MoreWith our abundant sunshine and signature palm trees, Los Angeles has always stood out for its beautiful climate. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for our City’s business climate. With high taxes and copious red tape, Los Angeles has long been burdened by too many deterrents to job creation and disincentives to investment.
As the boom years gave way to bust and the Great Recession, the City needed to chart a bold new course. The stakes were simply too high to tolerate inaction. Businesses were suffering and more and more Angelenos were facing unemployment. In LA, our unemployment rate was as high as 14.7 percent during the depths of the recession, with some of our most vulnerable communities facing much higher numbers. The pain was felt by all.
It was time to do everything we could—as quickly as we could—to put people back to work. That meant creating jobs by investing in our infrastructure and changing the way LA did business so it was easier to do business in LA. We put together an innovative package of reforms and new programs that told the world: LA is open for business.
We started by putting LA on a path to long-term growth and competitiveness by making unprecedented investments in our infrastructure. Through Measure R, we’re doubling the size of our rail network, improving our roads and highways, and creating 400,000 jobs. By investing more than $4 billion in LAX and building a new International terminal, we’re going to have an airport that matches our spirit and style—not to mention, brings new jobs, trade, and tourism.
The Port of Los Angeles is number one in the nation, and we’re putting up $1.2 billion to make sure it stays that way—deepening access channels and expanding on-dock transportation. Along the way, we are supporting 20,000 good jobs. With our new rails, roads, runways, and ports, it will be easier than ever for businesses to get their goods to market and for employees to get to work.
We are committed to making LA an ally, not an obstacle, when it comes to job creation. We’ve reformed our tax code, bringing it more in line with the new realities of our high-tech economy. Through the business tax holiday, businesses new to LA no longer pay business taxes for their first three years. That’s what helped bring innovative, high-growth companies like Blackline Software to Woodland Hills, Google to Silicon Beach, and Tom’s Shoes to Playa Vista. But we didn’t stop there. By eliminating the auto dealer tax and reforming the Internet business tax, we are helping create the jobs of tomorrow in LA.
These reforms not only create jobs, they also create new revenue to fund essential services. Last year alone, we saw a 9 percent spike in sales tax revenue as a result of the changes we put in place. When our tax base grows, that means new dollars to keep cops on the streets, fill potholes, and open parks. That’s a win for all of us.
To keep LA competitive, we also needed to reign in red tape and make business development far more efficient, far more predictable and far more user friendly. That’s the driving force behind our Case Management Office and Restaurant Express Program. The Case Management Office oversees and coordinates a more efficient permitting process.
For example: by breaking down silos and providing key assistance and advice, Trammel Crow received permits for a parking structure in 3 weeks instead of the usual 4 months. This new structure enabled Farmers Insurance to add more than one thousand new jobs in LA. Trammel Crow saved money, construction crews got to work sooner, and the City added more jobs. The Restaurant Express Program cuts in half the time it takes to permit a restaurant. So far it has helped 136 restaurants open for business.
By investing in our infrastructure, cutting red tape, and building a business-friendly city, we are working to ensure the jobs of the future are created here in LA. Together, we’re leaving behind a Los Angeles built to prosper for generations to come.
A job is more than just a 9 to 5, it’s the bedrock of a successful community. When parents are employed, students have a better chance to succeed. When neighbors find work, streets are safer. That’s because a job is a source of pride—and it’s emblematic of the promise and opportunity that Los Angeles stands for.
Until the day I leave office, I will not stop working to create jobs and cut unemployment. We will build on our successes, we will remedy our shortcomings, and we will continue to implement the best new ideas. The people of Los Angeles deserve nothing less.
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Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is the 41st mayor of the City of Los Angeles. Elected in 2005, his second term ends June 30, 2013. This is the third in a series about the future of Los Angeles.
[As Printed in Patch, August 10, 2012]
Safety doesn't happen by accident. And it is no accident that the Los Angeles of today is the safest it's been since the Eisenhower administration. The dedicated and brave men and women who protect our city every day have a lot to be proud of, and we thank them for their service.
When I was elected Mayor of Los Angeles, we promised to take on the big challenges and make the tough choices: grow our economy, improve our schools and keep our neighborhoods safe. From day one we knew that communities couldn't flourish and businesses wouldn't create jobs if our residents didn't feel secure. Public safety had to be our priority.
In the year I took office, Los Angeles experienced over 30,000 violent crimes, nearly 500 murders and 112,000 plus property crimes. That's more than 140,000 Angelenos who were victimized. Crime was too high and the city wasn't doing its part.
We changed that. Last year, L.A. experienced less than 20,000 violent crimes, less than 300 murders and 84,000 property crimes. Homicides have been reduced by 41 percent and violent crime by 40.6 percent.
In a historically under-policed city, we started by increasing the size of the LAPD and began an innovative gang reduction program. Today, gang violence is down and L.A. is safer than it has been since the 1950s.
We initiated a new partnership between the LAPD and the community. This partnership changed the culture of policing in Los Angeles and enshrined constitutional policing as the bedrock principle of the LAPD. We recruited a new generation of officers and we now have a force that reflects the many different communities it serves.
We didn't want to repeat the mistakes of the past. So we placed a premium on innovation and overhauled our approach to gang reduction. Working in partnership with the community, we developed our Gang Reduction and Youth Development Office (GRYD). Today, this comprehensive strategy is a national model.
The idea behind our gang reduction plan is simple -- carefully target resources to communities most in need to significantly reduce gang-related crimes. The approach is comprised of 17 strategies including crisis response, employment and working directly with families to engage multiple generations in reducing gang activity. As a direct result of our GRYD efforts, neighborhoods that were once no-go zones have a new found sense of community and hope; gang-related crime in GRYD zones is down nearly 30 percent.
One of the hallmark programs of GRYD is Summer Night Lights (SNL), which today operates in 32 parks across L.A. Launched five years ago, half of the funding for SNL comes from corporations and philanthropy from all across the city. People understand that what happens in a park in Pacoima touches us all.
The result is a safer city for all Angelenos, a city where residents can feel secure to send their kids to school, interact with their neighbors and enjoy their local parks.
Overall crime is down -- and these are reductions from already historically low numbers. Since this time last year, Part 1 crime is down 2.4 percent, violent crime is down 8.8 percent, property crime is down one percent and gang crime is down 16.2 percent.
Despite budget cuts, we've made sure the LAPD has the force it needs to serve and protect our City. And we've continued our commitment to our gang reduction strategy.
Most importantly, we've shown that smart approaches to public safety can work. Los Angeles is living proof of that.
Together, we have made significant progress, revitalizing Los Angeles and making our city a safer place to live, work and visit.
While we are encouraged by these numbers, we have to stay vigilant. We must maintain our resolve to keep LAPD strong and to continue the tremendous strides we've made in crime reduction for the benefit of all Angelenos. Because danger never takes a vacation and neither should our drive to protect the city's most valuable asset -- our people.
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This piece originally ran in The Huffington Post.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is the 41st Mayor of the City of Los Angeles. Elected in 2005, his second term ends June 30, 2013. This is the second in a series about the future of Los Angeles.
Tip O’ Neil famously observed, “All politics is local.” These days, it seems that we need to revise O’Neil’s adage and start saying, “All political responsibility is local.” With the political gears stuck in Congress and Washington divided, America’s mayors have stepped up and said, “We’ll take the lead.” Every day, in cities and towns across the country, it is America’s mayors who are hard at work building bipartisanship and tackling the big problems our country faces.
With Washington paralyzed, more and more responsibility for spurring innovation and growth now falls on the shoulders of cities. The challenges facing our country are clear. We’re recovering from the worst recession since the 1930s. Our education system is not preparing students for the jobs of the future. Our outdated infrastructure is not keeping pace with the emerging economies of China, Brazil, and India.
America’s mayors get it. Now is the time to put results over rhetoric and progress over politics. So we are leading the way on job creation, education reform, and infrastructure investment.
In Jacksonville, Fla., Mayor Alvin Brown is charting the economic future of his region by spearheading an impressive expansion of the Port of Jacksonville and growing his local export sector. In New Orleans, La., Mayor Mitch Landrieu knows that cultural tourism is one of the most dynamic industries and an important source of jobs. That’s why he has led the way with such initiatives as the NOLA Business Alliance, the World Cultural Economic Forum, and his New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corp.
While states are slashing education budgets, cities are blazing new trails in education reform and finding innovative ways to ensure that our children are career ready.
In Sacramento, Calif., Mayor Kevin Johnson has raised millions of dollars and worked in partnership with the national nonprofit City Year to place tutors in Sacramento schools. In Philadelphia, Mayor Michael Nutter has led the charge on education reform by restructuring, and even replacing, schools that are not serving students.
And while Washington is retreating from making the critical investments we need in our infrastructure, cities are finding creative ways to finance the needed improvements while putting their residents into good-paying jobs.
In Los Angeles, through Measure R, our half-penny sales tax, we are investing $40 billion, building a 21st-century transportation network, and creating more than 400,000 jobs. In Chicago, Mayor Rahm Emanuel--without raising taxes--has created a $7 billion fund that will fill potholes, build parks, repair aging sewer pipes, and put 30,000 Chicagoans in good-paying jobs.
We’re doing all of this in cities that are undergoing profound demographic change. Los Angeles is one of the most diverse cities in the country. You can hear 224 languages spoken in our neighborhoods, on our streets, and at our plazas. Angelenos hail from over 140 countries, and we have the largest population of Mexicans, Armenians, and Koreans outside of their home country, just to name a few.
Last week was an important first step with passage of a Surface Transportation Bill that included America Fast Forward. This innovative federal loan program will allow Los Angeles and cities across this country to speed the expansion of their transit systems while accelerating the creation of one million jobs.
Let’s build on that momentum to take on the tough challenges.
This Op-Ed originally appeared in The National Journal. To read the entire piece click here.
Antonio R. Villaraigosa is mayor of the City of Los Angeles and former president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors.
In 2005, I made improving schools and increasing student achievement a central plank of my agenda for Los Angeles. I did so because I had received countless pleas from parents begging for change. These parents wanted the best possible education opportunities for their kids, and they weren’t getting that from the Los Angeles Unified School District. These parents were tired of sending their kids to failure factories. They wanted achievement academies. I became determined to give them what they needed and deserved.
