Filing for City Elections Begins
Five candidates will be running for Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's position. Villaraigosa will not be serving next year because of term limits.
The mayoral candidates include City Council members Eric Garcetti and Jan Perry, City Controller Wendy Greuel, former Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin James and tech company executive Emmanuel Pleitez.
Those who have announced their candidacies for City Controller include president of Quality and Productivity Commission Ron Galperin, activist Cary Brazeman and Councilman Dennis Zine.
City Attorney Carmen Trutanich will be running for his spot against California State Assemblyman Mike Feuer, D-Los Angeles. Feuer ran for city attorney in 2001, but was unsuccessful. The politician is currently completing his final term in the assembly.
Other seats on the March 5 ballot are in the First, Third, Fifth, Seventh, Ninth, 11th, 13th and 15th districts. In addition, candidates will be running for Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education for the Second, Fourth and Sixth districts and Los Angeles Community College District Board of Trustees seats 2, 4, 6 and 7.
Candidates have until noon on Saturday to file a declaration of intention to run for any office. Those who have already declared their candidacies will be able to obtain nomination petittions on Saturday. Completed nominating petitions can be filed until 5 p.m. on Dec. 5.
Will Angelenos fight to save LA? - Draiman
LA’s most immediate issues that voting Angelenos face, the spring of 2013 and the Mayoral and City Council races of Los Angeles are around the corner, and is already on the mind of Angelenos who wonder how or even if the mayoral contenders who wish to replace Antonio Villaraigosa are able and can keep the city out of Chapter 9 bankruptcy.
LA’s current financial crisis bring about, the need to confront whether Chapter 9 bankruptcy, and/or the need of voters to say no to new City taxes and threaten a Chapter 9 bankruptcy in order to establish further and necessary charter reform, is a fundamental question that might be fair to proclaim as a legacy of the outgoing Villaraigosa mayoral tenure.
The five main mayoral contenders (insiders City Controller Wendy Greuel, City Councilmember Eric Garcetti, City Councilmember Jan Perry and the two outsiders; Prosecutor Kevin James and Energy specialist YJ Draiman) will all need to ask themselves whether they can truly keep Los Angeles out of Chapter 9 bankruptcy, or if they are willing and have the courage to confront it as a method of reversing the heretofore-irreversible operating problems in Los Angeles that have occurred during and even before Mayor Villaraigosa’s terms as mayor.
Why would anyone with a sound mind elect any of the insiders; they have been in LA City Hall for over ten years and have brought the city of LA to its current crisis, they have failed the people, they do not deserve a chance to destroy our city further.
Angelenos have a chance to replace about seventy percent of the current elected officials at LA City Hall. Let us take advantage and elect a new breed of leaders with fresh ideas and no allegiance to the political machine or the special interests groups.
The mayoral contenders will need to explain how they can truly represent Angelenos homeowners, other residents and businesses while also pursuing closed-door sessions with intransigent public unions that currently exclude ordinary Angelenos. They will need to answer those who want further charter reform that would empower, and not marginalize, neighborhood councils that best represent the grassroots leadership of LA neighborhoods.
And, of course, the mayoral contenders will have to explain their own solutions to job creation, business friendly attitude, transportation and infrastructure visions as well as how to take on the independent-but-interdependent LAUSD administration and teachers unions, and much more.
During elections, there are many words spoken that usually fail to produce action, and after elections the need to see action is by far more important than mere words. But the challenges and hopes, and the failures, established by the lackluster eight years of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa cannot be ignored. The City of Los Angeles is now in its worst economic and financial condition since the 1930’s.
Many people and businesses are leaving the city. The people of LA have lost their trust in the government and the various special interests groups that are milking the city
Los Angeles needs a strong innovative leader who can unify the various factions in the city, and form a unified cohesive force to overcome the current crises and dissention. Every faction must be willing to compromise or we are doomed.
We must put all our differences aside and it is imperative that we all work together for the betterment of the city and its population. We have a saleable product; let us promote it, market it and sell it.
After all it is a government by the people for the people.
YJ Draiman
http://www.draimanenterprises.com/