Thank you, Los Angeles
Thursday, March 5th, 2009Yesterday, the people of Los Angeles spoke clearly about the kind of future they want as they re-elected Mayor Villaraigosa. I hope you were able to join us last night at the Mayor’s election night party, but if you couldn’t make it, here are the Mayor’s remarks from last night:
I know these are tough times for many of our families.
As I have traveled around the City over the last few months I have witnessed the anxiety rising – I have seen despair in the faces of families under water in their mortgages and just a paycheck away from losing everything.
I have a simple message. We are going to rebound from this economic crisis – and we will emerge stronger than ever!
Four years ago, you put your trust in me. And together, we dared to dream. We said it’s time to start thinking big again in the City of the Angels. We said it’s time to stop putting off the tough stuff. Time to recognize that our future as a great global city depends on our willingness to run hard at our hardest problems.
We said we can’t afford to lower our sights, in the shortsighted pursuit of “managed expectations.” And we said this knowing what a steep hill we have to climb. We knew then that many of our greatest problems bear the cumulative weight of decades of bad choices.
We said it’s time in Los Angeles to start thinking beyond the next fiscal quarter and the next fiscal year, to begin building a future beyond our immediate horizon.
We called for new investments in mass transit worthy of a world class city, KNOWING that we wouldn’t fix traffic or build a new subway line in one mayor’s term of office.
We said it’s time for LA to come together as one community to confront the crisis in our public schools, KNOWING that we won’t fix the dropout problem overnight.
We promised to put 1000 cops on the street in the most under-policed big city in America, KNOWING that maintaining that commitment would test our courage in tough times.
And we set the goal of making LA America’s cleanest and greenest big city KNOWING that LA’s history has been more synonymous with smog and sprawl.
I’ll be the first to admit, I’ve made my share of mistakes. But I never lost my focus on the task at hand. And together, we stayed at it.
I’ll tell you what I think this election means. If current trends hold, the City of Los Angeles stands tonight more unified – more closely connected by a sense of common purpose – than at any time since the days of our Tom Bradley.
Across every corner and cranny of this magnificent, sprawling metropolis, with all its complications and contradictions. Eastside and Westside. Valleyside and Harborside. Black and brown. Caucasian and Asian. Gay, straight, rich, poor. Across the table, business and labor. Across the lines of faith and belief. The City of Los Angeles has never been more unified than we are tonight!
Tonight, LA is proving the doubters wrong: a city of four million souls can be ONE CITY. Indivisible.
We’ve shown what we can do when we come together. We came together behind LA’s first comprehensive anti-gang strategy, and gang murders are down 40 percent. We came together unanimously to put 1000 new police officers in every neighborhood of the City, and LA is the safest it’s been since the Eisenhower Administration.
And while I am on the subject, please put your hands together for LA’s next top prosecutor, a former US Attorney, a decorated environmentalist, the City Council’s most passionate leader on issues of public safety – and MY new partner in the fight against gun and gang violence…
Ladies and gentlemen, let’s hear it for City Attorney Jack Weiss!
Angelenos, we’ve shown what we can do when we come together. We came together with a once-in-a-generation investment in mass transit in LA County – a $40 billion infusion into the local economy that will clean the air and generate thousands of good jobs.
We came together to elect a reform school board and brought in a nationally renowned educator, Superintendent Ray Cortines, to lead a fundamental reform of our school bureaucracy. We came together to rescue our City’s lowest-performing schools – with 50 million dollars in private money, with improved campus safety, with uniforms, with a new culture of high expectations, and with a curriculum giving teachers the freedom to teach and the opportunity to innovate.
We came together to make LA a more sustainable city. With the toughest green building standards. With the most expansive port cleanup plan anywhere. By quadrupling reliance on green power. And with the passage of Measure B tonight, LA is now poised to lead the most far-reaching effort to produce solar power by any city in the world.Let me tell you what my top priority will be in the months ahead.
With every breath we take and every decision we make, we intend to put Los Angeles back to work. Back to work in the green collar jobs of the future. We need to create the jobs of the future here in the City of the Future. Back to work in the entertainment industry. It’s time to put a stop to run-away film production. Back to work bringing goods through our ports and airports…
We must take full advantage of our competitive advantage as the gateway to the Pacific Rim, where East meets the West and the North meets the South.
Back to work repairing our infrastructure and building the public transportation system for the next generation. We must put our transportation dollars to work NOW – not next year or next decade.
A friend recently confided to me his secret for “making it” in the movie business. He said it’s really pretty simple. Don’t listen to the critics. Instead, watch the box office! That’s pretty good advice in politics too!
Angelenos, I categorically reject the grim view of those who say LA’s best days lie in some remote and nostalgic past.
Tom Bradley, of course, offered the ultimate rebuttal when he said, “The only thing that will stop you from fulfilling your dreams is you.” In that same breath, Bradley summed up what it means to be an Angeleno. It’s this essential view of life. This is what 4 million infinitely complicated, hopelessly different people have in common.
It’s the same belief that brought my grandfather here from Mexico a century ago, the same belief that draws new blood and new flavor to Los Angeles every day from every corner of the globe.
It’s a fundamental belief in the future. The belief that our best days lie ahead. The belief in the relationship between hard work and real reward. The belief that together we can solve any problem when we match our imaginations and our muscles.
It’s this belief that has always made Los Angeles America’s City of Hope and Promise.
Angelenos, I promise you this: We are going to pick up where we began. I will work as hard as you do every single day. And, as a City, we will never, ever stop reaching for the stars!
Thank you Los Angeles. Thank you one and all.
