Focused on protecting you and the City we call home
For too long the LA City Attorney’s office has relied on costly litigation strategies that do not deliver results. Bureaucracy and showy lawsuits do not solve problems. Building meaningful partnerships and implementing collaborative, cost effective and legally sound policy will.
HOMELESSNESS
- Halt costly no-bid contracts driving the cost of transitional housing, sapping other services and providing an invitation to corruption. The current cost of housing funded by the City is $2-3000 per square foot while the average market cost is $2-300 per square foot. The LEAST expensive housing built by the City at $1,016 per square foot is for a 64 square foot shed (palette or “tiny house”) with 2 beds but no indoor plumbing, kitchen, or bath. If we just reduced the price from $2-3000 the City spends to market we could build 70,000 units with the current funding projected to build 7000 units.
- Avoid developers having to cobble together costly and cumbersome financing by revising funding structure for HHH and other affordable housing to match current market conditions.
- Streamline the building approval process – bring all of the various agencies and departments involved in housing approvals into a single review process for all affordable and publicly funded projects, generate pre-approved engineering and site preparation plans, and expand over the counter approvals by right for affordable housing.
- Access the City’s fair share of public health and mental health funding, grants and resources and amend the City/County 1964 agreement on public health services.
- Public spaces are not acclimated for housing– we need to protect the unhoused and the surrounding communities by providing safe shelter and services so that we can all regain access to our public spaces for public use.
AN LA THAT IS SAFE FOR ALL
- Develop and implement a Neighborhood Law Corps (based on Oakland’s cross between Legal Aid and Peace Corps) to work with community based policing, mobile medical units as required and social service workers so as to improve responsiveness and service throughout the City.
- Promote and protect clean air and water and a safe environment for every community in the City regardless of zip code.
- Enforce inspection and other requirements to prevent or mitigate environmental damage before it starts and enforce the law with consequences for those responsible for harm.
- Halt incentives driving labor trafficking, and assess payroll taxes on unpaid wages against traffickers.
- Increase resources for preventing domestic violence, sex trafficking and elder abuse.
- Zero tolerance for hate crimes and attacks on Angelenos of any race, gender, color, religion, orientation or identity.
- Get guns out of the hands of dangerous people, separately charge and request consecutive sentencing for ghost guns and their component parts and protect us all from serial offenders.
- Protect LA’s ability to plan and provide for strong and livable neighborhoods.
- Make timely charging decisions fairly for analogous circumstances and explain decisions to the defendants, the victims and the public.
- Obtain and make available general data and statistics on the number and composition of arrests, charges, diversion and prosecution decisions made by our criminal justice system and ensure that racial disparate impacts are addressed and stopped.
ACCOUNTABILITY & ROOTING OUT CORRUPTION
Corruption has cast a shadow on City Hall for years now. Sitting elected officials have been repeatedly charged with bribery and malfeasance, and its destroying public trust. A 595-page Special Master’s report this year concluded that 5 lawyers employed by our current City Attorney’s Office violated the rules of professional conduct. Our City Attorney’s office was raided by the FBI and the Department of Justice and a top leader in the City Attorney’s Office has plead guilty to a federal charge of extortion. I will serve as an independent elected official committed to rooting out the culture of corruption that permeates our local government.
I will:
- Shut down or expose the pathway of corruption that results from no-bid contracts and other misspending of public funds;
- Shut down or expose dynastic backscratching whether by vote trading, seat switching, appointments for political favors or generally “handing down” appointments and employment as political favors rather than on the basis of open outreach and competence;
- Protect whistleblowers and implement best practices for reporting waste, illegality or harassment;
- Work with the Controller’s Office and the Ethics Commission (both of which have subpoena powers) to ensure compliance with public records act requests and obligations, full and accurate audits, transparency and accountability; and
- Enforce the Charter and City ethics codes.