I also committed to improving our schools because I knew that good schools held the key to achieving our other goals for Los Angeles. If we wanted to prepare Los Angeles for the economy of the future, we would need students who had the skills to create and fill the jobs of the future. If we wanted livable, attractive neighborhoods, we would need good schools as anchors of the community. And if we wanted to strengthen the rungs on the ladder to success and grow our middle class, we had to make sure that every Angeleno child could enjoy the opportunity and mobility that a quality education provides.
I knew I couldn’t tackle this critical issue without the support of a coalition built around strong and creative District leadership at the top and empowered parents and community groups at the grassroots. Our thinking was simple: the path to success for any community begins in the local schoolyard.
To reach our goals, we adopted an ambitious, multi-pronged reform strategy. We created the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools—an innovative non-profit—to run 22 of the District’s lowest performing schools and to incubate creative solutions that could be exported to the rest of the District.
We knew we needed new and creative District leadership, so we strongly supported the election of a pro-reform majority to the School Board. We also helped recruit nationally recognized leaders to serve as Superintendant, first Ramon Cortines and now John Deasy.
We have pursued reform through the courts, helping to drive landmark lawsuits, such as Reed v. California and Doe v. Deasy. Reed v. California was instrumental in putting us on a path to protecting students’ right to quality education and their access to effective teachers. We expect that Doe v. Deasy will serve as a catalyst to improving teacher evaluations across the District.
Knowing that Angeleno families wanted and need more choices, we pushed for the development of a portfolio of quality options. These options include charter schools and locally empowered District schools with charter-like flexibility. And at every turn, we have grass-roots reform and have empowered parents and community groups to take charge of bringing accountability and excellence to our schools.
The results of our efforts have been impressive. In 2005, nearly half of District high school students never made it to graduation. A full third of all schools had API scores below 650. The District did not have enough schools, and as a result, thousands and thousands of students were subjected to year-round schedules.
Today, the number of L.A. schools meeting or exceeding the state of goal of 800 API has more than doubled. The number of low scoring schools with an API of 650 or below has dropped to one in ten. At our 22 Partnership Schools, API scores are up 50 points over the last three years which means they are outpacing both the District and the state. We have more than doubled the number of charter schools, with a five-fold increase in charters scoring 800 or higher on the API. And we are seeing promising results at schools where teachers have been freed from bureaucratic and contractual constraints, and empowered with flexibilities to innovate.
I am especially proud of the fact that parents, teachers, students and civic and community groups have come together to support school reform across the city, not just in their neighborhoods. They understand that the educational future of our children must not be determined by a lottery or a zip code.
We have built a solid foundation for reform. In the years ahead we must build on our success.
It is clear that great teachers and principals have the power to change lives. The research is clear on this. With a great teacher in front of the white board, students can gain two years of knowledge in a single year.
Knowing this, we need to take a holistic approach to elevating the profession. This means prioritizing effectiveness over length of service. It means putting strong evaluation systems in place and changing broken tenure and seniority laws. It means recruiting top talent to the profession, establishing strong systems of support, giving teachers time to collaborate, and creating real career pathways. And, yes, it means increasing base salaries and dramatically increasing potential earnings for those teachers and principals who excel. Great teachers and principals are a tremendous asset. This profession, including everything from entry standards to potential compensation, should reflect that.
We will not achieve lasting improvement of our schools without more funding. For decades, the state has underfunded education, and we are now last in almost every measure of school staff and resources per student. We need more teachers, more counselors, more school nurses, more librarians and more safety officers.
You can’t build by cutting. You build by investing. To provide a great education for our students we have to take a multi-pronged approach. The solution to this problem is bigger than any one ballot initiative, however well crafted, can fix.
We need to go to the root of the problem and fix California’s busted budget and tax systems. We need to reform Proposition 13 and move from a tax system full of loopholes and exemptions to a system that protects homeowners, supports job creation and gives Californians the ability to generate new revenue.
Without common sense and balanced reforms and the added revenues they would bring in, Californians will not be able to ensure that every student in every neighborhood gets the quality education they deserve.
Our students are moving forward. They are making progress. They are the proof that our efforts have worked. Our job as reform minded elected officials, educators, parents and community leaders is to keep the momentum going. The District has set out an ambitious set of performance targets: one, improve the graduate rate; raise English language proficiency; increase math proficiency; and achieve a greater proficiency in Algebra. Let’s pledge to work together, meet these milestones, and go beyond—for the sake of our students and for the sake of our city.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is the 41st Mayor of the City of Los Angeles. Elected in 2005, his second term ends June 30, 2013. This is the first in a series about the future of Los Angeles.
[As Printed in Patch, June 28, 2012]
This morning, we celebrated the opening of the Expo Line Phase I. The line, whose construction and operation supports nearly 14,000 jobs, will initially run the 7.6 miles from the downtown 7th and Metro station to the La Cienega station. It will extend to Culver City this summer and by 2015 we will connect Downtown to Santa Monica for the first time in half a century.
Expo Phase I’s opening is a critical step toward creating the 21st century transit network that Angelenos deserve. L.A.’s transit map is growing yet again, making it possible for us to travel – without a car – from Downtown to Long Beach on the Blue Line, to Pasadena and East L.A on the Gold Line, to Koreatown on the Purple Line, or to North Hollywood on the Red Line. And soon, we will be able to traverse the San Fernando Valley on the Orange Line all the way to Chatsworth. Add them all up and you get a clear picture of the breadth of the transit network we are building.
But we can do so much more. We want to see a region that leads in transit ridership, not gridlock. When we rallied together to pass Measure R, we sent the message—loud and clear— that we wanted to kick our addiction to the single passenger automobile. That is why we have been leading the way to improve and expand our transportation infrastructure and support jobs while we’re at it.
To build our transit system faster, we launched the 30/10 initiative, and expanded the idea nationwide as America Fast Forward. Thanks to the leadership of Senator Barbara Boxer, Representative John Mica and our coalition partners from across the country, the America Fast Forward plan is a centerpiece of the Transportation bill. If Congress passes a transportation bill with America Fast Forward, cities across the nation will be able to put up their locally raised dollars to compete over the next two years for $2 billion in low-interest loans.
Just last month, the bill passed the Senate on a bipartisan vote of 74-22, but it has hit a snag in the House. The House delayed action for the tenth time last week, making the Transportation Bill three years past due. We don’t need more partisan gridlock: we need America Fast Forward.
Regardless of what Washington does, we are not going to wait another day. No ifs, ands, or buts: We are going to build the 21st century transit system that Angelenos deserve.
This is why we will be asking voters in November to continue Measure R until the voters themselves decide to end it.
By extending Measure R, we can be create jobs, make major highway improvements, and complete our light rail and subway projects in a single decade, instead of three. With these new resources in place, we could build faster, more effectively, more efficiently, and at a lower cost. Projects that were scheduled to be completed close to the middle of the century—game-changing projects like the Sepulveda Pass rail line and the Wilshire Subway—could be completed in a little over a decade.
What does this all mean? It means Angelenos will have more transit options. It means that Angelenos will spend less time in their cars and more time doing the things that matter: Playing with their kids. Talking with their neighbors. Enjoying a day at the beach. It means making Los Angeles the capital of sustainability, not smog. It means remaking the face of LA and finally taking us beyond sprawl.
In the end, continuing Measure R would bring us closer to a future Los Angeles we can all be proud of. A future where the most diverse city in the world is drawn closer together by a world class transit system. Just imagine how much more we can do – together.
Join me, let’s build our future today.
[As printed on Huffington Post, April 27, 2012]
I recently returned from a trade mission to China, Japan, and South Korea. Of the many conversations I had with business leaders and government officials, one thing was clear: Los Angeles is the premier destination for goods entering the United States from the Pacific Rim.
But the clock is ticking.
We know the folks down in Panama are working hard to widen their canal, and when the widening is done, shippers will have more choice about the destination for their cargo.
We in Los Angeles are making sure that they continue to choose Los Angeles. Our port is a vital economic engine for the region—additional cargo means additional jobs. So make no mistake: we need to grow our port, especially now.
Since I entered the Mayor’s Office in 2005, I have been convinced that the only way to grow the port and create jobs was to go green. January 1, 2012 marked a major milestone of the Clean Truck Program. The program is an integral part of the 2006 Clean Air Action Plan, a sweeping plan aimed at significantly reducing the health risks posed by air pollution from port-related ships, trains, trucks, terminal equipment and harbor craft.
The trucks at the Port now meet the strictest clean air and safety standards of any major port in the world.
By progressively banning older model trucks, we have slashed the harmful pollutants that cause smog and asthma. Originally, we aimed to cut the port’s harmful emissions by half between 2005 and 2010.
We are pleased to report that the plan and the program have exceeded our expectations by reducing sulfur oxide emissions by 76%, diesel particulate matter by 69%, and nitrogen oxides by 50%. Emissions from trucks alone have been reduced by over 80%.
The operation of 9,800 Clean Trucks reduces more than 40 tons of diesel particulate matter---that’s like eliminating the pollution from 300,000 cars per year.
We have truly made a difference and cleaned up the air in this region.
We did this because while the local communities benefited from the Port’s economic activity, they also suffered from its pollution.
Cleaning up the air was the right thing to do, but it was also the economically savvy thing to do, too. We’ve shown that you can add infrastructure and reduce emissions at the same time.
We’ve put shovels in the ground at the port because we passed six major Environmental Impact Reports since I became Mayor. We never could have accomplished this without the Clean Air Action Plan. We’ve worked together with industry and private partners to ensure that we are growing the Port in an environmentally and economically sustainable manner, and we have laid out a roadmap for sustainable growth.
Over the next five years, we will invest $1.5 billion to provide superior shipping and logistics infrastructure to attract first-class business tenants to the Port.
Ensuring our growth is sustainable is a part of everything we do. We are investing over $100 million in Alternative Maritime Power (AMP) which will allow container and cruise ships to plug into the grid rather than burning dirty diesel generating fuel when berthed at the Port.
We are deepening the port’s main channel, guaranteeing 53-foot-deep access, and we are making sure that when goods reach Los Angeles, they will get to market quickly and efficiently.
