LOS ANGELES – At his inaugural ceremony, Mayor Villaraigosa outlined five major initiatives – public safety, education, transportation, job creation and the environment – and asked to be held accountable in guaranteeing their implementation and success in his second term.
“I stand here humbled by the opportunity, grateful for your trust and mindful of the responsibility that lies ahead,” Mayor Villaraigosa said. “I stand renewed, reinvigorated and determined to finish what we started –determined to breathe life into our City.”
With mounting foreclosures and rising unemployment rates, Mayor Villaraigosa promised that his second administration would maximize the number of job opportunities for local residents. In addition to the existing business team, the Mayor announced that he would create a jobs team dedicated solely to business attraction, retention and connecting entrepreneurs to the resources they need by cutting through red tape.
The Mayor also pledged to go outside of City Hall to find business leaders and entrepreneurs that will help create a bridge between public servants and the private sector.
The Mayor vowed to continue investing in innovation and supporting the development of a clean technology infrastructure that bridges economic development and environmental strategy. The Clean Tech Corridor – a model for a 21st century community that creates synergies between good paying jobs, affordable housing and an accessible mass transit system – will support the entire supply chain of the green economy,including research and development, technology design, full-scale manufacturing and assembly of environmentally friendly technologies that will create as many as 1,000 jobs.
With research and development for clean technology as a catalyst, the Mayor committed to strengthening Los Angeles’ environmental goals, including ending Los Angeles’ historical dependence on coal. In the past four years, Los Angeles has diversified its energy portfolio to include more wind, geothermal and solar power. The Mayor projected that with smart, aggressive actions – using local resources and leveraging relationships – Los Angeles will receive 20 percent of its energy from renewable resources by 2010, creating green jobs along the way.
“Today, we stand at the forefront of the green revolution,” Mayor Villaraigosa said. “We need to build a future founded on innovation and defined by our commitment to building a more sustainable and livable Los Angeles.”
In pursuit of a sustainable future, the Mayor vowed to use Measure R transportation funds to lead the largest-mass transit program anywhere in the US, connecting the Eastside to the airport and Downtown to the Westside. Mayor Villaraigosa also promised to accelerate the process to make transit improvements a reality before the end of his second term resulting in a construction boom that would immediately create more than 210,000 jobs.
With crime at its lowest level since 1954, the Mayor reaffirmed his commitment to having 10,000 police officers on the job. Complementing police efforts, the Mayor committed his Gang Reduction and Youth Development Department to attacking the roots of gang violence through the successful Summer Night Lights program. Summer Night Lights hires youth leaders and gives thousands of young people a refuge from violence in the summertime when crime is at its peak. The Mayor announced that the program, which began last year with eight sites, will expand to 16 sites this summer and 50 in the next four years to reclaim dozens of parks from gang violence.
“We are developing a system to target gang prevention services to the kids most-at-risk,” Mayor Villaraigosa said. “We’re holding ourselves accountable and measuring our success not by some abstract statistic but by the number of young people we serve.”
On education, the Mayor declared that he would hold schools, teachers, parents and himself accountable in accelerating the pace of change in the educational system. He also vowed to lead the effort to shut down failing schools and restructure them as charter schools, partnership campuses, or district schools that use quantitative testing to mark their progress.
During the Inaugural ceremonies, the Mayor was joined onstage with the eight winners of the “True Angels” contest. The “True Angels” were selected among volunteers from across Los Angeles to accompany the Mayor as he took the oath of office for their countless hours of active committed engagement in their own communities and to represent the Mayor’s unwavering commitment to service in his second term.
To foster a dialogue with Angelenos, the Mayor re-launched his website. The new site includes interactive features, detailed charts and new methods for constituents to ask him questions, share their ideas about his policy and track the progress of his ambitious agenda. Each week, the Mayor will respond to posted questions, criticisms and ideas in a video message. To find more information go to mayor.lacity.org n
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