League of Women Voters of California Education Fund
Los Angeles County, CA March 5, 2013 Election
	Mark Matthew Herd Answers Questions Candidate for Council Member; City of Los Angeles; District 5

The questions were prepared by the League of Women Voters of Los Angeles and asked of all candidates for this office.
Read the answers from all candidates (who have responded).

Questions & Answers

1. What do you think is the single most important issue facing the City of Los Angeles today? As Council Member, what would you do to deal with it?

Avoiding Bankruptcy
- Pension Reform

- "I believe this city cannot move forward without drastically changing the pension system. Eliminating pensions for city employees is not an option. Union workers deserve to know that they will have a comfortable retirement. That does not mean that they should be guaranteed wealth. Pension caps and a mixed 401k system must be looked at. I feel to improve the pension system we need to move forward on two types of pension plans, a modified plan and a 401K style plan. We will need actuarial studies done from the CAO's office and we should act expeditiously on it. Pension reform is only one part of many parts of the budget that need changing. Salary increase freezes for one year should be on the table for all six figure city employees. Former Mayor Richard Riordan worked hard and spent a lot of time and money to come up with a new type of pension plan that made concrete changes to the old pension plan. Even though I didn't completely agree with certain parts of it, I am grateful Riordan did what he did. The former Mayors tremendous efforts focussed the attention of the public on creative solutions to the biggest challenge we face as a city. Paul Koretz and this council have come out against Riordan's efforts and instead of doing their homework they simply ask all Angelinos to vote for an increase in the sales tax which has NO chance of passing. "

- Stop City Hall Giveaways to special interest

- Why are we leasing the football stadium land for 1.00/yr. Why are we waiving 10% bedtax on hotels. Because City Hall has a big problem with giveaways and it needs to stop.

- Increase revenue streams

- The City can increase revenues from Alcohol 1%, Tabacco 1 % and Medical Marijuana (4.2%) the City can lower taxes for businesses and individuals. With real pension reform the numbers more than add up.

- stop waste

- Wendy gruell claims she's found 160 million so lets go after it and see what we get. Paul Koretz voted to waste 1.5 million to research selling the Westwood Garage, amoung others. I could go on with examples but my fingers would fall off. (So many front end loaded contracts and projects to nowhere, 8 million on Childrens Museum while the City is near bankruptcy.)

Elect New Leaders - The culture of corruption at City Hall is such that without voting out most of the machine, special interest backed candidates, we will never see our best days as a city, only a city that can't pave its roads or take care of its stakeholders needs effectively.

2. The City Administrative Officer has estimated a $200M budget shortfall for 2013-2014 increasing to $300M in 2015-2016. What steps do you propose to deal with this problem, and how much do you estimate each step would reduce the shortfall?

Step 1 - Pension Reform

Most of the shortfall would be saved here if we went with a modified pension plan or 401k type plan.

Step 2 - Salary freezes

Savings: Millions over 4 years

Step 3 - Employee Health contributions (increase for those who pay nothing)

Savings: Big

Step 4 - Stop City Hall giveaways like $1.00/yr leases (football stadium), $1.00 asset sales (ie $1.00 firetrucks)and wasteful/shady city contracting (ie. not taking best/lowest bid)

Savings: millions (easy)

Step 5 - No more early retirement giveaways, furloughs, overtime and other personel mismanagement.

Savings: Big

Step 5 - Increase Revenue Streams - like corporate sponsorships and taxes on Alcohol, Tobacco and Medical Cannabis

Savings/Revenue growth: Big

3. Do you support the ballot measure to increase the sales tax in the city?

No. Taxing individuals and businesses in the middle of the worst economy since the depression makes no sense. We need tax relief for individuals and businesses. There are many other ways to generate revenue and increasing taxes isn't one of them. This tax is a job killer and the voters should vote AGAINST it on March 5. Paul Koretz made a big mistake voting in SUPPORT of moving this measure to the ballot.

4. What role do you feel the City of Los Angeles has to play in addressing climate change? Please explain in terms of what you as a city councilmember would have the power to do.

LA has a major role to play. As one of the largest cities in the nation we have the capacity to be one of the greenest cities in the world and we are headed in that direction. I would continue to supoort the Mayor, Council and DWP in their efforts to make LA one of the greenest cities in the world. I would like us to someday be a zero emmission vehicle city and utilize other high tech green innovations to improve the environment in LA and around the planet. The City Council has oversite over the DWP, LAX and the port and in those capacities we can effectively address climate change. Public transportation and especially rail need to be expanded at a faster rate as well.

5. How would you prioritize your local constituency versus the City as a whole when acting as a Council Member?

My local constituents always come first.

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Responses to questions asked of each candidate are reproduced as submitted to the League. 

Read the answers from all candidates (who have responded).

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Created from information supplied by the candidate: February 26, 2013 09:06
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