Blogs of the LA Area Chamber

Since its release in 1982, the Missing Person’s song "Walking in L.A.,” with its refrain "Nobody walks in L.A.," perfectly captured the City of Los Angeles’ affection for the automobile. Today, the song has become an anachronism rather than an anthem as L.A. moves towards a multimodal future. That future was on full display this past week with another successful CicLAvia event and plans to connect the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and The Grove with a street trolley.

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Yesterday, 251 business organizations from every corner of the United States co-signed a letter to Congress stating, “With the U.S. economy continuing to underperform, the federal government needs to maintain its normal operations pending a successful outcome of broader budgetary reforms. It is not in the best interest of the employers, employees or the American people to risk a government shutdown that will be economically disruptive and create even more uncertainties for the U.S. economy. We respectfully urge the Congress to raise the debt ceiling in a timely manner and remove any threat to the full faith and credit of the United States Government.”

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Our political leaders are often pulled in many directions. The exception is during a crisis. During the great recession and glacially moving recovery, we heard many elected officials declare a jobs crisis and the creation of jobs as the top priority. 

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This past Wednesday was another critical step on the long march to a modern Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) as the front door to the largest county in the United States and gateway to South America and Asia. The Los Angeles County Airport Land Use Commission (ALUC) denied an appeal by the cities of Ontario and Culver City and the County of San Bernardino to delay the LAX modernization plan approved by the L.A. City Council last spring.

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Last year, Start Up Genome ranked Los Angeles as the third best startup ecosystem in the world, just after Silicon Valley and Tel Aviv. Our assets are many including a strong base of universities, creative talent and a Hollywood-fueled edge in digital media. 

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For 2.6 million students, the California Community Colleges system is the gateway to higher education and a fulfilling career. As California seeks to dramatically increase the number of credentialed and college educated workers to remain economically competitive, the California Community Colleges system is a vital link to a strong and skilled workforce.

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As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s “I have a dream” speech and the March on Washington, there is one bit of information that many forget. The actual name for that historic event was the “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.”  The theme for the 25th anniversary commemoration was “March for Jobs, Peace and Freedom.”

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With three weeks left in the 2013 legislative session, California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) reform is waiting on the sidelines while the list of public and private projects being stalled under the allegation of CEQA violations continues to grow. The most recent ruse is a CEQA challenge to a new downtown high-rise housing project in San Jose by a construction union official objecting that some workers on the project would be non-union from Sacramento. The appeal may not be successful in the long term, but it is one more example of interest groups using CEQA to stop or delay projects for reasons that have nothing to do with the environment. 

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In September of last year, Gov. Jerry Brown signed an important bipartisan pension reform bill designed to increase the retirement age for new employees, cap the annual payout, eliminate numerous abuses of the system and require workers who are not contributing half of their retirement costs to pay more. The Public Employee Pension Reform Act affects all state public workers hired after Jan. 1, 2013, as well as local governments that participate in the State's pension funds. It was an important first step towards reducing the hundreds of billions of dollars in underfunded pension liability.

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Professional sports are part of the excitement Los Angeles offers to residents and visitors. We have the privilege of cheering for some of the world's best teams and finest athletes.

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