Last year was unique, exhilarating and challenging. Some of the marquee highlights of 2017 were in the world of sports. Not only did the Dodgers make their first World Series appearance in 30 years, the City Council made history by authorizing Los Angeles to host the 2028 Summer Olympic Games. In my role as Budget and Finance Chair and as a member of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Olympics, I worked to protect taxpayers’ interests now and in the future.

If I had to distill 2017’s flurry of activity into one theme, I would call it “the year of standing up for neighborhoods.” Locally, we did this by working with community members and business leaders to build our local economy, shore up the city budget, tackle homelessness, upgrade parks and increase public and traffic safety in our communities.

In 2017, the economy grew in Council District 2 with wages rising nearly five percent and economic activity up 10 percent. My office brought L.A.’s first Costco Business Center to North Hollywood and broke ground on NoHo West, the commercial-residential project at the old Laurel Plaza site that will reinvigorate the area and bring hundreds of good jobs to the East Valley. The City Council’s Jobs Committee, which I chair, rolled out our citywide job creation plan and studied the possibility of creating a municipal bank in Los Angeles.

These economic successes informed our positive budget movement, as the $9.2 billion city budget reinvested in services and included a reserve fund far larger than it was a decade ago. The budget put more firefighters and police officers on our streets and expanded funding to stop domestic violence, prevent homelessness and eliminate traffic fatalities.

On the issue of homelessness, I worked to ensure that voter-approved funding was used to alleviate the problem, opened permanent supportive housing units in the Valley, hosted more Homeless Connect days than anywhere else in the city, and launched L.A.’s first pilot program to pair job training with shelter and get people off the streets.

Street and sidewalk safety also commanded my attention. Safe Sidewalks LA, the city’s sidewalk repair program, got off to a smooth start, granting home and business owners a rebate for repairing walkways, while more sidewalks got fixed at parks, libraries and recreation centers. I launched the Safer Streets initiative to fix dangerous roadway conditions and protect cyclists and pedestrians.

My office also organized some of the largest cultural events in the region. The new NoHo Summer Nights concert series invigorated North Hollywood Park with live music, art and movies and I partnered with neighborhood and business groups to organize street fairs, block parties, art festivals and film screenings throughout Council District 2.

More than ever before, I am proud to be an Angeleno, a Valley resident and your representative at City Hall. In 2018, I will continue fighting to make Los Angeles an even better place for all of us to live, work and thrive.

Los Angeles City Councilmember Paul Krekorian, chair of the Budget and Finance Committee and the Ad Hoc Committee on Job Creation, represents Council District 2, which includes North Hollywood, Studio City, Valley Village and other communities in the East Valley.

In January, I sponsored the East Valley Town Hall on Homelessness at Los Angeles Valley College in Valley Glen. More than 400 of my constituents came to discuss the defining issue of our time in Los Angeles.

In our city alone, there are more than 34,000 homeless individuals, and 75 percent of them lack shelter. To put things in perspective, only four percent of the homeless population actually lives in Council District 2, but that relatively small number doesn’t take away from the need to resolve the crisis.

The root causes of homelessness are many, including a lack of infrastructure to deal with chronic mental health issues, and the extreme housing affordability crisis. Drug addiction, low paying jobs and domestic violence are other major drivers.

Although we can identify causes, it’s proven much harder to find solutions. Homelessness isn’t confined to our city; it stretches throughout the entire county. At the Town Hall, representatives of various agencies and non-profits offered their insights on what’s happening in the fight to end homelessness, including about specific programs and strategies, the challenges they face and how community members can get involved.

Our panel of experts discussed what their organizations are doing to chip away at homelessness and then answered dozens of questions submitted by those at the event. Panelists included Peter Lynn, Executive Director of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority or LAHSA; Jerry Ramirez, Manager of LA County’s Homeless Initiative; Meg Barclay, the Homeless Coordinator for the City of Los Angeles; John Horn, Chief Impact Officer with the non-profit service provider, LA Family Housing; LAPD Commander Dominic Choi; Gita O’Neill, Director of Homelessness Policies and Strategies with the LA City Attorney’s office; and Gonzalo Barriga, Senior Environmental Inspector with LA Sanitation’s Clean Streets Program.