In most cases we’re still going to be the fastest way between point A and point B. We still have the best harbor, the most state-of-the-art facilities, the best rail connectivity and the most warehouse space near the Port of any of our competitors.
By growing sustainably, we’re keeping the Port of LA the number one trade gateway, and truly America’s port.
[As printed on Huffington Post, January 6, 2012]
By Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, President of United Teachers Los Angeles Warren Fletcher and Superintendent John Deasy
As we work to overcome the biggest recession since World War II, we must not lose sight of this basic fact: we will not sustain the recovery and ensure our future prosperity without an educated workforce. If our students can't parse a paragraph, if they can't solve their math equations, if they don't understand their science formulas they will not succeed in today's highly competitive, increasingly global knowledge-based economy. Our country will lose its economic preeminence, its status as an incubator of innovation and its mantle of leadership to the new economic dynamos of India, China and Brazil.
Congress needs to pass the Teachers and First Responders Back to Work Bill. There has been enough finger-pointing. The stakes are simply too high. This crucial legislation would put 37,000 teachers back where they belong: in their classrooms, in front of their white boards, with their students. It would provide over $3 billion in critical funding for our schools.
The idea is simple. You get what you pay for. And in California we are not investing nearly enough in the educational future of our children and the economic future of our state. Our schools don't have the funding to attract and retain the best teachers. Summer school programs are being cut and instead of giving students extra time to get a leg up, they're being left out and left behind. Schools are forced to choose between language arts and the visual arts. They simply don't have enough resources to offer all of the classes that our children need and deserve.
Without resources we cannot possibly hope to bridge the achievement gap. Since the beginning of the recession, the Los Angeles School District has been forced to considerably slash funding. The Teachers and First Responders Back to Work Bill would be a vital resource in making up some of this lost ground. It would provide $600 million to invest in teachers.
Here is another simple idea that our children understand but that we adults seem to have lost sight of: fair is fair. It is simply unfair to send some children to good quality private schools for $25,000 or more and then maintain that $7,000 - California's average per-pupil spending - is anywhere close to adequate to educate the rest. In Los Angeles, 84% of our students are Black or Latino and 76% qualify for free or reduced lunches. They deserve the same educational opportunities as their peers. The educational futures of these children must not be determined by their economic status or zip code.
If we continue on our present path, if we don't make the bold moves necessary to correct the imbalances in our educational investments, we'll not only shortchange our students we'll mortgage our economic future. California faces a shortage of one million college graduates by 2025. Without educated students who can compete for the good paying jobs of the future, we won't have enough homeowners to invest in our neighborhoods and enough taxpayers to sustain our public services. We will contend with a vicious circle of educational underachievement, unemployment and poverty.
The Teachers and First Responders Back to Work Bill is the type of bold move that we need right now. The public certainly gets its. In a recent Gallup poll, 75% of the respondents supported raising taxes if it meant being able to put teachers back to work. Now it's time for Congress to get it.
Protecting our children's right to learn and preserving their access to the middle-class isn't a partisan issue, it's an American issue. So we ask Congress to act quickly to pass this bill.
[As printed on Huffington Post, October 20, 2011]
The first thing homebuyers often ask their realtor is, "What are the schools like?" That's because a successful school indicates more than just a solid education for the children it serves -- it also means a strong community and a safe neighborhood. Even if you aren't a parent yourself, a strong public education system is essential to the success of our city. Schools are where we lay the foundation for the future, and we want that future to be one where all Angelenos have the opportunity to thrive.
One of the building blocks of an effective public school system is a close connection between schools, communities, and families. Today, I had the opportunity to participate in a conversation with community members hosted by Families in Schools (FIS), a non-profit group committed to strengthening the critical school-community-family triangle. As a long-time supporter of parent engagement and parent choice, I applaud the pioneering work of FIS. A leader in this field, they have implemented parent involvement programs that yield real results. FIS is helping us to achieve our goal of a thriving public education system.
As we all know, a parent is a child's first teacher. When a school system values and respects this relationship and welcomes parents as equal partners in their child's education, we are all better able to nurture a lifelong love of learning and achievement. Since 2001, FIS has offered a continuum of programs from pre-K to high school, enabling parents to do just that: aid in the learning process, advocate for their child's education, and work as allies with their public schools.
Building a strong city begins in our schools, but we need our communities to support them and be invested in their success. The bottom line is that when schools produce low-test scores and high dropout rates, we are setting ourselves up for high unemployment and low productivity, not to mention elevated crime rates and a whole host of societal ills. By creating strong communities around our schools, we can anchor our neighborhoods in a culture of achievement from kindergarten to college and beyond.
One day, I hope realtors will say with confidence that every home in Los Angeles -- from the East Valley to the South Bay -- is near a good school, in a safe neighborhood, and part of a strong community.
[As printed on
Huffington Post,August 10, 2011]
Like families across the nation, the city of Los Angeles has had to tighten its belt, do more with less, and think outside the box over the past few years. Necessity may be the mother of invention, but here in L.A. urgency and exigency are the parents of innovation.
When forced to think creatively, we have found new ways to look at old problems, and this rings especially true when it comes to our most pressing needs: jobs, economic growth, cleaner air and better transportation options.
When closing a 10-mile stretch of freeway in Los Angeles garners worldwide attention, we know that Angelenos need and deserve more mass transit options to help kick our addiction to the single-passenger automobile. The weekend-long 405 closure reminded us all to think outside our cars. But our transportation agenda is about more than just reducing traffic; it's about addressing some of L.A.'s toughest challenges: sky-high unemployment, stifling congestion and -- despite gains in the last decade -- the lingering pollution that poses serious health risks to children and adults alike.
The anchor of our transportation agenda for the 21st century is America Fast Forward (AFF), an innovative financing plan that has bipartisan support in Congress and the endorsement of both the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO. With federal support, AFF will create 160,000 jobs here in L.A. alone. By leveraging the money that local taxpayers overwhelming voted to raise through Measure R, we can expedite a dozen transit projects -- including the Expo Line, the Orange Line and the Westside Extension -- building them much faster than 30 years.
But we are not stopping there. We are exploring other creative, transit-oriented initiatives to address our high unemployment, such as project labor agreements and MTA job fairs to ensure that local residents benefit from county tax dollars, and that local companies are the ones to benefit from the uptick in construction.
We are putting Angelenos to work by doubling the miles of rail, building more car-pool lanes, adding 1,600 miles of new bike paths, synchronizing our traffic signals and improving our bus service.
With 350 million boardings every year, our bus system -- the largest clean-energy fleet in the nation -- is the backbone of our transportation network. In fact, 99 percent of L.A.'s low-income neighborhoods are served by transit. But despite that saturation, the typical L.A. resident can reach only 36 percent of area jobs. That is why on Thursday, during my first meeting as MTA chairman, the board approved my motion to improve bus service and complete a universal fare system so transit users can seamlessly navigate from city to county bus systems.
Furthermore, we are exploring the creation of a Bus Rapid Transit network - vehicles that operate with rail-travel quality and road-travel flexibility - to make commuting faster, safer, more convenient and more affordable. We also adopted a Green Construction Policy that would reduce harmful construction equipment emissions on some current and all future transit and highway projects.
It is the most forward-thinking policy among transit agencies, making the MTA an industry leader.
Without a doubt, L.A.'s historic car culture and our current habits make it difficult to envision our city as a place where mass transit is simply a way of life for a majority of residents. This isn't just about investing and building - it's about changing attitudes and actions, something that will take time.
Although job creation is job No. 1, our transportation agenda is a comprehensive plan that will address concerns beyond unemployment alone.
With a 360-degree approach, we can link people to jobs more efficiently and sustainably and reduce commute times. We can create more walkable and bikeable neighborhoods to increase our quality of life and the time we spend with our loved ones.
Above all else, we can ensure the success of our economy well into the future. A strong transit network with links to county and regional transit systems will move people and goods as quickly and efficiently as possible, keeping L.A. and the Southland globally competitive for generations to come.
[As printed on Daily News, August 8, 2011]
By now you've probably heard about the I-405 closure this weekend. But what you may not have heard above the clamor of a supposed carmageddon, is that the I-405 Sepulveda Pass Improvement Project is part of our plan to deliver what every Angeleno deserves: a 21st-century transportation system.
We want more projects like the I-405 carpool lanes to get started sooner and finished faster. Since passing Measure R in 2008, we've lobbied Congress for innovative transportation financing tools with a plan called America Fast Forward. Next week, I'm meeting with the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Transportation to ask for their support of my AFF plan which will help Los Angeles, and cities across the country, put nearly 1 million people to work now, rebuilding the roads, rail, and bridges of our future.
America Fast Forward is making important progress -- just recently we learned our subway from Koreatown to Westwood is a finalist for federal support that will expedite this Westside subway extension and support 300,000 commuters sooner than originally expected. And last year, we were awarded a $546 million low-interest federal loan for our Crenshaw/LAX Light Rail line, the first Measure R project to receive AFF funding.
Now some in Washington will say there's no money to fund transportation building projects but I say let's redirect the $126 billion we've been spending in Afghanistan, and invest it in our unemployed workforce here at home. Unemployment for veterans is up to 13.3% and there's no better way to honor our vets than with a job back here at home.
Every day we're putting Angelenos to work building more carpool lanes, doubling the miles of rail, adding 1600 miles of new bike paths, synchronizing our traffic signals and improving our bus service. This weekend alone, thousands of Angelenos will be hard at work building a better future for LA by constructing a 10-mile northbound carpool lane that fills the last remaining gap of carpool along one of the most congested freeways in the nation. When it's done in 2013, commuters will have carpool lanes from Orange County all the way to the San Fernando Valley saving carpoolers a minute per mile.
With the public's cooperation this weekend, I'm confident we can minimize the impacts of the closure. To everyone who drives and commutes in Los Angeles: plan ahead, avoid the area, or stay home this weekend. Shop LA is encouraging residents to get out of their cars and walk or bike to their local shops.
For those who decide to commute, enhanced Metrolink rail services will be available and extra buses will be added on the Orange Line, Sunset, Santa Monica, Fairfax and Ventura Boulevard. Metro will also be providing free rides on the Metro Orange, Red and Purple Lines, and will make 26 Metro Bus Lines free of charge. Amtrak has also partnered with us to provide low fare train service.
