Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer said this year’s mayoral election is the most relevant in a long time, requiring a level of leadership that none of his opponents have in in terms of executive experience and the caliber that he has displayed throughout his career.
“The city has never faced as many crises as it does now: the emergency due to homelessness, public insecurity, the crisis of housing prices, the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on communities of color from a health and economic standpoint,” Los Angeles mayoral candidate Feuer said during an interview with editors of The opinion.
Are you worried about your opponents?
You said candidates like billionaire Rick Caruso don’t they worry him in the least even though he has spent more money on his campaign than anyone else; and what he is going to spend on his entire campaign.
And he assured that one point against Caruso is that “the voters do not want them to buy them”.
But he also said that when he was on the board of the University of Southern California (USC), a third of the women on campus, were sexually assaulted.
“I’m not sure Mr. Caruso can withstand the scrutiny of a campaign.”
As for the rest of his opponents, like Congresswoman Karen Bass with whom he worked very closely in the Assembly; o Kevin de León, who was a seatmate in the State Assembly, said that the main difference with the two of them is that he, in addition to being a legislator, has been an executive.
“I have been in an office in charge of 1,000 people. We have attended 150, cases since I have been a city attorney.”
He indicated that Bass is a good person, but being in Washington is not the same as being established in Los Angeles and having a mastery of problems.
“ If you have seen me in the debates, you have realized the differences between my specific proposals and the generalities of my opponents at a time when we cannot afford slogans”.
Feuer recalled that she has a record of violence of guns, and that’s why the Obama administration invited him to the White House to speak with governors, mayors and legislators about how a local leader can be effective in the absence of a Congressional action on this issue.
“ History dates back to the 34 when I was a City Councilman and wrote one of the most effective laws against gun violence, and in the state legislature, I authored two of the most that were replicated throughout the United States”.
He recalled that he created the first national organization of prosecutors for the prevention of domestic violence, and one of the first things he did was create a system to ensure that abusers did not have access to guns.
And as a prosecutor in Los Angeles, he sued the largest dealer and manufacturers of parts and equipment for fake weapons, and now they are in the middle of that litigation that has generated national news.
He also created a program that sends trained therapists in conjunction with the Los Angeles Police Department and a tra community downstairs to an act of violence by weapons.
“We have connected children and their families with immediate therapeutic interventions and trained parents, teachers and school administrators”.
How do you plan to address the issue of insecurity?
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I was the first candidate to propose that the LAPD return to count with ,000 officers, and I said that we are going to accompany this with a focus on diversity and university degrees that help to have less violent police forces ”.
But he also stated that will emphasize training to reduce the use of force and embedding officers in neighborhoods to earn the trust and respect of the communities they serve.
“I am going to separate officers of responsibility for non-violent mental health incidents, and to invest in violence prevention programs.”
? What is your position on the scandal in the Department of L Electricity and Water (DWP) around the collection system that was a disaster, generating high rates, and in which they have been involved?
It must be said that the entities that were sued by the city of LA, discovered that Paul Paradis, a special attorney hired by Feuer for the lawsuit against the firm that implemented the billing software system, also legally represented users in the lawsuit over the high fees, which was considered a massive conflict of interest.
Feuer responded that the Department of Water and Electricity did a very bad job and after the City was sued, he made sure that users who were overcharged received your money as quickly as possible to resolve the lawsuit as soon as possible.
“Then a couple of lawyers from the private sector came to say that PricewaterhouseCoopers, the firm that created the collection system should be sued”.
But he later found out that those private attorneys helped opponents sue the City.
“When I found out that I made sure the court and the press had the evidence from someone I retained as a private attorney helped make that happen,” he said.
And he assured that he immediately carried out a series of reforms to ensure that a similar event would not happen again.
But he also asked the resignation of a lawyer who pleaded guilty to a crime three years and whom he put in a position of authority.
“I acted in a responsible and decisive manner by discovering a problem and making it public and getting rid of those people who do not belong to the municipal government.”
And he said that if his opponents use this to attack him during the campaign, they will give him the opportunity to make it clear that leadership involves confronting a problem the way he did.