Each expert got down to the nitty-gritty of what the city and county are doing to alleviate homelessness. They discussed why it’s so tough to remove homeless encampments, what legal restrictions the city faces when dealing with the homeless in parks and RVs, how the LAPD is protecting neighborhoods and assisting people in need, what Los Angeles is doing to build more permanent supportive housing and shelters and much more.

Before we ended, I urged people to volunteer at an upcoming Homeless Connect Day sponsored by my office and appealed for people to embrace the Safe Parking Program that we’ll soon implement in Council District 2. Under the program, the city partners with places of worship and local businesses to designate overnight parking locations for the homeless, thus removing these vehicles from neighborhoods and local streets.

Much of the feedback I received about the Town Hall has been positive. By and large, people appreciated the information and opportunity to get answers to their questions from those who deal with this issue day in and day out.

If you missed the Town Hall, or want to re-watch it, visit PaulKrekorian.org.

Los Angeles City Councilmember Paul Krekorian, chair of the Budget and Finance Committee and the Ad Hoc Committee on Job Creation, represents Council District 2, which includes North Hollywood, Studio City, Valley Village and other communities in the East Valley.

Homelessness impacts the lives of Angelenos from South Los Angeles to Studio City. Finding effective ways to tackle this crisis is the primary focus of my work at City Hall and in our East Valley neighborhoods.

I want to tell you about two initiatives that I’m working on to help end homelessness in our city. In late February, I joined five of my City Council colleagues to announce the 222 Plan, a new citywide initiative to build supportive housing units in our communities to shelter the homeless.

The resolution calls on each councilmember to build a minimum of 222 Measure HHH-funded housing units in their district by July 1, 2020. If we all take this on, we will create a minimum of 3,330 supportive housing units across all 15 council districts in that time.

I want to tell you about two initiatives that I’m working on to help end homelessness…

I’m proud to report that, although we just launched the 222 Plan, we are already nearly halfway to meeting our goal in Council District 2. With the 64-unit Crest Apartments that recently opened in Van Nuys and another 50 unit building in the works, I am confident that we will get to 222 units and, hopefully, even more by 2020.

In addition, last month marked the completion of the first year of my innovative pilot program that pairs rapid rehousing with job training to get people off the streets and prevent them from falling back into homelessness. Over the course of a year, the pilot program worked with a total of 59 homeless people in the San Fernando Valley and South Los Angeles to help them get housing and a job. It brought together the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority and the Los Angeles Regional Initiative for Social Enterprise to provide rapid rehousing subsidies and job training through employment with nonprofit organizations.

Now that we have the results of the pilot’s inaugural year, I can say that the program was instructive and, more importantly, successful in meeting many of our goals. Despite many challenges encountered, more than one third of all participants are now on their way to housing and steady employment, major steps that could very well set them on a path toward lifelong independence. This is an extremely positive sign, not just for the impacted individuals, but also for those of us who want to find lasting solutions to the homelessness crisis.

The 222 plan and the pilot program are concrete steps in the right direction. They show that, where there is a will, there is a way to increase the level of housing and services in our districts.

If you have additional ideas or comments about homelessness, please email me at paul.krekorian@lacity.org.

Los Angeles City Councilmember Paul Krekorian, chair of the Budget and Finance Committee and the Ad Hoc Committee on Job Creation, represents Council District 2, which includes North Hollywood, Studio City, Valley Village and other communities in the East Valley.

Los Angeles took a step toward greater traffic safety with the city’s announcement of new speed limits on 71 Los Angeles streets, the result of recently updated speed surveys conducted by the Los Angeles Department of Transportation. The new speed limits will be coupled with increased LAPD enforcement efforts across the city as part of the Vision Zero initiative to decrease traffic deaths. 

During the recession, speed surveys for many local streets expired, which prevented LAPD officers from enforcing posted limits. That’s because the State of California requires that cities perform speed surveys every five to 10 years as a condition of setting and enforcing speed limits on all local streets. These surveys measure the actual speeds driven by the majority of users when the street is uncrowded, along with road collision history, roadside conditions, residential and business density and pedestrian and bicyclist safety to best determine an appropriate speed for the street.

