As Mayor Garcetti Tours the Country Touting His Progressive Bonafides to Voters in Key States, City of L.A. Workers and Residents Take to the Streets to Urge the Mayor to Focus His Efforts Here at Home, Citing His Broken Promise to Create 5,000 Jobs by June 2018, and Worsening Urban Blight Across Los Angeles
LOS ANGELES—As Mayor Garcetti continues his quest for the White House – campaigning state-to-state and fundraising with celebrities like Jimmy Kimmel and DJ Khaled – City of L.A. workers and community residents are calling on him to finish his work in Los Angeles first. Just three years ago, the Mayor promised Angelenos the creation of 5,000 new jobs and the restoration of city services still suffering from drastic Great Recession-era cuts. As trash continues to pile up in alleys across the city, sidewalks and roads remain in disrepair, and skyrocketing 311 and 911 wait times threaten public safety, City workers and residents will urge the mayor to make good on his promises here at home.
WHO: City of Los Angeles employees, residents, community organizations, and clergy
WHAT: City of Los Angeles Employees, Residents to Mayor Eric Garcetti: “Quit Campaigning and Fix L.A.”
WHEN: Wednesday, October 10, 2018 at 9:30 A.M.
WHERE: City Hall – Spring Street Steps, 200 N. Spring St., Los Angeles, CA 90012
BACKGROUND: After the Great Recession hit a decade ago, services in the City of Los Angeles were cut dramatically and a municipal hiring freeze was implemented with the explicit understanding that City staffing would be restored to meet the needs of Angelenos once the economy had improved. That did not happen. Moreover, in his State of the City address in May, Mayor Eric Garcetti touted booming revenues and strong finances and signed the biggest budget in City history. Yet he still did not authorize one penny more for additional hiring.
This was all despite the Mayor’s promise – this time, signed personally by him at a media event in 2016 – to restore services and hire from among targeted, vulnerable communities. Instead, the Mayor has wildly overstated the number of jobs created since then, while tacitly supporting the CAO’s instruction to City departments NOT to fill vacancies. Meanwhile, communities across Los Angeles, but particularly in lower income areas, continue to be shortchanged by inadequate municipal services (alley maintenance, street repair, park programming, etc.) as well as being denied a pathway to good middle class civil service jobs. Though Mayor Garcetti claims to have made progress on sanitation through the Clean Streets Program, residents can cite multiple examples of streets, alleys and walkways still in need of cleaning and repair. Similarly, Mayor Garcetti’s efforts to mitigate homelessness have fallen short.
City of Los Angeles workers and residents will remind Mayor Garcetti that a successful run for the U.S. Presidency typically follows a track record of success in one’s hometown. Any major municipal project or endeavor – including work on the Tillman Advanced Water Treatment Facility, clean-up of the San Fernando Valley aquifers, refilling the Silver Lake Reservoir or providing adequate staffing and maintenance for a future Summer Olympics – cannot materialize without a meaningful investment in services to create a better quality of life for all Angelenos.
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Contact: Roxane Marquez, (213) 705-1078, roxane.marquez@seiu721.org
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