| Los Angeles County, CA | May 21, 2013 Election |
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Reform at City Hall in serving the small business community.By Mitch O'FarrellCandidate for Council Member; City of Los Angeles; District 13 |
This information is provided by the candidate | |
The city of Los Angeles has a well earned reputation of being hostile to the business community. There is a culture of complacency that pervades every department when small businesses try to open, expand, or improve.This culture of complacency is deeply institutionalized and has been for years. It is not because there are bad people at City Hall. It is because of the byzantine set of regulations that have been created over the years by elected leaders that hamstring our city workers ability to serve the public. There needs to be a complete overhaul of sensible regulations that serve our 322,000 small businesses. There is a direct correlation to our high unemployment in Los Angeles and the city's inability to adequately serve our small business community. We need to get this city and this District going again. Seven out of the ten zip codes in the 13th City Council District have unemployment higher than the city average; and Los Angeles has an unemployment rate significantly higher than the national average. I will: Create regulations that enable city workers at the Department of Building & Safety, City Planning, Housing, General Services, DOT, and Public Works to SERVE the public any time a "by right" project is applied for. For example, right now, even if an office wants to open and do tenant improvements and open, there is a minimal100 day "review" period. That's over 3 months of a business waiting to open just so someone at planning can eventually get to what is almost always a routine approval process. That's 3 months of lost revenue, unemployment, and no addition to the city's gross receipts tax - that eventually I would like to see reduced. But reform at City Hall must come first. I will: Coordinate my reform package with all departments and agencies that provide permits to small businesses including; LAFD, County Health, ABC, AQMD, etc. I will: Exhibit leadership to get Los Angeles back to what we used to be; an innovative job creation leader. |
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Created from information supplied by the candidate: March 26, 2013 15:52
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