I believe that vigorous enforcement of posted speed limits works.

Now that the speed surveys are complete, the LAPD can enforce speed limits on 825 miles of city streets, including many in the San Fernando Valley. Enforceable speed limits are now in place across 98 percent of the High Injury Network, L.A. streets where a higher number of severe and fatal traffic collisions occur. The City Council allocated an additional $1.5 million in LAPD overtime funds to enforce the new limits.

In all, nearly 70 percent of our city streets now have enforceable speed limits, with the rest of the speed surveys scheduled to be updated by the end of 2018. For the majority of the streets, the speed limits did not change; however, 26 streets will have their speed limits increased and 45 streets will have them decreased. Whether a street’s speed limit goes up, down or stays the same is entirely a function of state law and something over which the City of Los Angeles has no discretion.

Like most of you, I would prefer local governments to have more control over what the maximum speed should be on our neighborhood streets. This is something I have fought for since my days as a State Assemblymember in Sacramento because decreases in speed generally lead to fewer fatal collisions. But as much as I believe drivers should be forced to slow down, I also believe that vigorous enforcement of posted speed limits works.

In addition, there are other measures we employ to lower the speed of vehicles traveling on our streets. The city has reinstated the Speed Hump program and deployed other traffic calming measures that have been effective in some communities, including narrowing streets by constructing medians or planters. In the coming years, I will push to ensure that Vision Zero funds continue to be used to bring our communities even more thoughtful solutions that effectively reduce traffic collisions.

If you have questions or comments about this issue, please contact me: paul.krekorian@lacity.org.

Los Angeles City Councilmember Paul Krekorian, chair of the Budget and Finance Committee and the Ad Hoc Committee on Job Creation, represents Council District 2, which includes North Hollywood, Studio City, Valley Village and other communities in the East Valley.

Several years ago, when mapping apps took our smartphones by storm, I started getting flooded with calls from people in my district who lived on small, residential streets that all of a sudden were being clogged with hundreds cars on a daily basis.

At that time, I introduced a motion to try to address the issue. In it, I sought to get Waze, the mapping app company, to partner with the city and help us alleviate high volume, dangerous traffic on certain residential streets. But the issue got no traction in City Hall and my motion didn’t see the light of day. So, I took it upon myself to work informally with Waze, but got no response.

That didn’t sit well, which is why I introduced a new motion aimed at getting the city’s transportation department to explore ways to reduce the negative impacts caused by Waze, Google and Apple. My new motion instructs LADOT to report to the City Council on the current city partnership with Waze and other apps, including detailing what information LA gives them and what the city gets from them, and what efforts LADOT has made to get the app companies to address neighborhood concerns. It also urges app companies to make their representatives available to work with the city to reduce problems caused by their technology.

I use mapping apps myself and I’m sure you do too. We can use them to make our lives and travel more efficient, but with every new app or technological advance, we also have to examine the resulting social consequences that they bring about.

If a mapping app saves a driver two minutes, but the result is that residents are forced to endure two hours of chaos each day as hundreds of cars get diverted onto small neighborhood streets, that isn’t a good trade off. We need to find a way to strike a better balance between the increased efficiency for app users and the adverse impacts of the apps on our neighborhoods.

The goal of my motion is to find ways to reduce the amount of traffic that is impacting small residential streets across the city because, right now, the mapping apps are overrunning streets that were not designed for this much traffic. The affected streets often have uncontrolled intersections, no sidewalks, blind curves, and accommodate kids walking to school and riding their bikes, yet hundreds of cars are pouring onto them. That’s just not reasonable or safe.

Nor is it safe when mapping apps route drivers onto streets that are closed for evacuation due to fires and other emergency situations, which is exactly what happened during the Skirball and Creek wildfires.

There are many things these app companies can do to protect residents’ quality of life and preserve public safety in our neighborhoods. Simply working cooperatively with the City of Los Angeles would be a good start.

If you have comments please contact me by email at paul.krekorian@lacity.org or call (818) 755-7676.

Los Angeles City Councilmember Paul Krekorian, chair of the Budget and Finance Committee and the Ad Hoc Committee on Job Creation, represents Council District 2, which includes North Hollywood, Studio City, Valley Village and other communities in the East Valley.

