Issues

Keeping Neighborhoods Safe

Neighborhood safety is the foundation of our quality of life. As a local police officer, I know what is taking place in Harbor area neighborhoods. I have seen the pain that victims of crime experience. I understand the fear and insecurity that crimes, both petty and serious, cause to law-abiding citizens, especially our senior citizens.

I will monitor and demand full use of the gang injunction by appropriate government agencies. I will fight to protect and secure law enforcement resources for the entire District. I will stay connected with the leaders of the LAPD to make sure they have the support they need from other City agencies. Finally, I will engage Neighborhood Councils to assist in helping to take back our neighborhoods.

Jobs and Local Economic Development

Over 12% of Los Angeles residents are out of work. As a police officer, I have experienced firsthand what happens when people are out of work—too many turn to drugs and crime to make ends meet because they have too few opportunities. As your next City Councilmember, my top priority will be to bring new jobs to our communities and to improve economic vitality in the District.

Good, middle class jobs are the backbone of our local economy and serve as the support structure of our local property values. We need to take inventory of what we have and what the base of our local economy is: Port jobs – both blue and white collar. Our forefathers built a port that has provided good jobs for generations of Harbor area residents. As your Councilmember, I will come to work every day with a strong passion to secure the waterfront jobs that we already have. More importantly, I will strive toward leveraging the nation’s largest port complex into developing a broad scope of 21st Century marine science and green technology jobs.

Over the next two weeks, I will be rolling out a four-point jobs plan to encourage job growth here in the Harbor area and across the District. This plan will include an emphasis on dynamic waterfront development in Wilmington and San Pedro; a focus on marine science and green technology job growth opportunities; support for small business owners in San Pedro, Watts, Wilmington Harbor City and Harbor Gateway; and strong leadership in preventing the loss of port-related jobs to the expansion of the Panama Canal in 2014.

I want to build upon the traditions and lessons of hard work that I experienced as I watched my father, an immigrant fisherman, make the American Dream a reality. I know today, as in the past, that people are willing to work just as hard to buy a home and raise a family. I believe the American Dream is still alive and I will make it my mission and my responsibility to bring well-paying, sustainable jobs to our District and keep our communities strong.

Public Services

We must have neighborhoods where you and your family feel safe and comfortable. As your City Councilmember, I will ensure that our district gets its fair share of city services. Your problems, whether they are trash, fire hazards or crime, will be my top priority.

I will support our police, fire fighters, sanitation workers and other public employees by giving them the resources they need to make our communities strong, clean, and protected. I will work for fair and responsible reform in the DWP that protects ratepayers without antagonizing management or labor.

Captains in the LAPD use a computer-based program that monitors their decisions, holding Captains accountable to those they serve. I will fight to implement this system in every city department in order to cut waste, improve output and keep general managers accountable for their actions.

Wilmington and Watts Youth Facilities

As a police officer, I have learned that safe neighborhoods are aided by law enforcement, but law enforcement alone cannot create safe neighborhoods. Communities must include positive programs and facilities for young people to help them avoid the negative trap of unsupervised time.

In Wilmington and Watts, I will make it one of my top priorities to improve public parks, especially facilities that can or do provide positive programs for kids. I envision a community-based needs assessment, followed by renovations and expansions of youth facilities, so that demand, not supply, will determine levels of participation and the quality of programming for our young people.

Improving Sober Living and Rehab Strategies

Recovering from a drug addiction is very difficult, and drug dealers know this. Currently, San Pedro houses more facilities that treat addicts than most communities do, attracting drug dealers to our neighborhoods who prey on those that are doing their best to get clean.

We need to make sure Sober Living Homes and rehab facilities are spread throughout the city – not encouraging a hub for the illegal drug trade. The Harbor Area should do its part, but it should not shoulder the burden for the rest of the Los Angeles area.

I will work with the City Attorney’s office, local law enforcement and local community leaders to gather the facts and develop strategic initiatives that will strike a fair balance of such services not only in San Pedro but the greater Harbor Area as well.

Downtown San Pedro and Rancho San Pedro Housing

The recent decision by the Navy to steer service-members away from San Pedro and towards Long Beach during Navy Week (through the use of Red Zones on Navy maps) mirrors past conduct by the cruise ship industry. While the Red Zones on these maps were exaggerated, we can no longer leave our business community alone to fight these perceptions about downtown.

It is not enough for elected officials to merely make statements about defending the safety of the downtown area. It is time for action.

We need a comprehensive neighborhood safety strategy that supports our business community’s efforts. It starts with addressing the downtown Rancho San Pedro Housing facility, which was built as temporary military housing in the 1940s and has been converted to public housing. We must leverage local success stories that have taken place in developments that were once gang-infested, such as Dana Strand in Wilmington, Normont Terrace in Harbor City, as well as in the greater Los Angeles area.

Modern developments such as these are innovative examples of redeveloping public housing and revitalizing depressed neighborhoods. I believe in public housing that serves struggling families who follow the rules while locking troublemakers out. I will fight to make Red Zones a thing of the past and Operation Pirate Town (the gang sweep), a distant memory.

Protecting Our Environment

Air quality will always be an issue in a metropolitan area with this many freeways and this much industry. In the Harbor area there is the additional truck, rail and ship pollution that comes with our transportation-based economy.

As a proud member of the Green Advisory Committee for the California Conservation Corps, I have studied and discussed ways to grow our local economy while leaving a clean environment for future generations.

Here in the Harbor area, we need to encourage newer, cleaner maritime and transportation technologies, while promoting green job growth, energy conservation measures, and other environmental sustainability efforts.