Meet The Candidates: Chris Brown, Council District 10

City Council District 10 candidate Chris Brown

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City Council District 10 candidate Chris Brown
To prepare for the upcoming March 8, 2011 elections, LAist has contacted each candidate on the City of L.A.'s Official Candidate List to participate in a Q&A. All candidates received the same set of questions, with the exception of West Hollywood city council candidates, who received a WeHo-specific list of questions. LAist does not endorse political candidates, and responses are posted in the order they are received.In this edition of "Meet the Candidates," we hear from Council District 10 candidate Chris Brown (Twitter, Facebook). The district includes Arlington Heights, Jefferson Park, Mid-City, West Adams and parts of Koreatown, Leimert Park and Westlake.

Other candidates in the March 8, 2011 CD10 race are Chris Brown, Austin Dragon, Andrew "Andy" Kim, Luis Montoya, Althea Rae Shaw and Councilmember Herb Wesson, Jr. Not sure about your district? See the map to find out if your neighborhood is within district boundaries.

Tell us about your background and what you'll bring to the table in City Hall. What makes you different from the other candidates, and what qualifies you to represent your district?

I am the ONLY candidate with a material plan that will generate money, create jobs and shore up our floundering education system - a plan that does not involve cutting services or jobs, or raising taxes. My electronic waste recycling plan will give Los Angeles a minimum of $40 million to feasibly over $200 million every year, depending on individual participation. It will also create over 1,000 new green jobs. And since the funds will go directly to education, it will allow for the re-hiring of hundreds of qualified teachers and re-instate valuable programs and curriculum that have been discontinued. In this tough economy and given our current city fiscal situation, this is a significant amount of money and a substantial contribution.

I am also the ONLY candidate who is willing to put my money where my mouth is: I will cut my own first term salary in half, to take a stand against the overpaid bureaucracy at City Hall, which is both unnecessary excess and an affront to everyone, especially those who are struggling to keep their homes and their livelihoods right now.

I was raised and have lived in my district my entire life. I have also created my individual business success - in telecommunications and real estate - right here in District 10, through hard work and fresh, forward thinking ideas like the ones above. Launching and maintaining successful business ventures in the midst of a nationwide economic recession was not easy - but it taught me to think out of the box instead of following the herd. And that is exactly what I think our city government needs right now and the kind of idea-driven people's advocate I believe the voters want most.

What are your top priorities for your district? How do you plan on tackling them?

Have you ever tried to contact your City Council representative's office for a community concern, large or small? I have, and it is an exercise in frustration and futility. It is also a slap in the face both to voters and to our democratic system of elected local government.

My top priorities for my district, if elected, are to immediately and completely overhaul the executive and administrative structure of my City Council office to provide for a new and far higher standard of accessibility and responsiveness to both the Neighborhood Councils and their leaders, as well as to individual citizens and community members. I believe that our elected representatives have a primary responsibility to represent the voters who put them in office - a simple truth which seems to have been all but completely forgotten or deliberately ignored by District 10's current incumbent - except of course around election time.

In addition, I know that proper accessibility and responsiveness from me as my district's elected representative will eliminate the kind of chronic complaints and problems with core services like proper street and roadway repair, decent public area landscaping and grass maintenance, and competent trimming and maintenance of our mature trees and vegetation - issues that have been especially and continually troublesome in our district. I also know that consistent and attentive responsiveness from my City Hall office, if elected, can only contribute to a greater and more consistent sense of public safety and well being. Instead of an entrenched bureaucrat ducking as much responsibility and responsiveness as possible and being rewarded with a bloated salary - we deserve Council members who are involved, pro active, and willing to constantly engage with their constituents as an integral part of their professional duty as public servants.

How would you address the city's projected $350 million budget deficit?

L.A.'s unmanageable budget and ballooning deficit is a smaller reflection of our state and national economic crisis. Whether federal, state, or municipal, government cannot seek to solve these problems by cutting and undermining the very things that fuel economic growth - like education, infrastructure, child welfare and health, environmental responsibility and energy management and conservation.

At every level and opportunity within my Council office, I will seek to REFORM and RESTRUCTURE policy, procedures and practices, which do not contribute to our fiscal solvency and growth.

EG:

• A fair but incisive restructuring of city employee health insurance policy
• City employee pension reform/restructure
• Outsource billing and debt collection to more efficiently recoup millions in outstanding debt owed to the city
• Aggressively seek reductions from existing private contractors (e.g. law firms and investment banks)
• Aggressive, impartial contract negotiation with all prospective contractors and real bid comparison - absolutely no "sweetheart" deals
• More in-depth, performance-based review of all public asset sales proposals
• Refuse to support and vote NO on pay increases, term extensions, and operating budget adjustments which could benefit elected officials and which are not subject to voter scrutiny and referendum.

How do you plan on working with your constituents in addressing their concerns?

Since my top priorities for my district are greater City Council accessibility and responsiveness to voters in general (please see response to question #2), specifically I would create a much more substantial and formal structure to meet with and receive input from the various Neighborhood Council leaders on a prescribed and regular basis. I would like to see an altogether transparent accountability on the part of City Council members to the concerns and preferences of the community. I would further propose that this kind of formal audience between City Council members and Neighborhood Council leaders, be adopted as local government policy in all districts to become a new standard operating procedure.

Public transportation is an important issue for LAist readers. What role should public transportation have in LA?

Public transportation in Los Angeles needs to play an increasingly important role, and our city government needs to pay increasingly more attention to searching for and finding ways to make all forms of public transportation more attractive and more accessible to more of our citizens. As our population continues to grow, we must be tireless in our efforts to reduce the number of cars on our streets and highways.

I am totally in favor of continuing to support the completion of the new metro rail which will provide service from Orange County all the way to the beach. I am also in favor of the MTA putting express bus lanes during peak rush hours between 7 - 9 a.m., and from 4 - 6 p.m. on Venice, Pico and Wilshire. I am in favor and will strongly support any plan or measure that can cost effectively get more cars off the roads and more people into public transportation methods that are safe, inexpensive and efficient.

The City Council has had to revisit the medical marijuana ordinance repeatedly. How would you like to see the medical marijuana issue addressed?

As a new father, I did a lot of soul searching on this issue. I want my son to grow up in a safe environment which does not encourage or support illegal drug use. However, I also believe that people who need medical marijuana should absolutely have convenient and cost effective access to it. That is why I support Measure M on the ballot. Measure M will bring in significant revenue at a time when the city really needs it, and I believe it will also contribute to more uniform regulation and monitoring of both the individual dispensaries, as well as distribution practices citywide.

What are your priorities for development and planning?

Right now LA does not have the funds for big ticket public works and building construction, and I do not support the Community Redevelopment Association in its current configuration. Initially, CRA was supposed to invest directly back into the city, back into our bricks and mortar infrastructure as it is - instead of demolishing existing buildings and taking money from the city to do so. This is depleting of both our material as well as our financial resources at a time when we can least afford it.

On the other hand, I would be in favor of a new NFL stadium to be built downtown - but if, and only if, it can be proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that this will not cost the city anything - and instead bring in over 6,000 new jobs and substantial additional revenue.

LAist does not endorse political candidates. All candidates from the City of L.A.'s Official Candidate List were contacted to participate and were given the same set of questions, with the exception of West Hollywood candidates, who were sent a WeHo-specific list of questions.