League of Women Voters of California Education Fund
Los Angeles County, CA May 21, 2013 Election
	Gilbert "Gil" Cedillo Answers Questions Candidate for Council Member; City of Los Angeles; District 1

The questions were prepared by the League of Women Voters of Los Angeles and asked of all candidates for this office.
Read the answers from all candidates (who have responded).

Questions & Answers

1. What do you think is the single most important issue facing the City of Los Angeles today? As Council Member, what would you do to deal with it?

Our city faces a peculiar conundrum: a lack of jobs, but at the same time, a shortfall in skilled labor. Nowhere is that more true than in Council District 1, where we have seen the worst job growth in the city, and unemployment soars above national averages. As a member of the City Council, I will work together with business leaders, community groups, working people, Community Colleges, and our local universities to create robust and effective job training programs that can prepare the young people in my district for the skilled jobs of the future. For too long, the people in the lower-income neighborhoods of Los Angeles have been written off and ignored, and I will make sure that they have access to the real-world training they need to succeed.

2. 85% of the City's General Fund Budget is for personnel costs. If forced to cut costs to balance the budget, would you favor reducing the number of employees or asking existing employees to accept lower wages and/or reduced benefits?

We have made years worth of one-time cuts, and they have gotten us nowhere. The fact of the matter is that the deficit is caused by the rate of change of spending, not that we're spending too much in an absolute sense. We need to get a grip on the structural issues that cause spending growth to exceed revenue growth, and we need to get away from this notion that "one more round of layoffs" or "one more round of furloughs" will fix everything. I am endorsed by the L.A. Area Chamber of Commerce and the L.A. County Federation of Labor because working people and businesses trust me to come together, bring everybody to the table, and find a fair and equitable solution to the city's tough budget problems, and that is what I am going to do on the city council.

3. Do you support the DWP taking steps to reduce carbon emissions even if that will result in increased bills for ratepayers?

We need to work aggressively to reduce our carbon footprint, and in the long-run, that may mean that energy costs more in the future than it does today, but I believe that ultimately reducing our carbon footprint will be at least partly a question of technology, not just price signals. To that end, I will work with the DWP; leaders in the Cleantech Corridor, Silicon Beach, and the East L.A. Biotech cluster; environmental leaders; entrepreneurs; and interested stakeholders to see how the city can facilitate and speed up the development of the technologies that we need to mitigate our city's carbon footprint.

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Responses to questions asked of each candidate are reproduced as submitted to the League. 

Read the answers from all candidates (who have responded).

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Created from information supplied by the candidate: March 27, 2013 06:46
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