L.A. City News · @lacitynews
27th Sep 2010 from Twitlonger
TRANSCRIPT - DAVID BARRON at L.A. City Council Candidate Forum (09/25/10): Thank you. Ladies and Gentlemen, I'm David Barron, Candidate for Council District 6.
The opponent is Tony Cardenas.
I currently work for the Los Angeles Housing Department as a code enforcement official.
I was born, raised & educated, right here, in Los Angeles. My wife is Cheryl Guttenberg-Barron. And our children have long been gone out of the house.
The City is teetering on bankruptcy because every year, the mayor and the city council continuously give out hundreds of millions of tax dollars to developers and the politically connected businesses, through the Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA).
If I am elected, I will do everything I can to stop this practice.
The City of Los Angeles has an unemployment rate of 14.7%. That's the highest in the state and entire nation. The main reason for that, is city hall has made this city a very difficult and terrible place for employers to do business.
We need jobs, and how do we attract employers? If I am elected, I am going to do everything that I can to repeal the city's business tax, which drives employers right out of this town.
Can we afford it? Absolutely. I just mentioned that the CRA hands out millions and millions of dollars.
If we can treat the public, the employers, with courtesy and equally, they will return back to the city of Los Angeles and bring us jobs.
Thank you.
JOHN SCHWADA (follow-up questions): Mayor Riordan was quoted recently as saying that perhaps the way out of the city's mess is to actually DECLARE bankruptcy -- and eliminate the obligations that the city has in terms of pensions and salaries. Is that an option that would be looked on favorably by you?
DAVID BARRON: That's an option. That's one point of view. My point of view regarding this pension is to have the pension plan managed by a major independent insurance company, such as ING, Fidelity...Vangaurd.
Independent administration would avoid any politically connected individuals from advising or directing the investments of city pension funds.
We need to study the potential of amending the current plan to redefine contribution plans. And shift more responsibility to the employees so they have the same kind of treatment as people in the private sector. No better, no worse.
JOHN SCHWADA QUESTION REGARDING BELL SCANDAL: Do you think abuses like those that occurred in Bell could happen in the city of Los Angeles. Do you think the conditions are right, for that?
DAVID BARRON: They are already present. What we should do, one way to address it, is just make available to the public, all costs related to elected officials; require the lobbyists to wear distinguishable ID badge when visiting city hall; make public, those documents of meetings with city officials; display all committees to the public, that is....make all committees available to the public WITH ORGANIZATIONAL CHARTS of all the members of boards and commissions.
What this does is prevent one individual from wearing many hats. For example, it prevents the treasurer from taking off his "treasure's" hat -- and walking over to another room to become the auditor. So that would prevent this by having the organizational chart available to the public.
And install an independent rate payer advocate at DWP. Thank you.
See this video, plus additional closing statement from David Barron at http://LACityNews.com.