Q: How Has The City Failed Constituents: City Council Candidate ZUMA DOGG Answers The Question

HERE IS MY RESPONSE TO A QUESTION ASKED BY ONE OF THE LOCAL NEWSPAPERS FOR AN UPCOMING FEATURE ON THE CD2 CITY COUNCIL ELECTION:

Q: Give an example of how the city fails its constituents and how you would change that.

David Saltsburg (Mr. Dogg): The most fundamental failure is that City Council doesn't appear to even be attempting to represent the constituents in the first place. They seem to be there to approve what special interests and powerful developers or anyone else with enough money tells them. And it has nothing to do with respecting community wishes. A lot of the problems with the system and calls for further actions to mandate ethics or demand Council involves Neighborhood Council, or whatever; starts with the decision that you are not going to be corrupt and you are there to do the job of reflecting the best interest of the community and the weekly paycheck, as Councilmember, is supposed to be enough. The city has failed it's constituents by putting the public safety of the constituents at risk through this irresponsible, selfish and arrogant attitude. It has backfired on them in this economy and they have proven they do not have the skill to handle the matter in a responsible fashion. That is what I am being sent to do: Stand up and start speaking the voice of the community.

A specific example, that I hear a lot about in CD 2 even more than in other areas across the city is how the constituents are frustrated how Planning and Building and Safety do not honor or carry out the community plan as approved by Neighborhood Councils. For example, ANGELES NATIONAL GOLF COURSE:There were 71 community mitigations like horse trails and pathways that they agreed to give the community in exchange for project approval.

The golf course has been operating under a temporary certificate of occupancy (C of O) until they can comply with the required mitigation. They keep getting temporaries, rather than forcing them to comply with the conditions agreed to when approved. It is my belief that these plans are approved with the "wink-wink" (or even more) from the City that the operators like these can just keep applying for these temporary certificates to keep operating without the approved mitigation as promised to the community in exchange for approval. They have been operating for ten years ,now, and the agreed mitigation is still not in place, so what was the point of all the mitigation talk and community planning. Sounds like a big bamboozle.

SO, AGAIN, you cannot MANDATE ethics. But I am running on a platform to start reflecting and representing the community on these types of issues, especially this one, as Councilmember of Valley's CD 2.

VOTE TUESDAY SEPT 22, 2009 FOR L.A. CITY COUNCIL: David Saltsburg (Zuma Dogg)