League of Women Voters of California Education Fund
Los Angeles County, CA March 3, 2015 Election
	Paul Krekorian Answers Questions Candidate for Council Member; City of Los Angeles; District 2

The questions were prepared by the League of Women Voters of Los Angeles and asked of all candidates for this office.
Read the answers from all candidates (who have responded).

Questions & Answers

1. What do you think is the single most important issue facing the City of Los Angeles today? As Council Member, what would you do to deal with it?

The City's budget deficit is still the central issue that impacts all other City concerns. It not only affects city services for residents, it also affects the very livelihood of thousands of City employees. We need to work collaboratively together to find ways to enhance revenues and create efficiencies while still maintaining the high level of service our residents rely upon from our public employees. We also need to grapple with the lasting impacts of the international financial meltdown and fight to ensure the integrity of our public employees' pensions and guarantee their retirement security.

I am running for re-election to continue to do the best job I can for my constituents and to keep fighting for a better city. There is much that I have started that I am committed to seeing through. Over the past few years, my colleagues on the City Council and I have pulled the City of Los Angeles out of a dire budgetary situation and, as the economy rebounds, I want to restore services that were cut during the recession.

2. The City Administrative Officer has estimated a $300 million budget shortfall for 2015-2016. What steps do you propose to deal with this problem and how much do you estimate each step would reduce the shortfall?

When I joined the Council in 2010 the City projected a budget deficit of $1.1 billion dollars in this fiscal year. Thanks in large measure to my leadership as Budget Chair and the positive relationship I've insisted upon with our labor partners, we eliminated the majority of that deficit and created a more stable fiscal condition for the City without massive layoffs. For fiscal year 2015-2016, it is down to $165 million. We have come a long way. We are now in a position that we can begin planning for service restoration as the economy improves, but we still need to ensure that we always carefully assess the best ways to perform services cost effectively. We will need to continue to prioritize and evaluate the services we provide and determine where we can realize efficiencies and cost savings in doing so. This kind of assessment should be done in partnership with the City's employees, who often are best able to identify potential cost savings. Most important of all, we need to add jobs and grow our local economy so that our revenues increase. The work I've done in the State Assembly and in the City Council to save film and television jobs, for example, is already producing hundreds of millions of dollars in economic activity in Los Angles, all of which adds considerably to our tax revenues that can be used for needed public services.

3. What is the single most important issue facing your Council District today, and how would you deal with it?

Economic growth throughout the City of Los Angeles has been uneven. There are (at least) two components to that growth: development and jobs.

While some parts of my district desire and need development and growth, other areas are already over-developed and do not need (and cannot realistically handle) more housing density. I do not favor a one-size-fits-all approach to planning and growth. I believe every development project should be evaluated in partnership with the community. My fundamental philosophy is that community buy-in, along with mitigating impacts on the community, is essential.

On the jobs side, we need to create the environment to sustain good jobs that support working families. That is why I support raising the citywide minimum wage in a sustainable and thoughtful manner that balances the need for retaining and creating good jobs and good pay with the need to foster and support our local small businesses and continued economic growth.

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Responses to questions asked of each candidate are reproduced as submitted to the League.  Candidates' answers are presented as submitted.

Read the answers from all candidates (who have responded).

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Created from information supplied by the candidate: January 31, 2015 11:07
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