Improving Business Opportunities for Small Business Owners

I recently joined Mayor Villaraigosa, other electeds and a host of small business advocates to announce a new directive that will create a fairer, more accessible system to increase business opportunities for small business owners. Los Angeles is home to one of the largest, most diverse small business communities in the world and the Business Inclusion Program will help the City tap more effectively into that vast pool of talent.

This new program will be implemented largely through the City’s online business platform, the Los Angeles Business Assistance Virtual Network (BAVN), and will include benchmarks to increase business participation for small, minority, and, for the first time, service-disabled Veteran owned businesses. It will also require that all City contracts subject to advertisement be listed online at the BAVN.

As Chair of the Public Works Committee, I will help ensure goals are met by holding our department managers accountable for the benchmarks set out for them under the Business Inclusion Program.

Crime Drops Again Citywide

Yesterday I joined LAPD Chief Beck, Mayor Villaraigosa, City Attorney Carmen Trutanich and my colleagues on the City Council to announce that crime is down in the City of Los Angeles nearly 7 %. Violent Crime is down 11% and Property Crime is down nearly 6%.

Homicides dropped below 300 for the first time in decades and our City is the safest it has been since 1952. I want to thank Chief Beck and all the men and women of the LAPD for the sacrifices they make each and every day to protect us and make our city safer.

Special recognition to Captain Anita Ortega, Captain William Murphy and Captain Todd Chamberlain and their officers for their work in Council District 14. Crime continues to drop in all divisions in our district.

I also want to thank all those working in intervention and prevention programs. Gang crime in our city dropped 11% in 2010. Programs like our highly successful Summer Night Lights program are having an impact. Since 2008, gang crime has dropped 40% in the areas around the parks that offer the program. In the area around Highland Park Recreation Center, where the program was offered for the first time in 2010, gang crime fell 68%.

Despite a tough economy, we are making headway against crime in the City of Los Angeles. Let’s continue the fight in 2011.