If you were mayor or cali governor how would you fix LA (San Francisco: crime rate, houses)

[Mr Floyd]

A massive earthquake making my Northeast LA home beachfront property would go a long way in improving my existence. It would also rid us of Hollywood and West Los Angeles, two areas that the rest of the country all too often identify as the essence of LA La Land.

[greggd]

Originally Posted by CaliforniaPatriot

I agree with your suggestion giving citizens the right to carry a firearm with a permit. When law abiding people have guns this is an incredible deterrant to crime. I also would support other measures to get tough on crime such as getting more cops on the streets. The schools are failing, and because education is a multilayered bureaucracy it could not be fixed by a mayor working alone, but programs that could help include implementing merit pay for teachers so good performance is rewarded as it is in the private sector and giving principals more authority to fire bad teachers. School choice also could improve educational opportunities by allowing parents to opt out of a failing public school and injecting competition into education.

The number one most important thing in my opinion though is transit. Traffic in the LA area is a nightmare. We need to expand our highway and mass transit systems.

Fixing schools starts with the kids and the parents of those kids. Starting with the source of the problem will cure the secondary issues that have developed.

Handing out guns to everyone in LA is insane. It may work in rural areas, but with the DMV handing out licenses like they do, mixing guns into the public would be a nightmare.

I completely agree mass transit is a priority. Seek funding from the Federal Govt, & promote ridership by raising registration taxes on Private Passenger Autos. Something the Governer should do but can't, because of the re-call.

[greggd]

Originally Posted by Mr Floyd

A massive earthquake making my Northeast LA home beachfront property would go a long way in improving my existence. It would also rid us of Hollywood and West Los Angeles, two areas that the rest of the country all too often identify as the essence of LA La Land.

Floyd, seriously, (I hesitate to use this phrase)... "la la land" only exists in the minds of those certain people who come and go from other states. The one's that try and find their identity on a shiny, glittering sidewalk in hollywood. Only to discover reality...that they can not run away from themselves. They are the real "la la's" in a city that is not a broadway musical 24 hours a day like they dreamed of on those cold winter nights back east.

An earthquake that massive would end existence for you too.. and the la la's would still exist because they come in on Southwest Airlines every day from all over the USofA.
We native Angelenos see them all the time, they roll their eyes and blame their troubles, insecurities, and emotions on a imaginary place called "la la land"

[Mr Floyd]

Let me get this straight. Repeal Prop 13 and assess everyone based on the value of the house. I see a couple of challenges here. The first is what would the value be based on? Current market value? If that was the case, how many more people would have lost there homes when values skyrocketed. What economic effect would that have had? Would we relay on the County Assessor to value the home? That's a scary thought in its own right, especially here in Los Angeles. I do agree a lot of revenue for CA is lost but if even more people can't afford to live here then it seems that the effects would be more damaging.

I'm not sure how much money is lost to Prop 13 but possibly an even larger problem, in terms of the budget, is the Medi-Cal program. If I am not mistaken, it is the single largest chunk of the State budget. It is a program ripe with fraud and abuse as whole departments within the State are dedicated to fraud detection. Several ethnicities are suspected of blatant abuse costing the State millions of dollars, possibly on par with the Prop 13 dollars, or even greater. Of course the issue of immigration comes up here and I don't want to delve into that considering its controversial nature (a topic on its own). But, if the abuse is true and every person is entitled to health care regardless of citizenship status, the burden on the State is huge. Anyone born here, regardless of their parent' status is entitled to an education and that is a further burden on the schools who incidentally rely on property tax revenues.

There are so many renters with children in the schools. Why aren't they paying a share of the school budget? Why put the burden on the homeowner, regardless of whether they have children in the school district or not?

[Mr Floyd]

Good points Greggd. But don't limit my fantasies. If I want a seaside cliff in front of my house then...

