Brad Smith for L.A. City Council – District 12 - Candidate - 2011

Brad Smith for L.A. City Council – District 12 - Candidate - 2011

BRAD SMITH, Neighborhood Council Boardmember - Los Angeles City Council District 12 (CD 12) Candidate - 2011 Have you had enough?
•	Enough of downtown bureaucrats and City Hall insiders, who don't live in our community, making decisions that ruin our neighborhoods through over-development and blight?
•	Do you want proactive problem solving and attention to the real needs of our neighborhoods and residents?
I was born and raised in CD 12, and I want to see real change — which is why I would like your help.

Council District 12 is at a cross-roads: we must decide whether to protect and maintain single-family residential neighborhoods, or allow unlimited development. The current leadership has given us decades of over-development, traffic, and only paid lip service to residents' concerns. It is time for a change.
The city of Los Angeles is also at a cross-roads: whether we chose to live within our means, and fund only the essential public services while rebuilding our existing infrastructure, or continue to spend taxpayers’ money on special deals for special interests.
We need to make the investments necessary to re-build our manufacturing economy, or we will continue to lose out economically, as good white collar and blue collar jobs flee the city for out of state and overseas. We can restore manufacturing jobs in Los Angeles.
I have worked in the private sector in highly competitive industries my entire professional life; I know what it takes to deliver a project on time or early and on or under budget. City Hall needs to learn how to do the same. I can help make that happen.
Once the Los Angeles City Charter was amended to allow the creation of neighborhood councils, I was eager to volunteer— again, because I knew the powers-that-be in City Hall are not looking out for our interests; they are looking out for their own.
In 2006, I had the great honor of being elected as a founding member of the Granada Hills South Neighborhood Council Board of Directors. I was elected vice-president in 2007, and re-elected to both the board and vice-presidency in 2010.
Since 2006, I have worked with the rest of the council on planning and land-use issues, fighting over-building and overdevelopment, supporting intelligent growth, and assisting our local civic groups and emergency services. I have advocated for the Council's support of beautification efforts throughout the district, notably for the Veteran's Triangle Memorial in Granada Hills, and for support of the Los Angeles Police and Fire departments, parks and libraries, and our local public schools. As parents of four children in LAUSD schools in CD 12, my wife Maria and I want our schools and our city to be working together as partners for safe and effective schools for our children and our community.   
Today, the mayor and the City Council are cutting spending on city parks, libraries, and all of the other services that make our community an inviting place to live. They are not, of course, cutting their own office budgets significantly, and few have cut their own salaries significantly.
As lifelong residents of the northwest San Fernando Valley, Maria and I have done our best to try and maintain our neighborhood as the kind of community we grew up in: a safe, and just as important, affordable middle class neighborhood within the city of Los Angeles.
From the neighborhood councils to City Hall, Angelenos need to fight to protect our communities. That is why I am involved, and that is why I would appreciate your vote in 2011 for Los Angeles City Council.Very respectfully,

Paid for by Brad Smith for City Council

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