Curbside Briefs with the Mayor on Scene in Boyle Heights for Friday

Mayor Eric Garcetti takes his "Back to Basics Tour" curbside in CD 14's ( and a certain local councilman home turf) Boyle Heights Neighborhood.

Meet your Mayor curbside in CD 14. Photo from Mayor Garcetti Facebook Page.

 

Pardon us for our lateness this Friday AM, but in the interest in providing the most up to date blogging coverage, we bring you curb side on First Street in Boyle Heights, your Mayor Eric Garcetti, reinventing the basics of constituent outreach.

Somewhere in the great political rest home in the sky, the late CD 14 City Councilman Art Snyder must be smiling upon Mayor Eric Garcetti, for this splendid act of community outreach in his old political stronghold. In his day, the late Irish Politician set the standard for constituent services that have not been replicated since, but today, Mayor Garcetti brought back the Councilman Snyder spirit with this morning's curbside visit/ outreach event.

We would hope that Mayor Garcetti curbside outreach becomes a regular event and not a former Mayor Antonio Villar-like act of photo op symbolism. That said, we have a few local topics to share with Mayor Garcetti, as he stops curb side on his Back to Basis Tour.

** Its still all about DWP Reform: The LA Times discloses another damning report on the lack of accounting for $40 Million Dollars in DWP Ratepayer Money that went into the pockets of DWP Administrators and their IBEW Union Friends. The issues with this "connected non-profit", is indicative of the need of open and transparent oversight of the numerous connected community based organizations (CBOs), that rely on public money for their sustainability.   

** Preserving Green Space and Parkland: Just north on Soto Street from today's curbside event, community activists are fighting a "David vs. Goliath Battle" against the "University of Scandalous Conduct's" (USC) attempt to encroach on historic parkland to asphalt a paper street and widen Soto Street. Mayor Garcetti needs to pledge that no green space or parkland will be sacrifice for commercial development, and further, take pro-active measures to designate historic spaces (National Historic Status for Hazard Park, in honor of Educator Sal Castro), in the spirit of future preservation. 

** Overhaul the GRYD Department and reinvent Summer Night Lights: The blunt reality of the GRYD Program under during the fail two terms of Mayor Villar, was that it was a tool of paying off supporters of the Mayor and not an instrument of decreasing the proliferation of street gangs. The SNL Program after five years needs a reinvention from its current incarnation of being a "holding pen program" that fosters community segregation, and not trans-communal inner action.

In the weeks, months, and years ahead, we will surely share our thoughts with Mayor Garcetti, on his repeated visits back to CD 14. Yut again, we must credit the new Mayoral Officeholder for this teachable moment in Constituent Services, after all, it was not long ago that an alleged, dubious act of "curbside misconduct", took place on the same street.

Your thoughts ...............

Scott Johnson in CD 14