Remember to plan ahead, avoid the area, or stay home. Most of all, enjoy LA. We are getting one step closer to the world-class transit system our region deserves.
Today, I am honored to take the reins as President of the United States Conference of Mayors. Founded in 1932 during the darkest days of the Great Depression, the US Conference of Mayors has long carried the banner for issues that matter most to Americans across the country: strong and vibrant local economies, safe streets, dependable services including mass transit, and great public schools.
As Mayors, we represent — and reside in — communities that are far removed from the partisan paralysis of Washington, DC. We know how hard it is for families struggling while living paycheck to paycheck. We've seen cities swamped by the mortgage crisis and entire neighborhoods left to rot. We've dealt first-hand with the aftermath of a huge employer leaving town for $2-a-day labor abroad, or the devastation of a tornado sweeping through town.
Legislators are hired to talk, but mayors are hired to act. And the American people desperately need us to act.
Throughout this conference, we've discussed how mayors across the country can come together in support of what America needs most. We've talked about bold plans to help create jobs, jump-start our struggling local economies, and build out a 21st century transportation network. We've discussed doing away with the absurd and archaic policies that have strangled our public schools with red tape, stifling learning and creativity. And we've asked Congress to responsibly bring our troops home and dedicate the billions currently being spent in Iraq and Afghanistan to creating jobs, developing sustainable energy, and repairing our crumbling infrastructure.
I'm proud to take the helm of this storied organization that has long stood with hardworking Americans from coast to coast. I look forward to working with my fellow mayors on these issues and many more. Mayors, it's our time to take the lead.
Way back in 1874, the City of Los Angeles established its first dump site for solid waste. Over 130 years later, we’ve come to learn that disposing of our waste properly is a collective responsibility — one we take seriously here in Los Angeles.
That’s why today I was excited to announce that Angelenos can now place food and liquid cartons into the City’s blue recycling bins.
Starting now, you can recycle cartons such as milk, juice, cream and egg substitutes as well as juice boxes, soup, broth, soy milk, and wine cartons. We are now the largest city in the state with a carton recycling program, solidifying our position as the number one recycling city in the nation.
In Los Angeles, we recycle more of our waste than any big city in America. Proudly, 65% of the over 10.1 million tons of waste generated from businesses and residents each year is diverted away from landfills. We accomplished this because we provide over 1.1 million households with recycling bins and services — that’s 4 million Angelenos! But we’ve gone beyond homes. Today over 1,000 restaurants send scraps to the City for composting, 648 LAUSD schools participate in the blue bin recycling program, and the City collects half a million tons of garden debris every year to turn into mulch. In keeping with the green theme, over 60% of our sanitation fleet uses clean fuel — we’re on track for 100% by 2013.
I’ve set our sights as a City on SEVENTY percent diversion of all City waste by 2013 with an ultimate goal of becoming a zero waste city one day. But in order to reach our goals, we need everyone’s help. If your apartment or house has yet to get the blue bin, it’s as easy as dialing 3-1-1 to connect with Citywide Recycling.
Los Angeles has broken from the pack and is the leader in recycling practices because we understand that what we generate, and how we dispose of our trash is a collective responsibility. Please join me in preserving our beautiful city by making recycling a way of life in Los Angeles.
Today, thanks to the hard work of Senator Boxer, Chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and our leading champion of America Fast Forward, along with Senators Inhofe, Baucus, and Vitter we got a first look at the draft legislation to reauthorize our federal transportation programs. And it’s great news for our transportation infrastructure nationwide. This bipartisan announcement will help cities across the country leverage their limited local funds with federal dollars and create the jobs we need to literally build our way out of the recession.
While there is still much work to be done, the legislation previewed today seeks to maintain critical funding for surface transportation, consolidate duplicative efforts across various departments, expedite key projects that will create jobs and grow our economy, and — most importantly — stretch federal dollars further by making America Fast Forward a reality.
Back in February, I testified at a Joint Congressional Field Hearing here in LA and spoke to the importance of developing a comprehensive, national approach to financing transportation and highway projects. Business groups and labor advocates sat side-by-side in support of this plan, which we called America Fast Forward.
Today’s announcement to make changes to the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) puts us one step closer to realizing the vision of America Fast Forward, which means putting people back to work and building the 21st century infrastructure we need to drastically reduce traffic and commutes. I am tremendously thankful for the hard work and support of Senators Boxer, Inhofe, Baucus, and Vitter, who came together in recognition of the fact that job creation and infrastructure investment is not a partisan or political issue — it’s simply what our country needs, and
it’s what we need right now.
Across America, this legislation will create nearly one million jobs. In Los Angeles, it will allow us to complete our Measure R transportation plan much faster than we originally planned, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs, taking cars off the road, creating more sustainable neighborhoods, and giving families back their time.
Although we don’t yet know all of the details of this legislation, we do know it’s an important step in the right direction, and that it will give our unemployed construction workers a reason to put their hard hats on again.
Today, as many engaged parents and citizens went to the polls to elect a new School Board Member, I met with teachers, parents and community members to discuss the successful parent engagement initiatives spearheaded by the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools.
Education is something that I am very passionate about. Growing up in a single-family home didn't stop my mother from setting high expectations for me and my siblings. Riding the bus and working up to three jobs at a time didn't stop her from taking the time to read to us, encouraging us to realize our fullest potential, and supporting us every step of the way -- even when we stumbled. I can personally attest to the importance of a parent being invested -- perhaps even dogged, at times -- when it comes to their child's education.
That is why parent engagement is one of the core principles of my Partnership Schools that currently serve 18,000 students at 21 schools in some of LA's most historically underserved and at-risk neighborhoods. Our ideology is this: parents play a critical role in motivating their children to learn and achieve, and schools play an equally critical role in reaching out to families and the community. We must work hand-in-hand with parents and do a better job of engaging and empowering them in their child's education.
The Partnership Schools have been an incubator of creative and innovative programs that support parents in their efforts to motivate their children to succeed in school. Our dedicated parent empowerment team has created a Family Action Team at every school to assist in engaging every family and encourage them to play a role in their child's education. We have launched programs like “Donuts for Dads” at 99th Street Elementary School to bring positive male role models into our schools and promote literacy. We have also offered every 6th grader in the Partnership a desktop computer at home, and required parents to participate in technology and education workshops to ensure those home-learning centers are put to good use.
The Parent College, a monthly meeting open to all LAUSD families, is another important component of our parent empowerment strategy. The Parent College focuses on “The Three R’s”: rights, roles, and responsibilities. It seems simple, but sometimes busy parents just need more information and better access to the school curriculum to provide their children with the support they need.
These efforts have been unlike anything our City and school district has ever seen and I want to acknowledge the Partnership for LA Schools for raising the bar. Thanks to the hard work of my dedicated staff and volunteer parents, the Partnership has enrolled over 800 parents in the Parent College and visited the homes of over 7,000 families in door-to-door campaigns. These efforts have had real results: over 8,000 parents have participated in events at our Partnership schools this school year alone.
Knowing that their parents and family members are there to support and motivate them, our students are showing more promise with each day. Now we are calling upon the LAUSD to set these high expectations across the district, so that more students -- and parents -- will have the opportunity to rise to the occasion.
Long ignored, neglected, or dismissed as a giant storm drain, the Los Angeles River has actually been a critical natural and cultural resource for our area since before the founding of our Pueblo. This Saturday, April 30, thousands of people will gather for A Day of Service on the LA River to give this waterway and its watershed the recognition they deserve. The Los Angeles River was the main source of food and water for the Gabrielino Indians who inhabited our area for thousands of years before our City’s founding. For generations, people settled near the LA River and turned to it for sustenance. And despite its concrete bottom, the river still supports dozens of species of wildlife. In the wake of a 2006 Supreme Court decision that endangered the LA River’s protected status under the Clean Water Act, Angelenos from Canoga Park to Atwater Village to Boyle Heights mobilized in support our river. Thanks to some very determined citizens, the Environmental Protection Agency announced in July of 2010 that all 51 miles of the Los Angeles River — as well as its 834-square-mile watershed — are, in fact, protected under this important piece of legislation. The actions of the river’s tireless advocates have brought renewed attention to our river and its watershed, and with that attention, new hope for its future. This Saturday, thousands of community members will flock to the river not just to pick-up trash or remove graffiti, but to celebrate its integral part in our City’s history. As part of our "We Serve LA" community service initiative, this weekend volunteers will lead environmental education sessions, community gardening workshops, bird watching, water quality testing, and children’s art projects among many other activities. The day will culminate in a celebration with community leaders, local celebrities, and a free concert by Grammy-award winning artists, Ozomatli. Billy Joel, another Grammy-winning artist, once sang, “We all live in the ocean, we all start in the stream.” Join us in celebrating the birthplace of our City: The Los Angeles River! For more information, please visit http://www.lariver.org ignored, neglected, or dismissed as a giant storm drain, the Los Angeles River has actually been a critical natural and cultural resource for our area since before the founding of our Pueblo. This Saturday, April 30, thousands of people will gather for A Day of Service on the LA River to give this waterway and its watershed the recognition they deserve.
The Los Angeles River was the main source of food and water for the Gabrielino Indians who inhabited our area for thousands of years before our City’s founding. For generations, people settled near the LA River and turned to it for sustenance. And despite its concrete bottom, the river still supports dozens of species of wildlife.
In the wake of a 2006 Supreme Court decision that endangered the LA River’s protected status under the Clean Water Act, Angelenos from Canoga Park to Atwater Village to Boyle Heights mobilized in support our river. Thanks to some very determined citizens, the Environmental Protection Agency announced in July of 2010 that all 51 miles of the
Los Angeles River — as well as its 834-square-mile watershed — are, in fact, protected under this important piece of legislation.
The actions of the river’s tireless advocates have brought renewed attention to our river and its watershed, and with that attention, new hope for its future. This Saturday, thousands of community members will flock to the river not just to pick-up trash or remove graffiti, but to celebrate its integral part in our City’s history.
As part of our "We Serve LA" community service initiative, this weekend volunteers will lead environmental education sessions, community gardening workshops, bird watching, water quality testing, and children’s art projects among many other activities. The day will culminate in a celebration with community leaders, local celebrities, and a free concert by Grammy-award winning artists, Ozomatli.
