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League of Conservation Voters Questions 1. Why are you running for office? I believe very strongly that we need someone other than a professional politician to stand for office, someone who is not beholden to raising large sums of money. The most prominent feature of my campaign is the webcast. Through use of the internet, I run an inexpensive campaign. It costs me a fraction of the other campaigns, I only need to raise a fraction of the money, and I can avoid controversial donors, who might otherwise compromise my decisions in office. The camera will follow me into office, bringing a new era of openness to government. Lobbyists will have to operate under the scrutiny of the public. Most importantly, we webcast citizen panels on the important issues facing the city. In this way, the views of the real people who live here become known. We've grown very complacent as a city, and a country. The majority does not vote, and has left governance to a small clique of politicians. This clique governs largely outside of the public's view, rewards its contributors more often than it serves the public good, and rarely faces the consequences of the policies it enacts, leaving the public to deal with the mess created by our 'leaders' e.g. Rampart, MTA subway debacle, Belmont Learning Complex fiasco. I concentrate on five issues of concern:
Los Angeles has a poor record addressing all of these issues. Many among us have given up on these ever improving, giving rise to a new social paradigm: "Let me just make enough money so that I personally am not affected as our social structure crumbles." I believe this is a very dangerous road for a society to travel. Therefore, I am using this campaign to pose possible solutions to our city's problems. I must share the quote instigated by a conversation with my banker. She had only known me from my personal account relationships, and I suppose she assumed I was opening another personal account. As I was sitting at her desk, opening the campaign account, she looked up at me when she realized the nature of the account she was opening. She said, "I didn't know you were one of THEM." I said, "Hmm...Well, who's THEM" She replied, "You know...you're too honest to be a politician." So I'm running precisely because I'm NOT one of THEM. 2. What are three to five specific tasks you intend to take while in office? I. Create a Sustainable City Plan and create a position to enact its tenets. Los Angeles should aim to use what it produces, and produce what it uses. II. Offer tax incentives for Green industries, especially an alternative fuel transportation industry, to base themselves in the city. III. Offer incentives on rehabilitating existing sites for mixed use, while simultaneously creating disincentives for developing any open space which now exists within the city limits. 3. What are the more serious environmental issues facing Los Angeles? The most serious environmental issues facing Los Angeles is the widespread perception that we can continue our current wasteful lifestyle in this desert climate, without facing serious current and future consequences. We must come to grips with our decades long water appropriation and waste. We must drastically reduce exhaust gases. We must stop dumping our storm sewers into the bay. But underlying every environmental issue is a drastic switch in public perception. We need to build sustainable models, including houses made of alternative materials set in mixed-use communities. To meet these long-range goals, we must get people involved in the decision making process, and my webcast of citizen panels is a start. 4. What should Los Angeles be doing about these specific environmental issues that it is not doing now? a. air quality This is intricately linked with (d. transportation). Los Angeles should be the center of research and development for zero emission vehicles. Through tax incentives for this and other green industries, we will reconfigure our defunct aerospace industry into one of the most innovative industries for the next century. We must get all diesel vehicles off of our roads in ten years. We must develop a comprehensive mass transit plan, one that will serve a highly mobile and geographically diverse city. We must get people out of their cars. When they do drive, the vehicles must be zero emission, and we must be at the center of that industry. b. Water Quality We will retain more of the Los Angeles River upstream. Install Bio Filtration systems along its current course. Pave the way for double plumbing in our building code. Redirect storm runoff through filtration, bio filtration where applicable. c. Toxic Substances Part of any overall education effort must include real alternatives to the use of toxic substances. Once they have been used, however, all efforts should start with efforts at using biodegradable substances to mitigate the damage. d. Transportation see a. e. Land Use. Mixed-use communities must be encouraged. All new development must fit into the sustainable City Plan, and must include public, green space. 5. If elected, what will be your role in these efforts? WatchTheMayor.com will be the place for the people championing these efforts to have a voice. They speak directly to the people, answer their questions, and create an ongoing forum where these policies are developed. As well as using the bully pulpit to encourage others, I am also personally committed to being hands on in the implementation of these policies, meaning that I will actually get out there and put in some time to build a rammed earth house with double plumbing that surpasses our earthquake code. 6. Describe an area in your city that suffers from significant and localized environmental problems. How will you address them? The Los Angeles River between Griffith Park and downtown. Install biofiltration at the end of each inflow to clean the water, and make it part of park space. Create parks that double as flood control basins in both the Taylor and Chinatown Yards. Break the levee in these two places to allow for riverfront recreation. Assist all groups currently working to re-green the river. 7. Please comment on/explain the process by which the Mayor's office handles environmental issues. As currently constituted, I believe the process is buried too far from the public view for me to comment on it with any degree of detail. 8. What do you propose to do to improve the Office of the Mayor's environmental protection and enforcement records? In my administration, first we would create a Sustainable City Plan. An appointed position would oversee the enactment of this plan. Enforcement resources currently arrayed against victimless crimes would be redirected toward environmental enforcement. We would seek state money from the sale of pollution credits to enhance the environmental enforcement budget. Further, I believe that public involvement at unprecedented levels, made possible by the webcast, will have the effect of making the government more accountable and therefore friendlier to the environment. 9. What do you consider to be your greatest environmental achievement? Having not held public office, I cannot point to legislation passed. However, I can relate a way in which a small amount of money, focused on a specific problem, made an enormous impact in a community. While visiting a Peace Corps site in Kenya, I had the opportunity to meet with a women's farming cooperative and government officials. The Peace Corps had undertaken a pilot project, to deal with a number of local environmental issues. They had introduced a Central American tree species, which was nitrogen fixing, could be used for animal feed, and also for fuel. These traits had great effect in improving farming production, and reducing clear cut farming. However, although the women's first crop went well, they had little success in marketing their trees to farmers. They said they could not afford to continue the project into its second year. When I learned that the amount of money required was about the amount of cash with which I was travelling, I immediately provided them the opportunity to farm the trees for another entire year. Twenty women's lives, and their families', and their surrounding environment were all improved. Although aid programs abounded, none of the money made it to the source where it was truly needed. I am proud to have helped, and see use this account as a guide. It's rarely about just getting more money for environmental projects. The money can always be siphoned off in a city government such as ours. But appropriate money applied at the source can have great benefit. 10. How do environmental issues fit into your campaign? With my campaign focusing on openness and accountability in government, environmental issues will be brought to the fore because the average citizen truly cares about his/her immediate surroundings. Once we get the big moneyed interests to wait their turn like everybody else, environmental issues with find much smoother sailing through City Hall. 11. Why do you want our endorsement? Specifically address how you will use it in your campaign? An endorsement for me is a powerful statement. The League of Conservation Voters will be saying that it believes in this new brand of open government, where the citizens have direct access to and accountability from their mayor. This kind of openness will give the League and other grass roots organizations an equal footing with the development and other well funded industries, which now have undo influence on our government, and often wreak havoc on our environment. I would use such an endorsement to motivate even greater grass roots involvement. I will happily do a webcast with representatives of the League, to make the public aware of your solutions for this city. 12. Please list the names, title/company/affiliation and contact phone numbers for anyone who helped you answer these questions. Lance Charles, Whole Earth Systems, 818-228-8147
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