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LWV League of Women Voters of California
Los Angeles County, CA March 4, 2003 Election
Smart Voter Political Philosophy for VJ Hirsch

Candidate for
Council Member; City of West Hollywood

[photo]
This information is provided by the candidate

As a candidate for West Hollywood City Council, I advocate a desire to build the family unit and provide solutions through consensus building. I believe government has no right in dictating lifestyles and I am concerned by partisan desires to erode our rights as individuals. If elected City Council Member of West Hollywood, I will work to understand the desires of the residents of West Hollywood and avoid any partisan skirmishing. West Hollywood is a beautiful, dynamic, and progressive icon within the state of California and the United States. The city has over 35,000 residents within a 1.9 square mile area creating a density of approximately 18,000 persons per square mile. The city caters to all walks of life from the same sex relationships support services and workshops to the beautiful parks, swimming pool, elderly support services, multiple play areas for toddlers, and special tot programs for the family. Past elections have shown special interests groups have dominated the public through divisive tactics. I will be working hard through my candidacy to answer any questions directly to all constituents. I am pleased to run for the City Council Position.

Voice

My primary objective will be giving the residents of West Hollywood a voice. The most prominent problem I see in speaking with residents is their lack of rapport with their representatives. My first objective will be to figure out innovative and dynamic methods of communicating with all West Hollywood residents: whether it be through block meetings, individually contacting, or any other possible medium to facilitate communication. Once a consensus is determined I will run the city in relation to the determined consensus. Unfortunately, I believe in this age of high speed communication and large conglomerate businesses, it is easy to make a decision in the best interest of a special interest group and not fashionable to take the time and figure out the desire of the residents.

Safety

I am very concerned about the safety of residents in West Hollywood, especially in areas where the night life is heavy. As a city we need to make certain appropriate funds are available for patrolling these areas. If the budget is lacking the businesses in those areas need to provide additional cash flows to finance the additional patrol costs. In addition, social services are very much apart of safety and believe that the budget deficit being faced is going to challenge city counsels to create innovative ways of partnering with businesses and strategies of taxing and enhancing businesses to continue funding social services which we all love and enjoy as West Hollywood residents.

Commerce

I believe any the city counsel has an unconditional responsibility to support commerce. The city needs to work very hard to provide innovative campaigns to improve the patronage of the industries in the city of West Hollywood. The world thinks of West Hollywood as an icon of nightlife and the counsel can continue to perpetuate this ambiance through assertively working with the businesses to have aggressive advertisement campaigns. This could be a primary solution of dealing with the budget crisis since money will be less plentiful more business trade creates an additional tax flow. The counsel, residents, and businesses are all going to need to work hard and together to effectively allocate the costs of parking structures and providing incentives to using mass transit in an effort to create additional parking, relieve traffic congestion, and improve residents safety.

Budget Crisis

As a counsel representative there are many efficiencies that need to be explored to save money. In addition, a zealous counsel member can work with businesses, federal, state, county, local agencies to form partnerships in providing services. Most important there needs to be a mechanism of measuring the satisfaction of the residents. Once this measurement device is determined, and understood, governmental agencies will find it much easier to cooperate among each other.

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Created from information supplied by the candidate: March 26, 2003 17:06
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