Billy Joel, another Grammy-winning artist, once sang, “We all live in the ocean, we all start in the stream.” Join us in celebrating the birthplace of our City: The Los Angeles River! For more information, please visit www.lariver.org.
Across the country, and across California, state and local governments are grappling with budget deficits and ballooning pension costs. You’ve seen the headlines – walk outs in Wisconsin. Stalemate in Sacramento. Collective bargaining doesn’t work, they say. You can’t negotiate with employees, they say. But not here. Not in Los Angeles. We have been honest about our financial problems and what we need to solve them. We asked our employees to make great sacrifices, to step up and stand up for their fellow employees and the critical services they provide every day. Today, I am proud to announce that the vast majority of our employee bargaining units have ratified an agreement to preserve healthcare benefits and generate hundreds of millions in savings to the city. These savings will allow workers to avoid as many as 42 furloughs, which would have had a devastating impact on city services. As I have said, I believe that the only way we are going to turn the corner is by doing so together. And today, we turned the corner. I want to personally thank our librarians, our recreation and parks employees, our mechanics, sanitation workers, custodians, blue collar supervisors, and all others who did the right thing. These employees personify public service. In many cases, employees who were not subject to furloughs put the interests of the city and their fellow workers ahead of their own. I know how difficult this decision was for everyone who made it. Each employee who voted for the agreement performed a true public service, and on behalf of all Angelenos, I’d like to thank them for working with us to help stabilize our city’s finances and prove that collective bargaining works.
Over the last several years, Los Angeles, like most big cities in America, has faced the most difficult financial circumstances it has seen in generations.
In two years, we’ve addressed more than $1 billion dollars in budget deficits, and this year brought even more pain in the form of a $457 million deficit.
But with a new, forward-thinking approach, we aimed to permanently correct a detrimental structural deficit and attack the massive cost increases to our pension and health care systems.
This morning, I am proud to submit to the City Council a budget proposal that turns the corner and sets our sights on a stronger, more stable Los Angeles. By implementing smart, structural changes, we can maintain our top priorities: public safety, maintaining a strong Reserve Fund, preserving core services, and protecting our workers.
My proposed budget aggressively pursues efficiencies and cuts deep into City spending. It begins with an 11 percent reduction to my own office budget. I am proposing the same reduction for City Council offices, and hope they will join in this sacrifice.
The largest single cut – $100 million – comes out of our largest department – LAPD. But despite this cut, this budget maintains the size of our police force at its current level of 9,963 officers.
The second deepest cut – $54 million – comes out of our second largest department – LAFD. This will allow the Fire Department to eliminate operational inefficiencies, end the Modified Coverage Plan, and enhance services where they are needed most.
The magnitude of this financial crisis has required me to include up to 36 furlough days for most of our civilian employees.
I don’t like furloughs, but the reality is that in order to balance the budget without relying on furloughs and layoffs, the City must reign in its pension and healthcare costs.
But the good news is that this budget gives us a chance to do that.
This budget gives our employees the opportunity to end furloughs and the cycle of layoffs, displacement, and uncertainty. This budget gives employees the opportunity to invest in themselves and put money towards their retirement, rather than lose it with furlough days. This budget gives us all a chance to invest in our city and our future, allowing us to:
- Expand library hours and restore Monday service
- Provide funding to the Department of Recreation and Parks to open new facilities
- Fund 735 miles of street maintenance and resurfacing
- Provide funding to fill 300,000 potholes
- Continue operations at 7 animal shelters
- Maintain funding for our homeless shelters and senior meals programs
- Provide full funding to support the Metropolitan Detention Center
- Provide full funding for the Emergency Management Department
This budget is a commitment to responsible, fiscal management and the long-term financial stability of our City. Working together, we will continue to move towards a sustainable future.
I’d like to take this moment to thank my budget team. This is a group of seasoned professionals with over a century of combined financial experience who have sacrificed to help their City in her time of need.
Our team of experts spent months reviewing department budgets, operations, and services. They met with department leaders and staff to discuss ways to eliminate excess unrelated to our core services and ways to deliver these basic services more effectively. They have undertaken a Herculean task with surgical precision, and deserve our City’s thanks and gratitude.
The City of Los Angeles has a message for Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio and municipal and state governments all across the country: collective bargaining works. Yesterday, I stood with leaders from the Coalition of LA City Unions to deliver that message by announcing that we have reached a tentative agreement to save the City $400 million dollars over the next three years and do away with furloughs for 19,000 City employees.
This was a watershed moment for LA and cities across the nation.
Over the past few months, we have seen workers, teachers, librarians, police and firefighters, vilified as the source of our budget problems. Some states have even gone as far as outlawing collective bargaining in a misguided attempt to dismantle public employee unions.
As a former union organizer, my first instinct is always to walk the picket line with my brothers and sisters from labor. But as Mayor — as CEO of the City of Los Angeles — I know that we have to balance our budget. We have to make structural changes. We have to put the City on a path towards fiscal sustainability.
And that is precisely what we did together with our labor partners. Instead of pointing fingers and laying blame, we invited our employees to the negotiating table. We recognized that they are our partners — not our enemies — and that we can all agree on one thing: the current system of benefits is simply unsustainable.
In the end, working with labor, we reached an agreement that is a win-win-win for taxpayers, for employers, and for the City of Los Angeles.
The savings will be accomplished by enacting structural changes including increased contributions to retiree healthcare plans, a suspension of cash overtime, and a shift of negotiated raises to the end of the contract period.
This agreement will help us better deliver services to all City residents—without disruptions—by ending furloughs for thousands of coalition-represented employees now and into retirement. Most significantly, the agreement recognizes that in these tough economic times, we all have a responsibility to shoulder our share of the burden.
Long-Term Gain with 405 Closure
07/14/11 @ 12:28 pm by Antonio Villaraigosa
By now you've probably heard about the I-405 closure this weekend. But what you may not have heard above the clamor of a supposed carmageddon, is that the I-405 Sepulveda Pass Improvement Project is part of our plan to deliver what every Angeleno deserves: a 21st Century transportation system.
We want more projects like the I-405 carpool lanes to get started sooner and finished faster. Since passing Measure R in 2008, we've lobbied Congress for innovative transportation financing tools with a plan called America Fast Forward. Next week, I'm meeting with the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Transportation to ask for their support of my AFF plan which will help Los Angeles, and cities across the country, put nearly 1 million people to work now, rebuilding the roads, rail, and bridges of our future.
America Fast Forward is making important progress - just recently we learned our subway from Koreatown to Westwood is a finalist for federal support that will expedite this Westside subway extension and support 300,000 commuters sooner than originally expected. And last year, we were awarded a $546 million low-interest federal loan for our Crenshaw/LAX Light Rail line, the first Measure R project to receive AFF funding.
Now some in Washington will say there's no money to fund transportation building projects but I say let's redirect the $126 billion we've been spending in Afghanistan, and invest it in our unemployed workforce here at home. Unemployment for veterans is up to 13.3% and there's no better way to honor our vets than with a job back here at home.
Every day we're putting Angelenos to work building more carpool lanes, doubling the miles of rail, adding 1600 miles of new bike paths, synchronizing our traffic signals and improving our bus service. This weekend alone, thousands of Angelenos will be hard at work building a better future for LA by constructing a 10-mile northbound carpool lane that fills the last remaining gap of carpool along one of the most congested freeways in the nation. When it's done in 2013, commuters will have carpool lanes from Orange County all the way to the San Fernando Valley saving carpoolers a minute per mile.
With the public's cooperation this weekend, I'm confident we can minimize the impacts of the closure. To everyone who drives and commutes in Los Angeles: Plan ahead, avoid the area, or stay home this weekend. Shop LA is encouraging residents to get out of their cars and walk or bike to their local shops.
For those who decide to commute, enhanced Metrolink rail services will be available and extra buses will be added on the Orange Line, Sunset, Santa Monica, Fairfax and Ventura Boulevard. Metro will also be providing free rides on the Metro Orange, Red and Purple Lines, and will make 26 Metro Bus Lines free of charge. Amtrak has also partnered with us to provide low fare train service.
Remember to plan ahead, avoid the area, or stay home. Most of all, ENJOY LA. We are getting one step closer to the world-class transit system our region deserves.
For more information on the closure, visit Metro.net. or call 511. For real-time updates on Twitter, follow @I_405. And for a list of fun things to do in Los Angeles without a car, click here.
Time for Mayors to Take the Lead
06/20/2011 @ 2:10 pm by Antonio Villaraigosa
Today, I am honored to take the reins as President of the United States Conference of Mayors. Founded in 1932 during the darkest days of the Great Depression, the US Conference of Mayors has long carried the banner for issues that matter most to Americans across the country: strong and vibrant local economies, safe streets, dependable services including mass transit, and great public schools.
As Mayors, we represent — and reside in — communities that are far removed from the partisan paralysis of Washington, DC. We know how hard it is for families struggling while living paycheck to paycheck. We've seen cities swamped by the mortgage crisis and entire neighborhoods left to rot. We've dealt first-hand with the aftermath of a huge employer leaving town for $2-a-day labor abroad, or the devastation of a tornado sweeping through town.
Legislators are hired to talk, but mayors are hired to act. And the American people desperately need us to act.
Throughout this conference, we've discussed how mayors across the country can come together in support of what America needs most. We've talked about bold plans to help create jobs, jump-start our struggling local economies, and build out a 21st century transportation network. We've discussed doing away with the absurd and archaic policies that have strangled our public schools with red tape, stifling learning and creativity. And we've asked Congress to responsibly bring our troops home and dedicate the billions currently being spent in Iraq and Afghanistan to creating jobs, developing sustainable energy, and repairing our crumbling infrastructure.
I'm proud to take the helm of this storied organization that has long stood with hardworking Americans from coast to coast. I look forward to working with my fellow mayors on these issues and many more. Mayors, it's our time to take the lead.
New to the Blue in Los Angeles
06/14/2011 @ 4:55 pm by Antonio Villaraigosa
Way back in 1874, the City of Los Angeles established its first dump site for solid waste. Over 130 years later, we’ve come to learn that disposing of our waste properly is a collective responsibility — one we take seriously here in Los Angeles.
