WHERE THERE'S A WILL... THERE'S A WAY!
ISSUES (PRO)
ERADICATING HOMELESSNESS
California is the 5th largest economy on Earth. District 50 is the wealthiest of all of California’s 80 state assembly districts which includes areas like Beverly Hills, Malibu, Santa Monica, the Pacific Palisades, West Hollywood and Hollywood. Why are there homeless people here on an unprecedented scale? This is not logical. Prior administrations have not made it a priority to fix this problem. This is a policy issue. It can not be a party issue when the Democrats have held a super majority in the house and senate along with the Governor’s seat and have retained this power for decades. Why is this happening? What is the Governor doing? What is the Mayor doing? Hello!? Anyone home? Despite their rhetoric they do not want to help the homeless or they would have done so by now. I will tackle and eradicate homelessness in the district by building a coalition of citizens who have the political will to stop making excuses for why we are powerless to do anything about it and how we can start coming up with a plan for building a safe and clean campus which will have security where the homeless will receive 3 hots and a cot along with medical care, job placement, aid in finding affordable housing, etc. Hundreds of millions of dollars are already being thrown at this problem annually. I suggest we start with an audit of what is coming in, then we find out how to cut waste and corruption which must be part of why although hundreds of millions have been tossed annually at this problem for years, things only seem to get worse. Does it not sound like government waste and corruption likely exist? Start by undoing that and then come up with a new and reasonable plan using common sense at the current levels of aid to end this plague on humanity. How can this be the epicenter of the liberal left when so many are left to live in despair and ill fortune? This is a blight on us and it needs to end. We are a caring society and we can overcome this societal ill with the will power to do so and we will!
INFRASTRUCTURE EXPANSION
I’ll stand for expanding our infrastructure here in Los Angeles which will be a long term investment in the people of California and in the people of America. I have visited China and seen their infrastructure of 10,000 miles of high speed rail. I have ridden the mag lev trains laid between Shanghai and Beijing. Why does China and many other nations around the planet have thousands of miles of high speed rail but yet the 5th largest economy on the planet does not have 1 mile of high speed rail? Do you see this as a problem? I do. Wouldn’t it be nice to take a train from Los Angeles to San Francisco in 45 minutes or a 20 minute train ride to San Diego? We need to revive the effort for California’s high speed bullet rail. It died under Governor Gavin Newsom but he didn’t have the Willpower to make it happen. This time we will use Imminent Domain and we will fight against the lawfare that tries to erode the progress of America. We need to expand the Metro underground subway systems and above ground local Bart like above ground trains here in L.A. and we will. Every where you see in Los Angeles they are tearing down 1 and 2 story buildings and building 6-10 story condominiums. This is packing in more people on top of each other into the same space. This means the traffic will only continue to get worse. And any local already knows L.A. has a terrible traffic reputation. If we offer mass transit it will be used. Other infrastructure ideas include desalination plants up along the coast which could supply abundant supplies of water from the ocean, desalinated to be used for agriculture and to fight the forest fires. Why do we only depend on water we pump in from the mountain when we live right next to an ocean. Israel and Japan have made desalinization plants work for decades. What is our problem?.
DISTRICT BEAUTIFICATION
The planting of trees and flowers throughout the district and the irrigation of these. Also the litter clean up, graffitti clean up, sweeping of street gutters and sidewalks by small armies of Americans walking around and beautifying their district making it more green by planting trees and flowers and cleaning our neighborhoods we live in. Everyone knows that if you live in nature, there is a peace and joy that comes along with living in that environment verses living in a concrete trashy jungle. It is also better for your health.
USE COMMON SENSE
Government waste and corruption is a big reason why it seems that nothing done in public service seems to have been done using any common sense. There are many ways to change that for the better and it starts by outing those that are only there to line their pockets at the expense of the public. After weeding those corrupt politicians out, then doing good for the public should not be so difficult. All you have to do is ask yourself, does this benefit the public, and if so then great! Let’s do it. But if it is just a policy being implemented for the betterment of a company or person selfishly at the expense of the public then sorry pal, time for change!
