Our Priorities

Glendale has been consistently one of the safest cities in the country. However, recent state policies have contributed to less criminals being put away and more neighborhoods being put at risk. With a revolving door in our justice system, our neighborhoods are paying the price with increasing larceny. Strengthening public safety and ensuring that our police have the resources they need to keep our neighborhoods safe is one of my top priorities.

In addition, with the increase in devastating gun violence across the country, which has left our children in fear of going to school, I will restore the city’s gun buy-back program as well as our school resource officers in our public schools. The two programs work hand-in-hand to ensure we’re doing everything we can to remove deadly weapons from the hands of those who are likely to use them to hurt the innocent or themselves, and that our children have professional law enforcement personnel on campus who will protect them. 

Making sure that we preserve and protect our city’s historic and cultural heritage is key to preserving the character of our Jewel City. Glendale has lost historic gems that it can never regain. We need to make sure that we promote historic preservation and adaptive reuse of our historic structures. I will fight to make sure that our neighborhoods all have a voice in City Hall to represent what is best for their neighborhood whether its specific measures to mitigate traffic concerns or providing more support from city agencies to ensure safe streets and neighborhoods where our children live and play. The state is attempting to impose development guidelines on our city that often do not fit the character of our historical neighborhoods. Fighting for local control, rather than succumbing to state-imposed mandates, over these decisions will be important so all our residents have a say about the future of their neighborhoods.

Our city has seen a large increase in high-density residential development but has not updated its transportation plan to keep pace with the traffic flow that has resulted from this development. The result has been increased traffic everywhere including cut-through traffic in our neighborhoods to the point where those neighborhood streets are feeling more like major arteries rather than the neighborhood streets they were originally designed to be. This is a result of poor planning and will require a focused effort to address the many challenges our residents are facing on a daily basis, creating a host of issues, including pedestrian safety risks.

Glendale also currently has no advanced modern public transit. Due to a lack of preparation and planning many years ago, today we are isolated from regional mass-transit projects. We cannot allow ourselves to continue on a path created by the same mistakes of yesterday. I am going to work hard to integrate Glendale into regional transportation planning projects today to provide viable alternatives. These projects will boost the city’s economic growth, provide safe and user-friendly transit services, while allowing for a public transit system and a bike and pedestrian-friendly Glendale. I will make sure that the city is doing all that it can to increase bus ridership and take cars off of our streets.  The goal should be to allow people to get from one end of our city to the other as quickly and efficiently as possible without the congestion and gridlock that we have today.

Glendale’s system of governance was intended for a city that had a population of less than 20,000 residents. Today, our city’s population is 10 times what it was since Glendale’s founding and we still have only five council members who are elected at-large. During my terms as Glendale’s City Clerk, I have worked hard to make city processes and resources more accessible to its citizens. Making government more transparent and accountable was my core platform when I decided to run as city clerk, it will be my core mission if elected to city council.

Districted Elections: We need to reform our representative system of government to give greater opportunities to people who want to run for office and serve their communities. Glendale needs to expand to seven council seats with 5 districts and 2 at large council members. In each election cycle voters will have an opportunity to vote for a representative from their area along with one at-large council member. Systems that are based only on districts can create divisions in communities. By having a hybrid system we can ensure that our residents will have greater access to their local representative while still ensuring that they have other representatives to hear their concerns and speak for them on City Council. 

Publicly Funded Campaigns: A city is best served when all of its residents can have access to the levers of policy decision-making. Currently, all successful city council candidates have come from similar geographic and socio-economic backgrounds. They have also been able to raise hundreds-of-thousands of dollars to run for office and retain their seats. In order to ensure that everyone in our city has the opportunity to have their ideas heard on the most important of our democratic platforms, we must have publicly funded campaigns where the city will match the funds raised by individuals running for office. Combined with a 5 district and 2 at-large council seat system, public funds will help encourage individuals who have not considered running for office because they lack the financial resources to do so.

A City Ethics Commission: Just like other cities have done, Glendale needs to have a standing citizens’ ethics commission to serve as a source of advice on policy implementation and support for ethics and to  monitor any violations of city’s ethics rules and laws. Currently there is no enforcement body in Glendale for individuals or campaigns who decide to break the rules. Campaigns and Political Action Committees can send mailers in local elections without any accountability. An ethics commission can require that all campaign mailers be on file with the city and there be a record of all political advertising by candidates and campaigns. The commission can also monitor all gifts received by elected officials including trips taken by council members and a system for reviewing the source of funding for these international excursions.

