Los Angeles County, CA April 5, 2005 Election
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Platform

By Joe Mandoky

Candidate for Council Member; City of Glendale

This information is provided by the candidate
I, Joe Mandoky, am asking for one of your precious votes. We need new people to fill all four seats of the dysfunctional current city councilmen.
I was born in Germany in 1945 to Hungarian refugees. I still remember seeing the Statue of Liberty as our ship came to America. My parents taught me that I could become anything I wanted to be as long as I learned English, did well in school and worked hard. They were indeed right. I have been successful beyond my wildest dreams. Starting out in Watts at 6 years of age, to living in a 5 bedroom, 3 bath home in Glendale with my own successful Real Estate Company at 35 years of age. I have lived and worked in Glendale since 1973.
At 20 years of age I became a US citizen. At 21, during the Viet Nam War, I served 3 years honorably in the US Army. Back at school I earned my Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration, majoring in Finance and Real Estate.
I am married to Harriet Trousdale who was born and raised in Glendale and retired after 20 years as a GSUD teacher. My daughter, Angel Grigorian, was born in Glendale and lives here with her family.
It looks like the Town Center is a done deal. I will work to bring all sides working together peacefully, stop the law suits, share parking and have a great shopping destination and profit center for our city. I will keep a tight fist on city expenditures on the Town Center project. We should have leased the land, not given it away. I will also try to remove the housing (mixed use) component. Let's make it easier for businesses and not promote a business license tax as our current council is hiring consultants to help sell the idea.
I agree with Councilman Manoukian and will vote with him to avoid the disaster of mixed use development in our commercial areas. Our schools, streets, and multi-family areas are all over crowded. I am against putting mixed use housing in commercial zones. This will add thousands of people to these already overcrowded areas. These will overburden our police, fire, schools and city services and ruin our safe city's standing. It is a complete falsehood that these people will live and work in Glendale and not have cars. I moved to Glendale because it was a quiet residential area with a nice commercial area. Former councils overcrowded our inner-city and some of our hillsides. Our streets are narrow with insufficient parking, and we lack open areas. There are few parking exceptions which haven't been approved. A vote for me promotes slowing down of overpopulation and overcrowding and attempting to provide more parking and open space in our overcrowded areas.
Our housing stock is aging. Repairs and remodeling should be encouraged, not made difficult by a non-caring bureaucracy. One shouldn't need to hire a lawyer or have a friend at city hall in order to remodel a kitchen or bath. The permit process must be made user-friendly and less costly as it was in the past. Staff should jump through the hoops, not you. The rules will be fair and equitable and easier to understand for everyone. We all benefit with permitted property improvements and an increased tax base. It shouldn't cost in loss of time and money and cause aggravation.
Six years ago I urged the safe and joint use of school play grounds. I will personally get the bureaucratic road blocks out of the way so our children can have a safe place to play after school and on weekends without having to jump the fence to get into the playgrounds as they do now.
I will increase our current unlicensed driver (Sobriety) check points. These have and will continue to arrest hundreds of unlicensed and uninsured drivers who are endangering all of us.
I will continue to encourage our citizens to learn , understand and enjoy our diversity of cultures and religions, not causing divisiveness as our current council has. We will go back to a CHRISTMAS Tree Lighting not the pagan Winter Tree lighting.
Finally, Glendale will follow the US flag code. NO EXCEPTIONS! Our flag is not for sale to special interest groups no matter how special their cause may be. We or our parents all came to America because of problems in our native country. We should never forget our roots and heritage, but we are all Americans and America will come first with a vote for me.
A vote for Joe Mandoky will send a message to all the special interests filling your mail boxes with slick ads that your vote can't be bought. God Bless you and those you love.

Joe Mandoky@sbcglobal.net

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