‘As Mayor, I Will Create Jobs’

GARCETTI That headline sounds good, but what does that really mean? In my administration, creating jobs and improving the business climate will be accomplished by strategically assessing when government should step in and when it should get out of the way. I will aggressively pursue business growth on both sides of the hill – having been raised in the Valley, my commitment is personal. It starts with small businesses. Los Angeles possesses remarkable entrepreneurial potential. The Kauffman Foundation’s annual Index of Entrepreneurial Activity ranked Los Angeles first in the nation. The majority of Los Angeles’s employment is at small businesses. I’ve recognized this in my district work, where we’ve dramatically turned around neighborhoods like Hollywood, Silver Lake, Echo Park and Atwater Village by focusing on small business. Once empty storefronts have now transformed into thriving small business districts. You can see them for yourself on Cahuenga, Sunset and Glendale boulevards, as well as other blocks where vacancy, crime and grime were the norm before I took office. I found in my district that intervention from government is first and foremost appropriate to create a physical environment attractive to businesses and customers – cleaning the streets, fixing the streets, making the streets safer. As a result, today my district is ranked No. 1 in job growth. Government must also intervene when it comes to workforce readiness. Los Angeles is only as strong as our middle class, and middle class jobs require increasingly sophisticated skills. And as much as CEOs may enjoy our beaches, they will not locate companies here if they can’t find skilled employees. I have an aggressive plan to reform the city’s job training system that builds on my work including pioneering the Healthcare Career Ladder at L.A. City College. As mayor, I will implement a demand-based model that aligns training with employer needs and will create one-stop training and placement centers at community colleges that bring together disparate job programs under one roof. My agenda also includes bringing together L.A.’s various job training administrators so we are all pursuing a unified strategy. This year, for example, I had to step in to save the Van Nuys aviation training program after conflicting priorities by the city airport department and Los Angeles United School District threatened to close it. Equally important is how I will work to get government out of the way so businesses can thrive. It shouldn’t take a lobbyist to start a business. Nor should a visit to one counter lead to three other counters. That’s why I partnered with a local tech company to create a one-stop online source for the paperwork needed to open a business. With three clicks of a mouse, people can get the necessary city, county, state and federal paperwork. As mayor, I will appoint Los Angeles’ first chief technology officer to deploy systems that will make city hall more responsive to businesses. It’s one thing for a politician to promise to cut red tape. But it’s another for the bureaucratic culture to change. That’s why on day one of my administration, I will require every department head to reapply for his or her job. I will hold them accountable to public performance-based metrics. As mayor, I will apply clear benchmarks related to permit-processing times. And I will organize my business team around specific industry sectors to be more responsive.  In addition, I will advance my current legislation to eliminate the city’s business tax, which drives businesses away by being the highest in the county and which is assessed on “gross receipts,” meaning it taxes businesses even when they lose money. I’m proud that I’ve already led on the elimination of the tax for small businesses, an across-the-board cut for the rest and targeted cuts for new Internet and entertainment businesses. On a broader policy basis, I will pursue a strategic approach that targets industries on the upswing. For example, I will build on my work on the nation’s largest green building ordinance, solar rooftop program and low-impact development ordinance to spur as much as $2 billion in private and public investment in the new green economy and the creation of 20,000 local jobs. I also will prepare our city for the tech economy. I will create partnerships to make sure our kids are learning the languages they need to compete – not just foreign languages, but also computer programming languages. I will support a network of incubators to fuel innovation and establish a new office to partner with our universities to keep scientists and engineers here in L.A. Eric Garcetti is a member of the Los Angeles City Council and a candidate for mayor.