I want to make sure people can afford to live in the communities where they work. I am a strong proponent of affordable housing, and supports increased funding of both public and public-private partnerships to create affordable housing units. In parallel, workforce housing efforts can ensure those who play critical roles in serving our community can actually live in the community. Teachers, public safety personnel and nurses, as just a few examples of people who should be able to live in the communities where they work to better serve our communities. When it becomes cost-prohibitive to achieve this goal it’s a clear sign that we need to do better.  I will work to:

• Build more affordable housing for low income families and seniors on fixed incomes and workforce housing for people who work in jobs critical to the well-being of our community
• Increase our public-private partnerships so we can bring more units online for low-income households
• Stop the runaway overdevelopment of luxury projects throughout Glendale
• Crack down on slumlords who maintain sub-standard units and take advantage of tenants
• Work with landlords to increase the number of Section 8 units available to those who qualify 
• Fight to make sure Sacramento and Washington are listening to our residents’ needs
• Establish a homebuyer assistance program for first time homebuyers who want to own a home in Glendale

Local Businesses and Jobs: One of my key priorities is to ensure that Glendale fosters a climate of economic development and business-friendly policies by eliminating the artificial hurdles businesses currently face when attempting to operate in the city. Glendale is a hidden gem in Los Angeles County. The possibilities and opportunities for Glendale are real and plentiful and we can do more to keep businesses here and attract major brands to move to Glendale. Glendale has already taken steps attracting, nurturing, and sustaining a thriving tech business community with the help of Senator Anthony Portantino’s one million dollar grant.

By adopting ordinances that will help small businesses better compete and pull ahead of their competitors from other cities, we can grow our local economy and foster local job creation. I will work to strengthen Glendale’s reputation as the most business, arts, entertainment, education, and homeowner-friendly city in Los Angeles County.

Make Glendale a Tech Hub: Glendale is fast becoming a hub for technology start-ups that are gaining national and international attention and funding. The city must do all that it can to build on this momentum to attract more innovative and advanced technology start-up so they call Glendale home. This will result in growing the economic base of the city and put Glendale on the cutting edge of the tech sector. It will also allow for unique partnerships to be developed between our schools and Glendale Community College and the existing business community, such as the entertainment industry leaders in our city, that provide opportunities for our city’s youth to join in the global development opportunities strengthening a focus on STEM programs.

Our children are our future, and we need to invest in their success. Our city should make it a standard practice to work with our schools, community college and educators to support the institutions that make Glendale such a desirable place for people to live and raise their families. 

I will build more opportunities for partnership to increase the support for our public education system to continue building an environment that promotes excellence and achievement with our youth.

I will create a pipeline with our community college to bring students into the city through apprenticeships and internships giving our youth the vital real-world experiences they will need to be successful in their lives and careers. 

Just as I have done with the City Clerk’s City Hall Student Ambassador Program, I will work with our local high schools to engage our students in the processes of government helping create lifelong civic leaders. 

Our public schools and college represent immense potential and the city council needs to forge much closer ties and partnership with those institutions. 

When my family moved to California there was a crisis that affected everyone’s health. There was a time in Southern California when the air quality was so bad that children were told to play indoors. I was one of those kids and remember what it was like back then.  We have come too far to go back to those days. Glendale must be a leader in the fight to address climate change and its consequences. 

I will lead the charge to invest in environmental protection efforts and make Glendale a leader in sustainability and adoption of a clean energy strategy. Having our own municipal utility affords us the opportunity to be a leader in this area, but it requires the will and dedication to environmentally responsible decisions. As we have seen with the many catastrophic wildfires around us and in our own city, tackling climate change in our own backyard, increasing and protecting open space, and moving away from outdated fossil fuel-based resources must be top priorities. It shouldn’t matter how much money you have or what neighborhood you live in — clean air, water and energy are fundamental rights.

Electricity: We need to invest in an electric grid that affordably and aggressively reduces greenhouse gases, while ensuring reliability and resiliency with increased development of local resources such as microgrids, renewable energy such as solar, and energy storage that can help provide power during disasters or times of grid interruption.

Water: Supporting water conservation efforts will help us prepare for the future and ensure a clean and safe water supply. I will make sure the city provides incentives to households who wish to plant more local and drought tolerant plants in their yards. Businesses that find ways to capture and reuse rainwater will also receive support and incentives from the city.

Waste: We need to cut down the amount of waste we are putting into our landfills. The food we throw away ends up producing methane gas that is considered more harmful to the environment than carbon dioxide. Our city must address food waste through prevention, redistribution and composting. I will work to come up with incentives for grocery stores that donate their food instead of throwing it away. I support a ban on polystyrene (styrofoam) and would support the introduction of a program requiring all takeout food packaging be recyclable and biodegradable.

Finally, our City needs a commission for environmental issues which can research and develop policy recommendations, creating a consistent future planning process. These individuals would work with City departments to build clear sustainability plans in Glendale.

Glendale is home to a thriving arts community which includes theatre, music, dance and the visual arts.   Supporting these arts is an investment that keeps our community vibrant. We are still lacking in a strong and clear commitment to the arts and I will work with our artists and arts supporters to turn this around. I am committed to turning Glendale into an arts destination, to create a place where people want to live, work and visit. We should be providing opportunities for all Glendale residents to experience culturally diverse arts that reflect our communities and can do so by supporting our Urban Arts program. I have always supported the film and entertainment industry, and attracting talented artists from around the world is necessary to support those important industries. As City Clerk I worked hard to make sure studios filmed locally and kept entertainment jobs here where they belong. Entertainment jobs are manufacturing jobs and as long as we’re making movies, TV shows, commercials and other types of entertainment here, we can ensure that the local economy will remain strong as well.  A community that invests in the arts and makes it a priority is synonymous with a city that takes pride in itself and its citizenry. Let’s work together to tap into the talents of our residents and stakeholders.