L.A. Votes For New Mayor Amid $200-million Budget Shortfall

Los Angeles voters head to the polls March 5 to decide the top two contenders to face off in the mayoral runoff election in May. The field of nine candidates is led in public opinion polls by the city's controller Wendy J. Greuel and two of the city's longtime councilmembers, former council president Eric Garcetti and Jan Perry, both Democrats.

Republican Kevin James, a former radio talk show host and Assistant U.S. Attorney for Southern California, rounds out the race's leaderboard, while Emanuel Alberto Pleitez --- a tech company executive who served on the Obama-Biden presidential transition team after the 2008 election and chaired the Salvadorean American Leadership and Education Fund as well as Hispanic Heritage Foundation --- has seen an uptick in support and media attention, although he's considered a very long shot for the mayor's job.

Also on the March 5 ballot is a a half-cent tax hike that the city's chief budget analyst, Miguel Santana, says is the only way to avoid the mass layoff of hundreds of police officers and other city employees under a looming $200-million deficit.

The city's revenues "are growing at 2-3 percent a year, which is a good thing," Santana recently told The Planning Report, a monthly newsletter for the urban planning and design community. "The challenge is that expenditures are growing at a much faster rate-about 4-5 percent each year... what we call the structural deficit."

Santana continued in The Planning Report interview that even though "three years ago it was projected that by our next fiscal year the city would be facing a deficit that is well over a billion dollars," the latest data suggests the city's latest deficit projections for next year range between $200 million and $250 million, so we went from over a billion to around $200 million, which is significant progress."

If voters don't approve raising the half-cent tax the city may be forced to cut funding to the fire department, as well as close area jails, scale back the ranks of civilian workers in the L.A. Police Department and LAFD, reassign city misdemeanor cases to the district attorney's office and provide less money for gang reduction and youth development programs.

"We're talking about bankruptcy in Los Angeles," James said during a mayoral candidates forum in late January. "That does not instill confidence" in businesses and others considering whether or not to move into the City of the Angels.

There is consensus among the candidates the city will necessarily need to negotiate with its powerful unions to reduce city worker pension costs.

Said Controller Gruel: "If we don't have a viable pension system in the City of Los Angeles, they don't have a pension later on."

Garcetti said L.A.'s next mayor will need to be strong enough to balance city services with the needs of city's current and future employees.

"We can't tax and cut our way out of this," Garcetti said.