Summer is just around the corner and there are plenty of wonderful events to look forward to in the East Valley. Some of the most exciting events will take place at North Hollywood Park as part of my NoHo Summer Nights event series. The event is sponsored by my office, along with the Valley Cultural Center, the Department of Cultural Affairs, the Department of Recreation and Parks, the NoHo Neighborhood Council, Vegan Street Fair, City Plants and Bobrick.

Starting Saturday, June 16, NoHo Summer Nights will bring eight weeks of live concerts to the park next to the North Hollywood Regional Library (11430 Chandler Blvd.) on Saturday nights. And best of all, the events are free and family-friendly.

We’ve got a really impressive lineup of live performances from popular bands that I think you’ll enjoy, including Queen Nation – Queen Tribute Band, Center Stage Opera, Raymond Michael – An Elvis Tribute, Savor – Santana Tribute Band, along with Latin, Zydeco and Celtic music. You won’t want to miss a single beat.

The full schedule of concerts is listed below. You can also find it at Facebook.com/nohosummernights. All concerts begin at 7pm, with local artists opening and the headliner taking the stage immediately after:

• June 16: Queen Nation – A Tribute to the Music of Queen
• June 23: Billy Mitchell & The Circle of Friends
• June 30: Center Stage Opera Presents – The Best of Broadway
• July 7: Susie Hansen Latin Band
• July 14: Raymond Michael – Elvis Tribute
• July 21: Paddy’s Pig
• July 28: Lisa Haley & the Zydekats
• August 4: Savor – Santana Tribute Band

For your comfort, feel free to bring blankets, low chairs, tarps and pillows to Summer Nights events. Canopies, umbrellas or EZ-ups are also permitted until the concert starts. Parking is available at the recreation center parking lots, at areas surrounding the park and at the North Hollywood Metro station.

NoHo Summer Nights will also feature LA’s most popular food trucks serving up a great and diverse selection of eats and treats. You can also bring your own food and non-alcoholic beverages from home, if you prefer.

Please come out and experience all the fun things the East Valley has to offer by putting NoHo Summer Nights on your summer calendar.  Be sure to share this information with your friends, family and neighbors as well. I hope to see you all this summer at North Hollywood Park!

If you have questions or comments about NoHo Summer Nights, feel free to let me know: paul.krekorian@lacity.org or (818) 755-7676.

Los Angeles City Councilmember Paul Krekorian, chair of the Budget and Finance Committee and the Ad Hoc Committee on Job Creation, represents Council District 2, which includes North Hollywood, Studio City, Valley Village and other communities in the East Valley.

Each year, thousands of volunteers come together to participate in the Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count, a point-in-time census of L.A. County’s homeless population. The count gives us a snapshot of where homeless people are on a given night and reveals important demographic information about the population. This year’s Count City and Community Level Results were recently released, and they showed that our efforts are beginning to yield results.

For the first time in four years, there is a decrease in homelessness throughout L.A. County, with a five percent decline in the city of Los Angeles. While this is a hopeful sign, there are still more than 31,000 Angelenos without a home.

The drop indicates that new resources voters approved are already having an impact. We housed more than 16,500 people last year, a 28 percent increase over last year and the highest number the region has ever achieved. Housing placements for youth are up to 53 percent, leaving more homeless youth sheltered than not.

There were double-digit drops among two high-priority populations: the chronically homeless and veterans. People who are chronically homeless — who have a disabling condition and have experienced homelessness for at least a year — decreased by 16 percent and the number of homeless veterans fell by 18 percent.

These decreases are primarily due to our focus on getting people into the coordinated entry system, which streamlines the process of finding housing for the most vulnerable, and the construction of supportive housing funded by Measure HHH. There are currently more than 2,000 housing units in the pipeline because of this voter-approved measure.

I want to point out another important thing we learned from this year’s community numbers: homelessness is a homegrown issue. More than three out of four homeless people lived in Los Angeles before becoming homeless. Sixty-five percent had been in LA for more than 20 years and only 10 percent had been here less than a year. Homeless children attend our schools. Homeless mothers and fathers work alongside us and live in our communities.

