: mack_reed on Monday, February 28, 2005 - 06:31 PM
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