CUTTING TAXES
California is famous for having high taxes in many areas only to then turn around and waste those tax dollars by spending it on what it was not appropriated for because some government bureaucrat thought it a good idea. Lowering taxes will cut that fresh supply of money off and force the government to do a better job with the resources they have and avoiding waste and redundancies. In life, we have to tighten our personal budgets from time to time to avoid wasting money or we have to go without a few luxuries here and there so why should a public budget be any different? You can’t always get everything if it ain’t in the budget!
2ND AMENDMENT RIGHT
The right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
MUSIC & THE ARTS
I grew up in New Orleans playing the trumpet in grade school at an early age, I then later received my MFA from USC in Cinema Production. After that I worked for years in documentary directing/writing/producing feature length documentaries. My love for music and the arts has taught me the value in how they build community and bring people together. The arts are typically the first to be cut when budgets are slashed yet they offer more than we know to us as a foundation and to provide us a better understanding of life. So whether it be music, painting, film, writing, etc. I will always be an advocate for monies for local art programs and after school art programs for youth to get them involved at an early age with what could be inspiration for a life’s work.
LEGAL IMMIGRATION
America is the largest and most generous purveyor of legal immigration in the world allowing over 1 million people citizenship annually. What other country on Earth does this? No body. All we ask is that the new people assimilate into American culture, learn English, obey our laws and swear an oath of allegiance to the USA, the greatest social experiment in the history of mankind. Without the rule of law chaos will prevail. I will always be a proponent of and advocate for legal immigration. I will never be for the unfair practice of cutting in line in front of others whom have followed the rules, paid thousands in fees and given their time to filling out the paperwork to become apart of our great nation. By doing this, they show us the respect that we deserve as a nation. Being an economic migrant (and most are) is not a satisfactory reason for giving priority to one immigrant over another. There are real cases of requested asylum. Most are false claims of asylum though and are simply economic migrants that need to wait their turn in line and if they don’t have the respect for our country to follow our rules and abide by our laws, then how can we expect them to become good law abiding citizens? It is not logical. Many are being coached on what to say by those that benefit from the broken system to make money off the backs of the helpless to benefit themselves fiscally. One day I believe we can and will fix the system but until that day, we should not empower and reward those that would break our laws under false claims of amnesty for which if they truly were real claims being afraid for their lives, then Mexico would be the first nation for many of them to go to, and not the USA.
ISSUES (AGAINST)
PAYING OUTRAGEOUS FEES FOR CANDIDATE STATEMENTS
Did you know that when you run for office in California (as I am) that in order for the candidate to have a blurb (Candidate Statement) under his name in the ballot booklet one must pay $7,000 to the state of California if you just want it in English and $13,000 if you want the statement in English & Spanish. Is this not anti-democratic? Who has an extra $7,000-$13,000 laying around to fork over for what they then limit you to be 250 words? This is a tax and it is meant to keep people out of politics. What if there are good people who want to get involved in public service but can not afford these taxes. Keep in mind that to run for office, you already have to pay a fee equal to 1% of the first years salary. In my case I am running for state assembly which pays $110,000 per year so 1% is $1,110 which is the fee that I as a candidate am asked to pay to run for office. The way this is set up, only the rich or well connected can run for office in this Banana Republic! What if you are married and have kids and a mortgage and don’t have extra income to give away for more taxes to be wasted by California bureaucrats? If elected, the first bill I will write to propose as legislation to be voted upon by the body politic will be the elimination of taxes like this meant to keep poor people out of politics and public service. This is NOT democratic and it needs to be changed. In my case, I will not have a candidate statement in the ballot booklet because I can not afford to give away money like that for nothing. I do have a candidate statement though and it is on this URL and it is longer than 250 words and I ask you to read it if you have a minute for it puts forth a vision of where I see District 50 going if we establish big goals and reach for the stars.