The community numbers also illustrate that, although homelessness dipped overall, it increased across the San Fernando Valley, including in some parts Council District 2. Although neighborhoods like Studio City have fewer than 40 homeless individuals living there, other areas, like North Hollywood, have far more. This underscores the urgent need to bring more housing solutions and services to those areas of the San Fernando Valley. Placing people in secure and monitored housing, where they get a bed, along with physical and mental health, substance abuse and job training services, is the best way to begin turning things around.

I will keep you updated on the actions we’re taking to combat homelessness in the weeks and months ahead. If you have questions or comments, please contact me: paul.krekorian@lacity.org.

Los Angeles City Councilmember Paul Krekorian, chair of the Budget and Finance Committee and the Ad Hoc Committee on Job Creation, represents Council District 2, which includes North Hollywood, Studio City, Valley Village and other communities in the East Valley.

Taking a step forward in the City’s fight to end homelessness, Mayor Garcetti officially opened the first “A Bridge Home” temporary bridge housing site. Located near the El Pueblo Historical Monument in downtown Los Angeles, the housing is the first of a series of projects planned for construction across the city to bring homeless people off the streets and into homes. Potential bridge housing sites across the city are being explored by every member of the City Council.

The bridge housing sites will offer immediate beds, showers, mental health and addiction services, restrooms, storage facilities and pet accommodations, as well as around-the-clock, onsite care for Angelenos who are sleeping on the street now and awaiting supportive housing or other long-term care.

The El Pueblo site will be occupied by people from existing, high-density encampments in the immediate surrounding area. Homeless individuals who will live there were identified through outreach efforts by specialized teams who walked the streets of the neighborhood every day for three months — to identify homeless Angelenos already living in the community, and prepare them to move into the bridge housing.

The site at El Pueblo is run by a social services agency and is furnished with onsite mental healthcare, substance abuse support, connections to permanent housing, career services, and 24/7 security, and staffed by case managers. Like all bridge housing sites to come, this site will stand for three years — enough time for the city to build permanent supportive housing for the Angelenos living in it.

As residents move into their new housing, LA Sanitation teams will make preparations to restore spaces previously occupied by encampments nearby into clean and accessible public passageways. This is the same series of events that will happen at bridge housing sites in each Council District over the course of the next year: homeless people on the street will gain access to new housing and services, and city crews will, in turn, increase clean ups in the area to reclaim neighborhood streets, sidewalks and parks.

In Council District 2, I have instructed city staff to look at two city-owned properties to see if they could potentially accommodate bridge housing for the homeless. The properties are located in North Hollywood and Van Nuys, the neighborhoods with the district’s highest concentration of homeless individuals living in them.

I started the selection process with a larger list of potential sites in May, but many of them have proven to be unsuitable for bridge housing due to their small size, steep grading, or the existence of permanent structures on the lots. Once city staff comes back with a report on the remaining two properties, I will share the findings with nearby residents and seek additional input before moving forward with any bridge housing proposal.

If you have any ideas about other city or privately-owned properties that could be put to use to help resolve homelessness, please let me know: paul.krekorian@lacity.org or (818) 755-7676.

Los Angeles City Councilmember Paul Krekorian, chair of the Budget and Finance Committee and the Ad Hoc Committee on Job Creation, represents Council District 2, which includes North Hollywood, Studio City, Valley Village and other communities in the East Valley.

Just over 100 days ago, the city’s new chief of police, Michel Moore, took the oath of office and pledged to move forward with an ambitious agenda that would innovate, renew and reimagine policing, while putting the needs of our communities’ front and center. Before I voted to approve Chief Moore, I met with him personally to ensure that he understood my public safety priorities for each neighborhood in Council District 2, but also to underscore how important it is for the LAPD to increase community policing throughout my district.

It is worth noting that both violent and property crime is at historic lows in the city of Los Angeles. Crime of all types is down far below where it was a decade ago and this past summer was one of the safest summers in our city’s history, as L.A. experienced its lowest number of homicides in more than 50 years.

