May 2, 2013
Local News & Culture Marina del Rey
Westchester
Free S a n ta M o n i c a
P l aya d e l R e y
P l aya V i s t a
M a r V i s ta
Del Rey
VenicE
Battleground L.A.
Los Angeles City Controller Wendy Greuel is seeking to become the city’s first female mayor.
City Councilman Eric Garcetti served as council president from 2006 to 2012.
Mayoral hopefuls share views on issues impacting Westside By Paul M.J. Suchecki On May 21, voters in the city of Los Angeles will decide whether Eric Garcetti or Wendy Greuel will be the next mayor. Both candidates spoke recently to The Argonaut in separate interviews to discuss their views on some issues impacting Westside constituents. The former City Council colleagues are vying to replace Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who is termed out after serving since 2005. Since 2009 Greuel, 51, has been the Los Angeles city controller, the city’s independently elected, chief taxpayer auditor. Born and raised in Los Angeles, she is a graduate of UCLA who has worked for a range of politicians, including former L.A. City Councilman Joel Wachs and former Mayor Tom Bradley. In the Clinton Administration she was
U.S. Housing and Urban Development field operations officer for Southern California. In 1997, Greuel joined the Corporate Affairs Department of DreamWorks SKG. She emphasized her business background to The Argonaut, “I’ve not only been in the iconic entertainment industry in Los Angeles but also have a small family business in the San Fernando Valley that’s been in my family for 66 years.” In 2002, Greuel was elected to the Los Angeles City Council where she represented District 2 in the Northeast San Fernando Valley for seven years. She lives in Studio City with her husband and 8-year-old son. Garcetti, 42, was born in Los Angeles and raised in the San Fernando Valley. An L.A. City Councilman, he currently represents District 13, which includes much of Hollywood and all of Silver Lake
where he lives with his wife and 1-year-old daughter. In speaking with The Argonaut, he stressed his ties to the Westside. “My senior year of high school I lived on the Westside of Los Angeles. It is a place I spend a lot of time,” Garcetti said. He earned his bachelor of arts degree and master of arts from Columbia University in New York, studied as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford and the London School of Economics and taught at Occidental College and the University of Southern California. He was elected four times by his colleagues to serve as president of the Los Angeles City Council from 2006 to 2012. A lieutenant in the U.S. Navy Reserve, he is the son of Gil Garcetti, who was Los Angeles County’s district attorney for two terms. Having a prosecutor for a dad taught the younger Garcetti to “always respect the law,” he told The Argonaut.
As Westside voters head to the polls, one of the most pressing problems they face is traffic. “Traffic is strangling the quality of life in West Los Angeles and our ability to keep our economy going. We lose billions of dollars a year and millions of hours in lost productivity. Companies don’t want to locate on the Westside, people don’t see each other cross town. This is a real human issue with a human face, not just statistics,” Garcetti said. “The Westside is more impacted than most on the issue of traffic. It’s something that I know is a key component of my mayor’s tenure but also something I have pushed for since I was on the City Council, specifically in getting resources to build the kind of public transportation system we need,” Greuel said. “We have to address (Continued on page 10)