That’s why today I was excited to announce that Angelenos can now place food and liquid cartons into the City’s blue recycling bins.
Starting now, you can recycle cartons such as milk, juice, cream and egg substitutes as well as juice boxes, soup, broth, soy milk, and wine cartons. We are now the largest city in the state with a carton recycling program, solidifying our position as the number one recycling city in the nation.
In Los Angeles, we recycle more of our waste than any big city in America. Proudly, 65% of the over 10.1 million tons of waste generated from businesses and residents each year is diverted away from landfills. We accomplished this because we provide over 1.1 million households with recycling bins and services — that’s 4 million Angelenos! But we’ve gone beyond homes. Today over 1,000 restaurants send scraps to the City for composting, 648 LAUSD schools participate in the blue bin recycling program, and the City collects half a million tons of garden debris every year to turn into mulch. In keeping with the green theme, over 60% of our sanitation fleet uses clean fuel — we’re on track for 100% by 2013.
I’ve set our sights as a City on SEVENTY percent diversion of all City waste by 2013 with an ultimate goal of becoming a zero waste city one day. But in order to reach our goals, we need everyone’s help. If your apartment or house has yet to get the blue bin, it’s as easy as dialing 3-1-1 to connect with Citywide Recycling.
Los Angeles has broken from the pack and is the leader in recycling practices because we understand that what we generate, and how we dispose of our trash is a collective responsibility. Please join me in preserving our beautiful city by making recycling a way of life in Los Angeles.
America Fast Forward on the Fast Track
05/25/2011 @ 5:32 pm by Antonio Villaraigosa
Today, thanks to the hard work of Senator Boxer, Chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and our leading champion of America Fast Forward, along with Senators Inhofe, Baucus, and Vitter we got a first look at the draft legislation to reauthorize our federal transportation programs. And it’s great news for our transportation infrastructure nationwide. This bipartisan announcement will help cities across the country leverage their limited local funds with federal dollars and create the jobs we need to literally build our way out of the recession.
While there is still much work to be done, the legislation previewed today seeks to maintain critical funding for surface transportation, consolidate duplicative efforts across various departments, expedite key projects that will create jobs and grow our economy, and — most importantly — stretch federal dollars further by making America Fast Forward a reality.
Back in February, I testified at a Joint Congressional Field Hearing here in LA and spoke to the importance of developing a comprehensive, national approach to financing transportation and highway projects. Business groups and labor advocates sat side-by-side in support of this plan, which we called America Fast Forward.
Today’s announcement to make changes to the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) puts us one step closer to realizing the vision of America Fast Forward, which means putting people back to work and building the 21st century infrastructure we need to drastically reduce traffic and commutes. I am tremendously thankful for the hard work and support of Senators Boxer, Inhofe, Baucus, and Vitter, who came together in recognition of the fact that job creation and infrastructure investment is not a partisan or political issue — it’s simply what our country needs, and
it’s what we need right now.
Across America, this legislation will create nearly one million jobs. In Los Angeles, it will allow us to complete our Measure R transportation plan much faster than we originally planned, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs, taking cars off the road, creating more sustainable neighborhoods, and giving families back their time.
Although we don’t yet know all of the details of this legislation, we do know it’s an important step in the right direction, and that it will give our unemployed construction workers a reason to put their hard hats on again.
The School Day Begins and Ends at Home
05/17/2011 @ 4:32 pm by Antonio Villaraigosa
Today, as many engaged parents and citizens went to the polls to elect a new School Board Member, I met with teachers, parents and community members to discuss the successful parent engagement initiatives spearheaded by the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools.
Education is something that I am very passionate about. Growing up in a single-family home didn't stop my mother from setting high expectations for me and my siblings. Riding the bus and working up to three jobs at a time didn't stop her from taking the time to read to us, encouraging us to realize our fullest potential, and supporting us every step of the way -- even when we stumbled. I can personally attest to the importance of a parent being invested -- perhaps even dogged, at times -- when it comes to their child's education.
That is why parent engagement is one of the core principles of my Partnership Schools that currently serve 18,000 students at 21 schools in some of LA's most historically underserved and at-risk neighborhoods. Our ideology is this: parents play a critical role in motivating their children to learn and achieve, and schools play an equally critical role in reaching out to families and the community. We must work hand-in-hand with parents and do a better job of engaging and empowering them in their child's education.
The Partnership Schools have been an incubator of creative and innovative programs that support parents in their efforts to motivate their children to succeed in school. Our dedicated parent empowerment team has created a Family Action Team at every school to assist in engaging every family and encourage them to play a role in their child's education. We have launched programs like “Donuts for Dads” at 99th Street Elementary School to bring positive male role models into our schools and promote literacy. We have also offered every 6th grader in the Partnership a desktop computer at home, and required parents to participate in technology and education workshops to ensure those home-learning centers are put to good use.
The Parent College, a monthly meeting open to all LAUSD families, is another important component of our parent empowerment strategy. The Parent College focuses on “The Three R’s”: rights, roles, and responsibilities. It seems simple, but sometimes busy parents just need more information and better access to the school curriculum to provide their children with the support they need.
These efforts have been unlike anything our City and school district has ever seen and I want to acknowledge the Partnership for LA Schools for raising the bar. Thanks to the hard work of my dedicated staff and volunteer parents, the Partnership has enrolled over 800 parents in the Parent College and visited the homes of over 7,000 families in door-to-door campaigns. These efforts have had real results: over 8,000 parents have participated in events at our Partnership schools this school year alone.
Knowing that their parents and family members are there to support and motivate them, our students are showing more promise with each day. Now we are calling upon the LAUSD to set these high expectations across the district, so that more students -- and parents -- will have the opportunity to rise to the occasion.
River of Dreams: The Largest River Clean-Up in LA History
04/29/2011 @ 10:52 am by Antonio Villaraigosa
Long ignored, neglected, or dismissed as a giant storm drain, the Los Angeles River has actually been a critical natural and cultural resource for our area since before the founding of our Pueblo. This Saturday, April 30, thousands of people will gather for A Day of Service on the LA River to give this waterway and its watershed the recognition they deserve.
The Los Angeles River was the main source of food and water for the Gabrielino Indians who inhabited our area for thousands of years before our City’s founding. For generations, people settled near the LA River and turned to it for sustenance. And despite its concrete bottom, the river still supports dozens of species of wildlife.
In the wake of a 2006 Supreme Court decision that endangered the LA River’s protected status under the Clean Water Act, Angelenos from Canoga Park to Atwater Village to Boyle Heights mobilized in support our river. Thanks to some very determined citizens, the Environmental Protection Agency announced in July of 2010 that all 51 miles of the
Los Angeles River — as well as its 834-square-mile watershed — are, in fact, protected under this important piece of legislation.
The actions of the river’s tireless advocates have brought renewed attention to our river and its watershed, and with that attention, new hope for its future. This Saturday, thousands of community members will flock to the river not just to pick-up trash or remove graffiti, but to celebrate its integral part in our City’s history.
As part of our "We Serve LA" community service initiative, this weekend volunteers will lead environmental education sessions, community gardening workshops, bird watching, water quality testing, and children’s art projects among many other activities. The day will culminate in a celebration with community leaders, local celebrities, and a free concert by Grammy-award winning artists, Ozomatli.
Billy Joel, another Grammy-winning artist, once sang, “We all live in the ocean, we all start in the stream.” Join us in celebrating the birthplace of our City: The Los Angeles River! For more information, please visit www.lariver.org.
Coalition Employees Help Stabilize City's Finances
04/27/2011 @ 3:54 pm by Antonio Villaraigosa
Across the country, and across California, state and local governments are grappling with budget deficits and ballooning pension costs. You’ve seen the headlines – walk outs in Wisconsin. Stalemate in Sacramento.
Collective bargaining doesn’t work, they say. You can’t negotiate with employees, they say. But not here. Not in Los Angeles.
We have been honest about our financial problems and what we need to solve them. We asked our employees to make great sacrifices, to step up and stand up for their fellow employees and the critical services they provide every day.
Today, I am proud to announce that the vast majority of our employee bargaining units have ratified an agreement to preserve healthcare benefits and generate hundreds of millions in savings to the city.
These savings will allow workers to avoid as many as 42 furloughs, which would have had a devastating impact on city services. As I have said, I believe that the only way we are going to turn the corner is by doing so together. And today, we turned the corner.
I want to personally thank our librarians, our recreation and parks employees, our mechanics, sanitation workers, custodians, blue collar supervisors, and all others who did the right thing. These employees personify public service.
In many cases, employees who were not subject to furloughs put the interests of the city and their fellow workers ahead of their own. I know how difficult this decision was for everyone who made it.
Each employee who voted for the agreement performed a true public service, and on behalf of all Angelenos, I’d like to thank them for working with us to help stabilize our city’s finances and prove that collective bargaining works.
A Budget Proposal for a Sustainable Future
4/20/11 at 12:15pm by Antonio Villaraigosa
Over the last several years, Los Angeles, like most big cities in America, has faced the most difficult financial circumstances it has seen in generations.
In two years, we’ve addressed more than $1 billion dollars in budget deficits, and this year brought even more pain in the form of a $457 million deficit.
But with a new, forward-thinking approach, we aimed to permanently correct a detrimental structural deficit and attack the massive cost increases to our pension and health care systems.
This morning, I am proud to submit to the City Council a budget proposal that turns the corner and sets our sights on a stronger, more stable Los Angeles. By implementing smart, structural changes, we can maintain our top priorities: public safety, maintaining a strong Reserve Fund, preserving core services, and protecting our workers.
My proposed budget aggressively pursues efficiencies and cuts deep into City spending. It begins with an 11 percent reduction to my own office budget. I am proposing the same reduction for City Council offices, and hope they will join in this sacrifice.
The largest single cut – $100 million – comes out of our largest department – LAPD. But despite this cut, this budget maintains the size of our police force at its current level of 9,963 officers.
The second deepest cut – $54 million – comes out of our second largest department – LAFD. This will allow the Fire Department to eliminate operational inefficiencies, end the Modified Coverage Plan, and enhance services where they are needed most.
The magnitude of this financial crisis has required me to include up to 36 furlough days for most of our civilian employees.
