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Los Angeles Mayor-Elect Eric Garcetti to hold Reddit AMA Thursday evening
Eric Garcetti thanks supporters at The Palladium in Hollywood, Calif. on May 21st, 2013.
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Mayor-Elect Eric Garcetti announced Wednesday that he's going to be doing a Reddit AMA on Thursday at 7 p.m. However, he's breaking from what is commonly understood to be part of an AMA, which is an abbreviation for "ask me anything." Rather than asking questions, he's asking Redditors to "share [their] ideas on how to create jobs and solve problems in L.A."
"Mayor-elect Garcetti wants the people's voice to be loudest at City Hall, and so we're going out to the people, whether they are industry experts, business leaders or neighborhood residents," said Yusef Robb, Garcetti's deputy chief of staff. One way for the administration to do this is by starting a dialogue and taking suggestions from Angelenos through social media platforms.
“We’ll engage people who might not normally engage with the government. Younger people or regular old people really don’t spend a lot of time going to town hall meetings held by politicians, but they might participate in something online, and if that results in an idea that can help solve a problem or create jobs in Los Angeles, we want that,” said Robb.
During his campaign, Garcetti participated in a Q&A with local residents. But this time, the discussion will be focused more on finding solutions to problems.
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“We want to focus the discussion on sharing of ideas and solutions rather than questions, but we might answer a question or two. We’ll just see how it goes,” Robb said.
Right now, the Garcetti team is focusing on getting the word out about the AMA and live events through social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook.
“We’re definitely trying to drive people to our live events that we are having across Los Angeles,” Robb said.
Garcetti will hold a live event at 7:00 tonight at Cal State University, Northridge, as part of his “Getting L.A. Back to Basics” tour.
Meanwhile, members of KPCC's audience shared their thoughts on what the next mayor should do as part of #DearMayor; be sure to check out Garcetti's answers to those concerns from when he appeared on KPCC's Take Two.
As Garcetti mentions in his Wednesday post, he did an AMA while running for office as well. Check out highlights from that, including answers to questions about "The Wire," public transportation, how to get involved in politics and more. Oh, and you can even read him talking about his break-dancing skills.
This story has been updated.
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