Although crime fell this summer, I firmly believe that we need more cops on patrol in our East Valley neighborhoods, which is why, as Budget Chair, I’ve fought to maintain a robust department of 10,000 sworn officers, while also increasing the LAPD’s budget to unprecedented levels.

This year’s LAPD budget is the highest in city history — $1.7 billion dollars, nearly half the discretionary spending in the entire budget. Approximately $800 million of that is dedicated to operations, including neighborhood patrols, staffing and equipment upgrades.

Chief Moore has pledged to work with me to use the resources provided and step up neighborhood patrols. In fact, the LAPD recently announced that, after an internal review, 200 additional officers, detectives and sergeants will be reassigned from their current duties and return to our neighborhoods in the beginning of 2019.

Our new chief is also partnering with my office to address homelessness. Together, we have increased the number of cops assigned to Homeless Outreach and Proactive Engagement teams to help connect people to services and clean up our neighborhoods, and we are collaborating to ensure the success of our safe parking program and future bridge housing in Council District 2.

In an effort to increase Valley traffic safety, the four bureau traffic divisions and Transit Services Group have been placed under a single entity, Transit Services Bureau. This will allow the department to implement a coordinated, citywide plan to reduce traffic fatalities in line with the city’s Vision Zero initiative through enforcement, improved roadway design and community education campaigns to make our streets safer for pedestrians, cyclists and drivers alike.

As always, feel free to contact me with your thoughts or questions: paul.krekorian@lactiy.org.

Los Angeles City Councilmember Paul Krekorian, chair of the Budget and Finance Committee and the Ad Hoc Committee on Job Creation, represents Council District 2, which includes North Hollywood, Studio City, Valley Village and other communities in the East Valley.

Happy New Year! Last year was full of many community victories and more than a few challenges. My primary goal was to do everything in my power to improve residents’ quality of life, while also supporting local businesses and making our city more equitable for all. Navigating this year was a joint effort with my staff, city departments and community members and stakeholders, all of whom helped build our local economy, shore up the city budget, tackle homelessness, upgrade parks and increase public and traffic safety in our communities.

In 2018, the Los Angeles economy continued to boom. Wages rose, along with the number of jobs, while unemployment fell. As the chair of the city’s Job Creation Committee, I’m happy to report that more businesses were created and grew in Council District 2 and throughout the city. Los Angeles enjoyed record tourism, with 48.3 million visitors taking in our exquisite sunsets.

I dedicated my focus to bolstering public safety in the East Valley.

Our economic gains validated City Council’s efforts to raise wages for working families and cut the red tape for businesses. With unemployment low and wages up, people are spending more money at restaurants and local mom-and-pop shops, leading to more jobs, economic growth, increased services and, ultimately, a better quality of life for everyone.

Our economic successes also informed the city’s positive budget movement, as the nearly $10 billion city budget reinvested in services and included a reserve fund far larger than it was a decade ago.

Much of my energy this year was spent working on solutions to our homelessness crisis. I pushed for more permanent supportive housing units in the Valley, hosted a town hall to discuss the issue at Valley College, organized Homeless Connect days, increased Homeless Outreach and Proactive Engagement team funding and encampment cleanups, worked with the Neighborhood Council to create a homelessness committee, and launched the first safe parking program on city-owned property in North Hollywood.

I also dedicated my focus to bolstering public safety in the East Valley. We need more cops on patrol in our neighborhood, which is why, as budget chair, I successfully fought to shift more cops from desk jobs to patrol duties, while also increasing the LAPD’s budget to its highest level yet.

My office organized some of the largest cultural events in the Valley. The second season of NoHo Summer Nights invigorated North Hollywood Park with live music and art, and I partnered with neighborhood and business groups to organize street fairs, block parties, art festivals and film screenings throughout Council District 2. I also secured funding to improve the LA River Greenway, built a new park at the historic Lankershim Depot and supported preservation efforts for our neighborhood treasures.

It is my honor and pleasure to serve as your representative at City Hall. As always, feel free to contact me at paul.krekorian@lacity.org.

Los Angeles City Councilmember Paul Krekorian, chair of the Budget and Finance Committee and the Ad Hoc Committee on Job Creation, represents Council District 2, which includes North Hollywood, Studio City, Valley Village and other communities in the East Valley.