I do agree that those who see us as a vast wasteland are usually from other places. Small towners from the Midwest. Elitists from New York or San Fransisco. I went to school at San Diego State. Many of my classmates were from San Fransisco. They couldn't understand how could live in such a place, so void of everything. From what I could tell, most of their experience of LA was driving down the 5 Fwy throught the City of Commerce. I took a couple to my old stomping grounds to show them what I saw in the place. We started early mountain biking into Angeles Crest and fishing for trout (coastal rainbows). Mid day brought us back to East LA for a giant El Tepeyac burrito. Then we were on to Manhattan Beach where we surfed and then went to have sushi in Hermosa Beach. We watched the sun set and came back to Eagle Rock. We then went to Silverlake and enjoyed German beer and grub at the Red Lion. All on a college student's dime. The next morning we went to Cindy's Diner for breakfast and drove back to San Diego. They all agreed how they could see a better picture of the place. No Beverly Hills 90210. No Rodeo Drive. No augmented fake blondes (secretly a regret for all of us).

I have travelled some. I nearly moved to NYC to work. Europe. Central America. The Bay area. Seattle. Boston. All of New England. All of the western US. I enjoyed aspects of all of them and saw things I didn't like. That is the reality of anywhere.

[zednemtheadventurer]

Originally Posted by casharistocrat

If i could be mayor (with alot more power than most mayors) I would work to fix LA by
making firearms legal for citizens to carry with a permit (which in california is almos impossible to get) that way citizens could shoot hoodlums if the police are not around to do it for them.A robber might think twice if he knows he may get killed committing a crime.

Tear down dumpy areas let developers build mixed housing

increase LA police force to New York levels and put them in neighborhood stations so they never leave 24 hours a day.

Let more charter schools open to break the corruption of the teachers unions in our schools.They are failing our kids.

what would you do if you were the mayor and had the power to fix what is wrong with LA

I would look at the records for the last 100 years and anything that has not worked I would throw it out!

Next I would find the best people in their fields... regardless of party affiliation, and have them come up with solutions to the current problems that Cali is facing... implement what has consistently worked for the American people!

[zednemtheadventurer]

Originally Posted by streetscenes

Guns, guns, guns. That will solve it. Only that will do is put my innocent bystander a$$ in harms way. Honestly, how many times have you see an actual "hoodlum" commiting a crime and said to yourself "If only I had my gun and could shoot that person"?



Already happening. Biggest problem is where do the people already living in these "dumpy areas" go (and don't say back to Mexico, way to easy).



Who's going to pay for this. They have been trying to increase police force numbers for years, with some success.

So what would I do. Increase funding and accelerate the construction of subway and light rail lines throughout the city and region. Use my clout to ensure that this mass transit extends into the neighboring regions. Encourage development of higher density, mixed use properties along transit corridors. That's a start...

Not factual!

Every-single place on Earth that has had their guns taken away has an incredibly high crime rate... accept in cases where the government punishes horrifically!

I grew up in rural part of Texas (which is not so rural anymore) but we had guns in the gun racks of our vehicles and drove them on school property... nobody shot anybody and everybody had one, or two, or three etc.

The facts are that places that are allowed to keep their guns have the lowest gun instances and lower crime rates than those that do not... I was a cop... look it up!

I am a martial artist... I hate guns! But if you take mine away... what will I defend my wife and two children with when an armed group of thugs breaks into my home.

Criminals are not going to obey any gun laws! That is why they are criminals! So all of the honest people will turn in their guns and the dis-honest people will consider it "Open Season" on them!

Besides, the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. It was put there out of a fear that the federal government in order to impose rule through a standing army. I do not know if you are a George W. Bush fan or not... but think if he wanted to remain in office permanently and wanted to use the army to enforce that? The availability of the weapons would make that harder or even prevent that scenario!

Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely! The government has been taking more and more of our rights away! I hope they do not take our guns or we will not be able to stop them from taking anything they want!

[BRinSM]

Originally Posted by zednemtheadventurer

Every-single place on Earth that has had their guns taken away has an incredibly high crime rate... accept in cases where the government punishes horrifically!

not factual!!! in london, not even the cops carry guns. they certainly don't have as high a crime rate as we do here in CA.

[katenik]

Originally Posted by BRinSM

not factual!!! in london, not even the cops carry guns. they certainly don't have as high a crime rate as we do here in CA.

are you sure about that? last i heard, london had more violent crime than NYC.

[BRinSM]

regardless, i wouldn't say that london, or anywhere in the europe for that matter has an "incredibly high crime rate" as mentioned by zednemtheadventurer. they also have much more strict gun regulations.