June 7 Primary Includes Voting for 5th District Supervisor

Candidate forum on Thursday, May 12, at Pasadena City College. – Photo by Terry Miller

The upcoming primary on June 7 will replace termed-out former Supervisor Mike Antonovich. Candidates to fill the vacancy include: Darrell Park, Rajpal Kahlon, Bob Huff, Elan Carr, Ara James Najarian, Kathryn Barger, Billy Malone and Mitchell Englander.

Candidates recently faced off in a friendly forum on Thursday, May 12, at Pasadena City College.

The candidates offered their top three priorities and some thoughts for the 5^th District Seat:

– Darrell Park: (1) Creating green energy jobs – Park believes that we can create quality jobs and reduce our impact on climate change by making Los Angeles County the green energy capital of the United States. (2) As our new supervisor, he will ensure our county is protecting the most vulnerable. On the board of supervisors, Park will fight every day to make sure that Los Angeles County is protecting and improving the services that our most vulnerable citizens rely on. (3) He will lead the fight to reform maintaining clean air and water. Park understands the important responsibility that government has to protect the quality of our air and drinking water.

“Another thing is getting our healthcare system the way it needs to be in hospitals, using competition among different teams in the hospitals to sort of get better performance. We have seen this in other places where you have a green team, a red team, and a blue team. You can do things to improve not just the quality of life of the patients but the quality of life of the doctors and the nurses and the other staff. They like working there, because it is fun and competitive, they are doing what they want to be doing, rather than being stuck in a bureaucracy that is not helpful.

“One other thing that is very near and dear to my heart is the foster care system. My parents took in 19 foster care kids over my lifetime. Some of them stayed through weekends, some of them stayed a lot longer, at least one stayed for years. And I saw a foster care system that worked in certain ways really well, in other ways not so well, but if you are in a situation where the kids are treated as the most important thing, not the parents, not the workers, but the kids are the most important resource, then you get the outcomes you want to see. It was very satisfying for me as an adult to watch some of the kids my parents fostered come back and thank them.”

– Bob Huff: (1) Help to attract and retain good paying jobs – more jobs mean more tax revenues and less need for county services. (2) Work to reduce traffic congestion – being stuck in traffic is time away from family, jobs, lowers quality of life, and adds to air pollution. (3) Work to improve water quality and reliability – we must clean up our aquifers, capture more rainwater to accommodate economic growth and survive drought.

Candidate Bob Huff. – Photo by Terry Miller

“Part of removing obstacles is you have to have good transportation [and] good water infrastructure,” said Huff, who last year was a lead negotiator for the statewide water bond to build two new water storage facilities and clean up contaminated drinking water in the San Gabriel Valley’s underground aquifer.

“Certainly affordable electricity rates, renewable energy comes in there, it’s a great thing to have but it becomes very expensive,” he added, in addition to noting the importance of “making sure that our regulations aren’t keeping jobs away. All of those things tie into jobs.”

Huff and a number of politicians statewide have lamented the recent increase in property crime in many cities that they connect with recent legislation aimed at relieving prison overcrowding by reducing sentences for non-violent offenders.

– Ara James Najarian: (1) Public safety. (2) Transportation improvements. (3) Job creation.

“We do have to continue to focus on the Sheriff’s Department, to make sure that all the issues and management failures in the past, that I think went from the very top level, all the way down to the sheriff on the street, need to be resolved. I am looking for huge leadership from Sheriff McDonnell to implement and put into effect a lot of the reforms that he promised. Now if that means that there have to be additional budget allocations, if that means there has to be an additional restructuring of the department, I’m fully in support of that, but I’m not pleased, and I don’t think anyone, both in or outside the department is really happy with the direction it had been going up until nine months ago. Included in that big question are the issues of the jails, the issues of the incarceration of those with mental illness, the issues of rehabilitation for drug addicts and substance abusers. It’s a huge issue but it is all inter-related and we need to focus very closely on how all those pieces work together to best utilize our resources to make the entire county much safer place for the residents and to help those that need help to turn their lives around and not necessarily put them in a jail cell and assume that that’s magically going to solve their problems.”

– Elan Carr: (1) Keeping our communities safe and reducing crime. (2) Stop the hemorrhaging of quality jobs from the state and attract more of those quality jobs to Los Angeles County. (3) Fix our crumbling schools and make sure our children have the best education possible.

“We have got to take care of America’s kids, or we will consign yet another generation to be lost to the streets and gang violence,” he added.

Carr suggested programs such as “universal preschool” and job training on public school campuses “so that kids can get a sense of self-esteem and their own ability to provide.” After-school programs are another key component of Carr’s education priorities.

“You can’t handcuff your way out of the rising crime problem we’re facing,” Carr said, setting up the third prong of his legislative focal points – stemming the exodus of jobs from the county.

