The city’s efforts to respond to the continuing drought and prepare for the next big earthquake are expected to be among the hot topics when Mayor Eric Garcetti delivers his second State of the City address on Tuesday.
The drought, now in its fourth year, has become a pressing issue across the state, with Gov. Jerry Brown calling for a 25 percent reduction in water use, and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California on Tuesday expected to restrict water deliveries to its members agencies by 15 percent — only the third time in 25 years it has enacted such limits.
Garcetti last year asked residents to take voluntary steps to cut the city’s water use 20 percent by 2017, but city officials are now looking at more drastic measures such as imposing new rules that would restrict outdoor watering to two days a week, instead of the three-day limit already in effect.
And with seismologists predicting that a large temblor is inevitable, the mayor is expected to discuss his earthquake resiliency plan, which calls for strengthening the city’s water delivery system, improving the local communications network and requiring that buildings prone to collapsing during earthquakes be retrofitted.
Garcetti is expected to use the speech at the Valley Performing Arts Center to tout several major proposals he has put forth in recent months.
Garcetti announced in December that he wants to purchase 7,000 body cameras, enough to outfit all Los Angeles police officers, and he will include funding for them in his upcoming budget proposal, which is expected to be released next week.
Meanwhile, the City Council is continuing to debate his proposal — announced on Labor Day — to raise the minimum wage to $13.25 per hour by 2017. Some city leaders want to go further and boost the wage to $15.25 by 2019.
The mayor could also discuss his recently released sustainability plan, which sets goals for cutting back water and energy use, encouraging more walking and bicycling and increasing the number of solar panels in the city. The plan includes short-term goals for the next few year, as well as long-term goals over the next 10 and 20 years.
Garcetti will deliver the seat amid a growing labor crisis, with thousands of city employees recently voting to authorize a strike as contract talks stall. Garcetti said last year that in order to eliminate future budget deficits, the city needs to hold the line on city employee wages and get workers to agree to contribute a higher percentage of their health-care costs. City employee unions have so far resisted such concessions.
Also remaining to be answered is how the city plans to fund improvements to its water infrastructure, including the replacement of deteriorating pipes. Garcetti said during last year’s State of the City speech that he would delay water rate hikes while the Department of Water and Power works to gain the public’s trust amid the troubled rollout of its new billing system and long customer service call wait times.
Garcetti also announced a major street improvement project, Great Streets, during last year’s State of the City, with those projects just starting to materialize in recent months in Reseda and San Pedro. The initiative targets one major street in each of the city’s 15 City Council districts for upgrades to make them more inviting and walkable.
— City News Service