Candidate for
Council Member; City of Los Angeles; District 13

In his district, Councilmember Eric Garcetti has focused on bringing government and local services closer to the neighborhoods he serves. During his first eight years, he has built twenty-two new parks, seen fifteen new schools built, taken more than 4 million pounds of bulky items off city streets, and reduced graffiti by over 78% over the last four years with his nationally-lauded UNTAG program. Eric has met face-to-face with more than 2,000 constituents during his trademark office-hours and he is well-known for his monthly neighborhood walks and community coffees. He has also launched innovative new programs to train community members such as the Grassroots Neighborhood Leadership Institute and the Local Government 101, Planning 101, and Housing 101 workshops. During his time in office, he has helped add more than eight hundred police officers to the streets of Los Angeles, crime has fallen by double digits in all three police divisions in his district, and he has doubled the amount of money spent on youth and gang intervention programs, including launching a widely-lauded program to keep our parks open late during the summer hours to keep our neighborhoods safe.

Councilmember Garcetti authored more than 400 successful resolutions, including legislation to indemnify the neighborhood improvement activities of community groups; open the doors of opportunity to high school students through the innovative Free Cash for College program; reduce and simplify the city's business tax; open homeless shelters year-round; create the country's largest environmentally conscious "green building" initiative; establish the city's first Office of Immigrant Affairs; expand spay and neuter programs; fund a new Neighborhood Land Trust to build new parks in the city; grow jobs through the Healthcare Jobs Career Ladder initiative; increase funding for gang intervention programs; expand partner benefits for the employees of city contractors; and launch a system of citywide "furniture-buster" crews to remove bulky items from city streets.

He has also led efforts to promote responsible economic development in Los Angeles through his supercenter initiative and co-chaired ballot initiatives to strengthen ethics laws and to clean up the city's rivers, lakes, and bays.