Eric Garcetti
The L.A. City Councilmember on fighting graffiti, listening to bloggers, and his upcoming road trip
L.A. City Councilmember Eric Garcetti is a fourth-generation Angeleno. He grew up in the San Fernando Valley, is a professor at USC, and recently ran unopposed for reelection for the City Council's 13th District (which includes Silver Lake, Echo Park, Hollywood, and Atwater Village). But that didn't stop Garcetti from pounding the pavement on the campaign trail, inspired by the words of the French writer Renan: "Democracy is a daily plebiscite."
He was recently fined $5,000 by the city's Ethics Commission for failing to file some 2001 campaign mailers - a fine he says was caused by a bureaucratic snafu that will soon ensnare other local politicians in much bigger ways. Garcetti was merely one of the first to settle. Meanwhile, he continues pushing an agenda of neighborhood revitalization, traffic reduction, citizen equality, and environmental protection. A central focus for him seems to be bridging the gap between government and its constituents so that the two work together. He holds neighborhood coffees and walks, blogs regularly, and offers residents a chance to schedule sit-down meetings through his website. And, most progressive of all, he's getting stuff done.
-Perry Crowe
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CityBeat: Your district's Uniting Neighborhoods to Abolish Graffiti (UNTAG) program, which appoints "block captains" to spot graffiti in their neighborhoods, set a goal of 50 percent graffiti reduction within two years. After just one year, there has already been a 62 percent reduction. Does that come from the program's community involvement angle rather than simply being a government operation?
Eric Garcetti: The success of [UNTAG] is that it's a community program. We're the facilitator, but the heart and soul of this program are the people who actually see their block long before we could, call [the graffiti] in, and take care of it. I've got 20 people in my own office. We've got 260,000 people we represent. So, our goal is ultimately to have one person on every single block in this district, and there are literally hundreds of blocks.
When UNTAG becomes a citywide program, will you be involved?
I'd like to be the UNTAG cheerleader and help really champion it in the City Council and continue to get the funding. If we have this in all 15 districts, it'll cost us half-a-million dollars more.
Outside of the gang tagging, do you see graffiti as an expression of social, political, and economic frustration?
A lot of young people in Los Angeles often feel that they're not noticed, feel that they're lost. But just as we would take shoplifting as a crime that's less serious than murder, it still should be addressed. I don't want to throw kids who aren't affiliated with gangs in jail over this, but I do want them to do community service. For instance, painting out graffiti and realizing how much time and money is spent on that. And then we'll get them hooked up with other programs where they can express themselves, but in a better place.
What are some of those programs?
LACER [Literacy, Arts, Culture, Education, & Recreation] is a great program. It's in all the middle schools of Council District 13, where we bring in some of the best jazz musicians, muralists, and most creative professionals in Los Angeles for after-school programs that these kids can get involved with. Similarly, we just last year finally got an after-school program in every school in the district, which was a goal of mine.
You recently updated your district's blog to feed directly to subscribers. How important a tool is your website in communicating with constituents?
It's amazing. We have conversations back and forth with some other blogs. Blogging.la, for instance, had a constituent concern, and I was able to answer it online and it got national attention because people said, "Wow. A councilmember is reading blogs." It's the same work we do on the phone. It's the same work we do with letters every day. But a lot of people know [blogging] is a quicker and a louder way to communicate. We've just tried to do [our website] in a way that will keep things fresh every couple of days. New news. Lots of times, government sites change themselves once every month. We want to be squarely in the cyber age and have as dynamic a website and government as you can find.
Blogging.la even defended you after your recent $5,000 fine for the city's Ethics Commission regarding some unapproved campaign mailers from 2001.
Yeah, that's funny. That fake little thing they made [blogging.la posted a mailer marked "EVIDENCE" that read: Vote for Eric Garcetti for City Council because his opponent so sucks! And he doesn't know how to dance ... and other shit like that"].
Oh, that was fake?
It was totally fake. It was a joke. A couple of people have asked me about that. They didn't realize that it was just a joke. Our literature was better than that.
So what was the deal with the Ethics Commission fine?
The fine was for 10 mailers out of about 40 that we did that [the Ethics Commission] says we never turned in to them. I am certain that we did. We actually took down a record of it. Then [the Commission] moved from City Hall East to City Hall and their file says we're missing 10. There's 18 different candidates who are having the same thing. I'm one of the first to settle it. But some campaigns didn't turn any of [their mailers] in, and they know they didn't turn in any, but they're getting fined $500 per mailer. So if you did 40 mailers, it's a $20,000 fine instead of you screwed up once. But for me it was a very small [fine]. We cooperated from the beginning. [But the] rule bears some reinvestigation. For some of my colleagues who might face a $10,000 or $20,000 fine, or the candidates who didn't get elected who face the same fine, that really discourages people from running.
Are you excited for the upcoming Sunset Junction festival, right there in your district?
Absolutely. We want to make sure that it's well-managed, that the impact on the community isn't too great, but it's one of the most eclectic and energizing collections of Angelenos I think you can find in a given year. And we want to make sure, too, that people know that we really enforce it as a voluntary donation. The donations help support the organization, and that's great. But families who might come there with four or five kids, working class from the community, don't have to be paying 30 bucks to get in. They can go in for free.
What's the trip you've got coming up?
I represent Little Armenia. So, for four years, the Armenian community has been saying, "We'd really like you to take a trip to Armenia and perhaps develop a sister-city relationship with Yerevan, the capital." And so we're going to Armenia. We're going to sign a sister-city agreement between the two cities because we're the second-biggest Armenian city in the world. And Governor [Howard] Dean, coincidentally, who is a friend, is going to come along for a few days as the chair of the DNC [Democratic National Committee], so he'll be there for a little bit. We're going to check out their struggle to establish a democracy in Armenia.Published: 08/18/2005
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