I don’t like furloughs, but the reality is that in order to balance the budget without relying on furloughs and layoffs, the City must reign in its pension and healthcare costs.
But the good news is that this budget gives us a chance to do that.
This budget gives our employees the opportunity to end furloughs and the cycle of layoffs, displacement, and uncertainty. This budget gives employees the opportunity to invest in themselves and put money towards their retirement, rather than lose it with furlough days. This budget gives us all a chance to invest in our city and our future, allowing us to:
- Expand library hours and restore Monday service
- Provide funding to the Department of Recreation and Parks to open new facilities
- Fund 735 miles of street maintenance and resurfacing
- Provide funding to fill 300,000 potholes
- Continue operations at 7 animal shelters
- Maintain funding for our homeless shelters and senior meals programs
- Provide full funding to support the Metropolitan Detention Center
- Provide full funding for the Emergency Management Department
This budget is a commitment to responsible, fiscal management and the long-term financial stability of our City. Working together, we will continue to move towards a sustainable future.
I’d like to take this moment to thank my budget team. This is a group of seasoned professionals with over a century of combined financial experience who have sacrificed to help their City in her time of need.
Our team of experts spent months reviewing department budgets, operations, and services. They met with department leaders and staff to discuss ways to eliminate excess unrelated to our core services and ways to deliver these basic services more effectively. They have undertaken a Herculean task with surgical precision, and deserve our City’s thanks and gratitude.
LA’s Message to Cities Across the Country: Collective Bargaining Works
03/25/11 @5:10 by Antonio Villaraigosa
The City of Los Angeles has a message for Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio and municipal and state governments all across the country: collective bargaining works. Yesterday, I stood with leaders from the Coalition of LA City Unions to deliver that message by announcing that we have reached a tentative agreement to save the City $400 million dollars over the next three years and do away with furloughs for 19,000 City employees.
This was a watershed moment for LA and cities across the nation.
Over the past few months, we have seen workers, teachers, librarians, police and firefighters, vilified as the source of our budget problems. Some states have even gone as far as outlawing collective bargaining in a misguided attempt to dismantle public employee unions.
As a former union organizer, my first instinct is always to walk the picket line with my brothers and sisters from labor. But as Mayor — as CEO of the City of Los Angeles — I know that we have to balance our budget. We have to make structural changes. We have to put the City on a path towards fiscal sustainability.
And that is precisely what we did together with our labor partners. Instead of pointing fingers and laying blame, we invited our employees to the negotiating table. We recognized that they are our partners — not our enemies — and that we can all agree on one thing: the current system of benefits is simply unsustainable.
In the end, working with labor, we reached an agreement that is a win-win-win for taxpayers, for employers, and for the City of Los Angeles.
The savings will be accomplished by enacting structural changes including increased contributions to retiree healthcare plans, a suspension of cash overtime, and a shift of negotiated raises to the end of the contract period.
This agreement will help us better deliver services to all City residents—without disruptions—by ending furloughs for thousands of coalition-represented employees now and into retirement. Most significantly, the agreement recognizes that in these tough economic times, we all have a responsibility to shoulder our share of the burden
03/16/2011 @ 3:57 pm by Antonio Villaraigosa
On behalf of all Angelenos, I want to extend our thoughts and prayers to the people of Japan as they deal with the aftermath of the recent devastating earthquake. This difficult ordeal has hit very close to home here in Los Angeles where more Japanese live than any other city outside of Japan.
To residents that have family and friends affected by this tragedy, the Red Cross and Google have launched special websites to help people seeking to re-establish contact: http://www.icrc.org/familylinks or http://japan.person-finder.appspot.com/?lang=en. People in Japan and abroad can register on the websites to inform their family and friends that they are safe and provide their current contact details, while those looking for people can check the list for the most up to date information.
I also want to encourage anyone who is able to make a donation or volunteer to go to this website to elevaluate many of the options: http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_newsroom/20110311/wl_yblog_newsroom/japan-earthquake-and-tsunami-how-to-help.
It is imperative that we support each other during this difficult time. Los Angeles stands willing and ready to help our Japanese sisters and brothers in any way possible.
Choosing Success at LA Unified
03/16/2011 @ 3:47pm by Antonio Villaraigosa
Today, the lives of more than 20,000 LA Unified students and families changed for the better thanks to one of the most innovative school reform processes anywhere in the country. Public School Choice is a new, powerful and ambitious program that hits the restart button on our failing schools, cutting through a lot of red tape along the way.
The program allows a variety of school operators — pilots, charters, network partners, teacher collaboratives, the District itself, anyone with a proven track record of success and clear vision of achievement — compete to run new and failing schools.
We must work together to give LAUSD students and families MORE and BETTER choices so our kids can have more and better chances. By the end of this year, nearly 100 schools and thousands of students will have been given a new chance to succeed.
Like most reform efforts, this process is far from perfect. But we were able to take the experience from last year’s first round to look at what worked and what didn’t and make improvements.
Without a doubt, we have seen success in this second round.
We received 48 applications for 13 campuses — a sign of healthy competition we should continue to encourage. A number of schools were awarded to internal reform models that give teachers more autonomy, two schools will operate under a new model with a reformed contract, and a high-performing charter was given the chance to revamp and revitalize one of the three focus schools in this round.
The variety in this latest round shows significant improvement over last year. But only by working together will we be able to strengthen this process and continue to use this tool to make bold changes that will empower our local schools, our teachers, and our students.
03/09/11 @3:55pm by Antonio Villaraigosa
Back in December of last year, I addressed a room full of Sacramento insiders--including the leadership of California Teachers Association--and shared my sincere belief that teachers unions must come to the negotiating table and join us in enacting meaningful education reform.
Anyone who knows me knows that I don't have an anti-union bone in my body; In fact, I was a field organizer and legislative advocate for CTA and UTLA. But I believe that we can no longer afford to make decisions based on what is best for the adults in our school system. We must make what is best for our students our top priority. Today I was honored to accept the California Charter Schools Association Elected Official of the Year award. In my remarks, I challenged the charter school community to hold itself to a higher standard by taking on more high-needs students, shutting down its own struggling schools, and exporting the successes it has pioneered to school districts all across the state.
The charter movement has accomplished incredible things, particularly for low-income students of color, but those achievements cannot exist solely within their own classroom walls and schoolhouse doors. We need charters to step up as a vanguard of reform to help us deliver more and better choices to LA Unified students and families.
Today I asked the teachers and administrators with charter schools to accelerate the pace of reform by taking on more turnarounds and engaging with school districts to deliver the change our schools need. Charters currently only serve 3% of students nationwide, but their important work could be helping all students by demanding more flexibility, more
funding, and more freedom for our local schools. In fact, I hope that one day, traditional public schools and charter schools will enjoy similar autonomy so that the lines between the two will be blurred. Only by working together will we be able to ensure a future where every parent has a choice, and every student has a chance.
Your Chance to Balance LA City's Budget
02/10/11 @ 4:43pm by Al Abrams
Here's your chance to let Mayor Villaraigosa know. Do it now because the opportunity only comes around once a year.
The Mayor's Budget Challenge asks for your specific input and opinions how the City of LA should spend the taxpayers' money and where the Mayor needs to cut in order to balance the budget. Parks and recreation? Police and fire? Libraries? Street repairs? City salaries? Pensions? Health care costs?
It's your call.
Go to http://labudgetchallenge.lacity.org/budgetchallenge/sim/budget_master.html, take the survey and let the Mayor know how you feel about the way the City of Los Angeles is prioritizing its spending. You can write in your specific ideas and suggestions as well. He reads them all.
Spread the word. Have everyone you know take it as well. You've only got until February 26th to make your wishes known - and it's well worth it.
It's better to weigh in and make your voice count than just be a pain and complain.
The Mayor's Budget Challenge: it only takes four minutes, but the impact of your recommendations for the City of Los Angeles could last a lifetime.
Crucial Milestone in Building a Stadium in Downtown Los Angeles
02/2/11 @ 3:30pm by Antonio Villaraigosa
Yesterday, we took another critical step toward realizing the Downtown Events Center: a monumental development project that will spur job creation, increase investment in our Downtown economic core, and bring more tourists to our great City. This events center – complete with a state-of-the-art NFL stadium and convention center – is a win-win-win for sports fans, cultural enthusiasts, and residents of Los Angeles.
The best news of all is that this project will cost the taxpayers of Los Angeles NOTHING. Yet, all Angelenos will be able to reap the countless economic benefits of having a world-class events center right in their very own back yard.
The Downtown Events Center and Farmer’s Field will be a catalyst for new development. It will create close to 20,000 job and $3 billion worth of new residential developments, restaurants and hotels in the Downtown area alone. This economic growth will help jumpstart our local economy creating jobs and generating much-needed revenue for our city. Nothing thrills me more than the sight of hard hats and shovels. The very symbols of progress and development in our community.
Now, I know the NFL is the first thing on everyone’s mind today but I would like to point out that this new stadium and event center will also serve the important purpose of hosting the many trade shows and conventions that are held each year in Los Angeles. In fact, the Convention Center will be re-designed to provide over one million square feet of contiguous space for the South Hall.
This change will make the convention center more competitive for large, top-tier clients and it will likely elevate us to the fifth busiest convention city in the country. That’s a huge jump from our current rank as #15, and an opportunity we should be taking advantage of. By leveraging this new, better-designed space for concerts, conventions, events and football games, we will be able to attract even more visitors to LA!
I would like to thank AEG for their vision and investment in building an even greater Los Angeles. In a mere five years, AEG has accelerated the renaissance in Downtown LA with L.A. Live and STAPLES Center. They have been instrumental in helping our City stake its claim as a world-class sports town with outstanding facilities and hopefully, we will be able to add another team to this roster in the very near future.
I would also like to thank Farmer’s Insurance for providing the vital capital to make this project a reality. I am proud that our new stadium will be named for a company that was started in Los Angeles over 80 years ago and has since grown into a company with international presence.
You know, it is hard to believe that this day is finally here. I have been working for years to bring the NFL back to Los Angeles. In fact, it seems like just yesterday that Tim Leiweke, Casey Wasserman, and I met and dreamed up this proposal on the back of a napkin. And now, we are one step closer to the idea becoming a reality.
