Stepping away from campaign rhetoric, what must the next mayor focus on to ensure a healthy and sustainable future for the largest city on the West Coast? Civic, business, labor, and intellectual readers offer advice to the next Mayor of Los Angeles.
Sometime after 8PM, May 21st, Angelenos will learn who will be the Mayor of Los Angeles for the next four years: City Councilmember Eric Garcetti or City Controller Wendy Gruel. The vote tabulation will end, for many, an uninspiring, media-spot popularity contest characterized much too often by lack of candor on how local government ought to respond to the pressing debt, unemployment, and public service reductions that have been awaiting responsible public leadership for years.
Unfortunately, too many eligible voters maintain unhealthy expectations of what either candidate can actually accomplish in office. Into this abyss of cynicism leaps The Planning Report, which sought opinions from an array of Los Angeles’ often unheralded civic, business, labor, and intellectual leaders to précis what they believe should headline the next mayor’s agenda. Their briefs cover a range of challenges and, in the aggregate, refute any focus group-generated assumption that the voters are only interested in their properties and waste, fraud, and abuse.
FULL STORY: The Next Mayor of Los Angeles' To-Do List Drawn from a Sampling of TPR Readers and Civic Leaders
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City of Albany
UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies
Mpact (formerly Rail~Volution)
Chaddick Institute at DePaul University
City of Piedmont, CA
Great Falls Development Authority, Inc.
HUDs Office of Policy Development and Research