Looking Ahead in 2022
As we enter the new year, I hope our first newsletter of 2022 finds you safe and well, refreshed from time spent with friends and family over the holidays.
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Councilmember Krekorian's Statement on the Shooting of Valentina Orellana-Peralta
Our entire community is grieving with the family of Valentina Orellana–Peralta over this unspeakably horrendous tragedy. As a father, I am devastated to think of the pain they are experiencing, and my deepest condolences go out to them and everyone who knew and loved Valentina.
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2021: The Year in Review
As we enter the holiday season, I hope we can all look forward to festive times with friends and family. As we do, I’d like to take a moment to look back on the year behind us. We have come a long way since last year. Most businesses have reopened and children are back in school. Vaccination has spared most of us the misery of COVID infection, and has saved many families from the agonizing loss of a loved one.
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L.A. Salutes Our Veterans
Every November, our country honors the veterans of our armed services — men and women whose devotion to duty has made possible the freedoms we enjoy.
November 11 was originally observed as Armistice Day, commemorating the end of World War I, when the guns fell silent at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918. Since 1954, we have observed the occasion as Veterans Day, honoring all the men and women of our armed services.
For many years, it has been my privilege to lead the City Council’s Salute to Veterans. I initiated a tradition of the Councilmembers naming a Veteran of the Year in each district, recognizing one individual as a representative of the many whose contribution to our community has extended beyond their service in our country’s uniform.
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From The Streets To a Tiny Home To Permanent Housing
The magnitude of the homelessness crisis here in Los Angeles and across the nation can often seem overwhelming. The persistence of the challenges, and the barriers to what seem to be common sense solutions, can easily lead both the housed and the unhoused in our community to lose hope.
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Electric Buses Come to the Valley
This month, Metro finalized the conversion of the entire Orange Line (now known as the G Line) to zero-emission electric buses, achieving a goal that I initiated five years ago. Approximately 40 zero-emission Metro Liner buses now operate on the 18-mile dedicated busway between North Hollywood and Chatsworth. The new buses are cleaner for the atmosphere and quieter for the neighborhood, and they can be recharged at multiple points along the line to keep the buses running day and night, seven days a week.
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The Second Council District Achieves Interim Housing Goal
On September 21, the Whitsett West tiny home community opened its doors to serve as interim housing for those experiencing homelessness in my district. It is the third tiny homes village I have opened this year in my district (out of only seven in the entire city). With the completion of Whitsett West, together with our two previous cabin communities and two “Bridge Home” sites, we have now built enough bridge housing to accommodate 100 percent of the people who were living unsheltered on the streets of the Second District as of the last homeless count.
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Council Adopts 100% Clean Energy By 2035
On September 1, the Los Angeles City Council took the historic step of requiring that 100 percent of the city’s electricity come from clean, zero-carbon energy by 2035. Through a motion I introduced with Councilmember Mitch O’Farrell, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power — the largest municipally-owned utility in the country — will lead the nation in this ambitious and game-changing commitment to sustainable energy.
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A Safe and Healthy New School Year
Last month, LAUSD welcomed more than 450,000 students to their campuses for the first time in almost a year and half.
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Defeating the Delta Variant
The return of our children to school should be an occasion for celebration, but as we begin the new school year, we cannot ignore the resurgence of Covid-19 here in Los Angeles. We should all be vigilant in ensuring the safety of all children, as well as that of our teachers and school personnel.
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LA 100 - Our City's Progress to 100% Clean Energy by 2035
Five years ago, I initiated Los Angeles’ conversion to a 100 percent carbon-free electrical grid. But it was much more than just setting a goal. In response to my motion, co-authored by Councilmember Bonin, LADWP began an effort unprecedented in the nation to create a genuine blueprint to eliminate fossil fuels and achieve 100 percent clean energy.
With the active engagement of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and a committed community task force representing environmental organizations, business, labor and ratepayer advocates, the LA100 plan was born. Los Angeles is now on a clear trajectory to achieve the 100 percent clean energy future that no other major city has accomplished, and to do it in a way that ensures grid reliability, cost efficiency and massive job creation.
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L.A. Enacts New Limits on Homeless Encampments
For years, Los Angeles has struggled to meet the needs of our unhoused population while also protecting the rights of all members of the public to use public property, including safe and unobstructed sidewalks. Here in Council District 2, over the last 14 months alone, we have created interim housing to accommodate 800 people -- enough to shelter every person who was living unsheltered on the streets in my District as of the last count. We also created the city’s first homeless services navigation center, making counseling, hygiene, job referral, housing placement, and storage readily accessible to people experiencing homelessness.
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Grappling with a historic budget deficit
Just a year ago, the City's financial health was the strongest it had been in more than a decade. But then the COVID pandemic hit, causing not only devastating loss of lives and livelihoods, but also the worst budget catastrophe Los Angeles has ever seen.
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Giving Thanks
From my family to you and yours, Happy Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving 2020, like so many other special events this year, will be a very different kind of celebration. Most of us will be scaling down and enjoying a considerably smaller gathering, in order to keep our friends and community safer during one of the most dangerous periods of the pandemic. Although this celebration may seem different, Thanksgiving still offers us the opportunity to consider all that we have to be grateful for, even in difficult times.
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Honoring our Veterans in 2020
Several years ago I created the City Council's annual "Veterans of the Year" ceremony to commemorate Veterans Day. Every year, we have honored and highlighted one veteran from each council district who has served our country and our community with honor and distinction. The proud families and friends of our Veterans of the Year fill the Council Chambers as Councilmembers describe their honorees extraordinary service. The ceremony is always one of the high points of the year at City Hall.
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