“Our job creators are fleeing LA” to other parts of California and neighboring states, he observed. “We have a tax and regulatory infrastructure that is suffocating the life out of our job creators.”

Carr also noted his intention to focus on improving roads, sidewalks, and water infrastructure.

– Kathryn Barger: (1) Ensure the county is safe through working with sheriffs, mental health department, and jails. (2) Advocate for businesses in cutting red tape, lowering fees when possible, and making a better environment for creating jobs. (3) Continue to manage a fiscally responsible budget.

Candidate Kathryn Barger. – Photo by Terry Miller

“My key policy priorities are public safety – maintaining a level of public safety in the 5th District and in the County of Los Angeles – to me that’s a quality-of-life issue and a key issue as well as continuing to grow the economic engine of L.A. County,” Barger said. “In looking at the 5th District, especially the Antelope Valley which truly is re-branding itself, we have an incredible relationship with the cities of Lancaster and Palmdale, which have in the past been known for aerospace now are looking at bringing in manufacturing jobs. So partnering with them, I remain committed to bringing in businesses.”

Barger pointed out two companies involved in building trains and electric buses destined for use in the public transportation systems throughout the county.

“So building on that momentum to bring manufacturing businesses in, which truly does drive our economy and stabilizes the middle class, that remains a strong commitment of mine,” she said.

Another “quality-of-life issue” Barger focused on was libraries, parks, and open space.

– Billy Malone: (1) Public transit: increase the use of public transportation focusing on the impediments of the transit process. (2) Preserve LA: the historical, cultural, and natural offerings of Los Angeles, while encouraging and exploring responsible economic growth with an emphasis on runaway films and its impact on the film industry and its indirectly related industries. (3) Quality of life, affordable housing, and healthcare – emphasis on prevention in the most susceptible social groups: low income, seniors, homeless, veterans, disabled, and children.

Candidate Billy Malone. – Photo by Terry Miller

“We’re always trying to fix things rather than finding the problem, then going to the source of the problem and see what’s happening,” Malone said. “If you look at this system, it comes down to one basic thing: we have too many kids and not enough foster parents.”

The candidate suggested mobilizing a public relations campaign to highlight the good aspects of being a foster parent in order to provide a positive counterpoint to negative news coverage of instances when the system has failed, such as cases of abusive foster parents who weren’t adequately vetted by county personnel.

Malone said he favors teaming with nonprofit groups such as Together We Rise to create a public outreach program.

“If we can change the dialog and make it more positive with some of these outside groups … there’s lots of kids whose lives were saved by getting into the foster care system and who got adopted by wonderful parents,” Malone said. “If you see some of these wonderful things and hear these positive stories, then it’s going to make people want to actually participate. … When you only hear horror stories it kind of sets you back, and then people don’t want to participate.”

– Mitchell Englander: (1) Strengthening public safety and emergency response across the county to keep our communities and families safe. (2) Improving the quality of government services as well as the ability to access those services, particularly for the most remote communities in the county. (3) Working to grow our economy, attract new businesses, and create good family supporting jobs.

Candidate Mitchell Englander. – Photo by Terry Miller

“I’ve been through a lot in my life and as an elected official, as president pro tem of the largest city in the state of California and the second largest city in the country, I’ve not only been through personal experiences but I have the experience in leading that effort on a large scale,” Englander said, noting a number of family tragedies that have shaped his perspective as a lawmaker.

“I lived and breathed every service the county provides or should be providing,” Englander said. “I was raised by a single mom who lost our home. My brother went into foster care. My uncle was killed as part of an initiation into a gang – there was an attempted robbery and he was the victim. My sister died because she couldn’t get access to an emergency room because the emergency room was full, and my mom passed away because she didn’t have access to affordable health care.”

Englander, who was first elected to the LA City Council in 2011 and represents the area of the northwest San Fernando Valley where he was born and raised, also pointed to his record as a small-business owner.

– Rajpal Kahlon: After years of what Kahlon felt was Antonovich’s unresponsiveness to his appeals for attention to a range of issues affecting the district and county, he decided a core tenet of his campaign platform would be a pledge to more actively listen to constituents. A lack of face time with the supervisor has been a frustrated Kahlon’s most prominent complaint against Antonovich.

Candidate Rajpal Kahlon. – Photo by Terry Miller

“It’s very important that you have time for the people,” Kahlon said. “So that they can come to you and address the issues that are important to them in their neighborhood. If you don’t listen to the public, how can you solve their problems?”

“We need to hire more social workers, we need to have unannounced visits to the foster parents’ house to see how they’re doing, and also we need unannounced visits to the schools,” Kahlon said, noting the importance of increased accountability for all those involved in foster care, including those in higher-up supervisory positions.

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