I look forward to working with Tim and AEG, Casey Wasserman, Farmer’s Insurance, and the members of the City Council on the details of this plan. I have no doubt that today is just one of many milestones to come on this project.
01/7/11 @ 4:10pm by Antonio Villaraigosa
The 2010 Crime Stats are in, and for the 8th straight year, crime in Los Angeles is down.
While crime in other cities is going up, Los Angeles is safer than it’s been in decades because City leadership--my office, City Council, and the Police Commission--has been committed to backing Chief Charlie Beck and maintaining the size of our police force.
In short, crime is at a record low because our police force is at a record high.
During these tough economic times, many expected our hard won gains in crime reduction to recede. Indeed, some even argued that trimming our police force was a necessary sacrifice if we were going to balance our books.
But we insisted that public safety was non-negotiable, and continued to grow our department. The results speak for themselves.
• Violent Crime is down 11.1%, and Property Crime is down 5.8%
• There are fewer Violent Crimes and thefts in Los Angeles than at any point since 1959
• The homicide rate is lower than it’s been since 1964
• Gang Crime is down 11.3%, translating to 700 fewer gang-related crimes
• Crime is down in each of the LAPD’s 21 areas of Los Angeles
• Violent Crime is down 30.6% since 2005.
The bravery of our officers, the leadership of our chief, and the size of our department have allowed us to engage in real community policing, and execute a comprehensive gang reduction strategy focused on prevention and intervention. Combined, these factors have all contributed to the remarkable year-end crime statistics.
It’s been a hard, long road, but the LAPD is now one of the most innovative, professional police forces in the world. One that not only has the respect and the cooperation of the community it serves, but one that reflects the diversity and size of our great metropolis.
Public Safety is the cornerstone of a healthy city. Because our streets are safe, businesses can grow, tourists can visit, and our communities can thrive.
So even though we continue to face a tough economic climate, I will not waiver on this commitment: we will not turn back on the progress we’ve made. Public Safety is, and will remain, our first priority.
12/20/10 @ 5:25pm by Antonio Villaraigosa
As another year comes to an end, I hope that you and your family and friends enjoy a happy, healthy holiday season and prosperous new year.
As Mayor, I would like to take a moment to share with you some of the progress we have made in 2010 and some of the challenges we continue to address.
Most significantly, our City is the safest it has been since the 1950s. This past summer, 700,000 people participated in our Summer Night Lights program and the areas served by the 24 SNL parks, we saw a 57% reduction in gang-related homicides, and a 55% reduction in the number of shots fired.
Our economic development team, trying to address our city's 14% unemployment rate, has worked day and night to make Los Angeles more business friendly. With a hands-on approach and outside-the-box thinking, they have been listening to what job-creators need and are actively helping businesses to stay and grow in or relocate to Los Angeles.
The efforts are starting to pay off. Between our Business Tax Holiday, expanded state enterprise zones, and our local preference policy, jobs are coming back to LA.
We also made significant progress on our efforts to accelerate the spending of Measure R funding to build 12 transit projects in 10 years instead of 30. If we are successful, our 30/10 initiative will bring 166,000 jobs to Los Angeles and give Angelenos an alternative to cars, traffic, congestion and gridlock on the roads.
And as I reflect on our efforts to build the Los Angeles of the future — whether it is through planned development or infrastructure investment — I must reiterate that the most important thing we can do is invest in our greatest asset: our young people.
To maintain our status as a global city, we must ensure that every young Angeleno has access to a world-class education, regardless of income, race, or ability. That is why I partnered with parents, teachers, principals, the school district and school board, and the charter, business and non-profit communities to bring choice and competition to LA’s public schools.
By the end of 2011, nearly a hundred new or failing schools will have been given a new chance at success through the Public School Choice resolution, allowing anyone with a proven track record of success to bid to operate a campus.
My Partnership schools continue on their trajectory towards success: this year, the 21 Partnership Schools averaged a 21-point increase in Academic Performance Index (API) score, outpacing the average growth at LA Unified and the average growth statewide.
As we approach 2011 and think about the year ahead, I would like to thank you for helping to making Los Angeles the best it can be. Warm wishes for a joyous holiday season.
It Is Time for Teachers Unions to Join the Education Reform Team
12/7/10 @ 3:35pm by Antonio Villaraigosa
In the 60s, when I was in school, the California public school system was the gold standard--a national model that complemented our State's image as a land of opportunity.
Today, our schools rank in the bottom third among all states, we are out-spent by $2,400 per pupil, and we fail to graduate a full quarter of our students. What happened?
Well, I've spent an entire career fighting to fund and reform our public schools--first as a teacher union organizer, then as an Assembly Member and Speaker, and now as a Mayor.
In the past five years, I've partnered with students, parents, non-profits, business groups, higher education, charter organizations, school district leadership, elected board members, and teachers to engage in meaningful change.
Along the way, there has been one, unwavering roadblock to reform: teacher union leadership.
When we fought to change the seniority-based layoff system that was disproportionately hurting our neediest students, the teachers union fought back.
When we fought to empower parents to turn around failing schools and bring in outside school operators with proven records of success, the teachers union fought back.
And now, while we try to measure teacher effectiveness in order to reward the best teachers and replace the tiny portion who aren't helping our kids learn, the teachers union fights back.
It's not easy for me to say this. I started out as an organizer for UTLA (United Teachers Los Angeles), and I don't have an anti-union bone in my body. The teachers unions aren't the biggest or the only problem facing our schools, but for many years now, they have been the most consistent, most powerful defenders of the unacceptable status quo.
I know that no one cares more about our kids or our schools than teachers. They know better than anyone how desperately we need to create quality schools where teachers are supported, honored, and paid what they are worth. Schools where students are engaged, parents are involved, and test scores are rising.
So as California welcomes new leadership to the statehouse, I call on the teachers' unions to join the reform team again. I call on them to join students and parents, business and non-profit groups, charter organizations, higher education, and school district leadership. I call on them join all of us at the reform table, ready with ideas, excited for change, and willing to say yes.
Our public schools should be the embodiment of the American dream: places where people are judged on achievement, rewarded on merit, and anyone willing to work hard can succeed.
Let's come together, put our kids first, and once again make California's public schools the envy of the nation.
12/1/10 @ 3:41 by Antonio Villaraigosa
This morning I was thrilled to take part in what is quickly becoming a fantastic tradition at one of my Partnership schools: "Donuts with Dad," at 99th Street Elementary School in Watts.
Now in its third year, Donuts with Dad brings fathers and community members into school to read to students in the morning hour. The program began when 99th Street School Principal Sherri Williams made an alarming discovery. In speaking with students and their families, she realized that upwards of 50% of children enrolled at her school don't live in the same household as their fathers. Whether they reside with a single mom, grandparents, other relatives, or foster parents, Williams realized that far too many of her students were missing out on spending quality time with their fathers or a father figure.
Having been raised by a single mom myself, I feel for kids who are often sad, hurt, or confused about the lack of a relationship with their dad. That's why Donuts with Dad is such a great event. It not only encourages positive father-child bonding over breakfast and books, it brings dads into school and engages them in the education of their child.
It was truly touching to see over one hundred fathers participate alongside community members from the LAPD and LAFD, who joined in to read with kids who don't have fathers in their lives.
I am so proud of all the students, teachers, and the school leadership team at 99th Street School. Not just for their incredible academic achievements over the past two years, but also for their efforts to ensure the entire community is invested in their success. I can't wait to join you for donuts again next year!
11/18/10 @ 4:46pm by Antonio Villaraigosa
Cruisin' in fast and strong, the Auto Show makes its 103rd annual pit stop to Los Angeles this week, bringing along energy, technology, and, most importantly, opportunity to our city.
The automotive industry has always been linked to our City's economic health. The Auto Show alone generates about 20% of the Convention Center's annual revenue, and auto dealers are the largest contributor of sales tax--approximately $271 million--to the City's budget.
Oh, and about the dealers employ about 5,200 hard-working Angelenos.
But now the auto industry can be linked to our city's sustainability as well. This year, the Auto Show presents a unique moment of opportunity for us: we're standing at the forefront of the electric vehicle revolution, and it's time to transform LA from the car capital of the world, into the <em>electric car capital of the world.</em>
So today, I announced that the City of Los Angeles will be leveraging the LADWP's considerable resources to enhance our electric vehicle support grid, encourage Angelenos to purchase electric cars, and create good local jobs in our growing green economy.
Times are tough, so the DWP is offering an EV discount of 2.5 cents per kilowatt-hour to encourage EV owners to charge during off-peak, nighttime hours. In other words, a family who currently spends about $60 per week on gasoline for one car could pay as little as $15 on their electric bill by charging their vehicle over night.
Not only does this save money, it saves energy!
With automotive companies like Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ram, and Fiat offering electric vehicle cars just a mere mile away at the Downtown Auto District, we can steer Los Angeles away from the unsustainable path of pollution, dependency, and waste, and turn towards a cleaner, greener future.
The manufacturers here today have made it clear: the Los Angeles is an early launch market for electric vehicle deployment.
So today, we are making a clear statement back:<strong> LA is ready for electric cars.</strong>
Ahead of our goals: "Housing that Works"
11/18/10 @3:52pm by Antonio Villaraigosa
In 2008 I released the first comprehensive plan to meet LA’s housing needs. It was an unprecedented effort to coordinate all City and County planning departments in an effort to fight homelessness and invest in affordable housing.
The resulting plan, called Housing that Works, sets ambitious five-year targets for financing affordable housing units for working families, and permanent supportive housing for the homeless. The plan would double the number affordable housing units Los Angeles.
And yesterday, at a City Summit on Sustainable Housing, I was proud to report that we are not only on pace to meet our goals, we are out-pacing our goals.
In the past 3 years we have financed 9,278 units of affordable housing, outpacing our goals for low income working families by 117% and our goals for permanent supportive housing for the homeless by 114%.
Our affordable housing plan is critical for Los Angeles—it means better transit networks, less pollution, and less freeway congestion. And it cuts at the root of homelessness by coupling permanent housing with the social and health services the homeless need to get off the streets for good.
We will continue to work with our local partners, and to strategically leverage every dollar available for affordable housing. I am committed to meeting the targets we set in my Housing that Works plan, because I am committed to investing in our fellow Angelenos.