I recently interviewed mayoral candidate and sitting Los Angeles city attorney Mike Nelson Feuer. The longtime attorney has served at nearly every level of government except the federal level. He served as Assembly member for the 42nd district and Los Angeles City councilmember for the fifth district. Now he is running to become the next mayor of Los Angeles.
Feuer says he is running for mayor to bring strong, proven effective and experienced leadership to a city facing tough challenges. During an hour-long interview, the lionshare of that time was taken up by our discussion of homelessness, followed by bringing city government closer to the people, and policing.
While the longtime lawmaker sat with us to talk about his policy solutions for all the major issues facing our city, he was also sitting with me to make clear his progressive bonafides in the actual work he has done on the issues that matter over the past eight years he’s been city attorney and before.
On homelessness, Feuer made the case that a state of emergency should have been declared long ago, and stated that if elected, he will do just that. He said this would give the mayor additional executive authority while sending a signal to the public about the seriousness with which the city will take the crisis.
Next, he said he would consolidate all the power that the executive has. He noted that the mayor controls every city department and can solidify that authority under one accountable official to be sure that everything possible is being done. He referenced an op-ed piece he wrote about four years ago for the Los Angeles Times that if there had been an earthquake or similar natural disaster, a Federal Emergency Management Agency field general would have been here on the ground in Los Angeles and that person would have been held accountable by time frames and measures of success.
“If they weren’t cutting it, they’d be gone because we have to recover,” Feuer said. “I wrote that we have the equivalent of that natural disaster now and it’s homelessness. And no one’s in charge.”
With that said, I noted that Mayor Eric Garcetti and Gov. Gavin Newsom have said similar things only to have the same result: something less than an all hands on deck approach to a crisis. I cited the Harbor Department as an example of the kind of push back we’re seeing. Feuer said he generally agrees with me but noted that the Harbor Department is strung up by any number of state and federal laws dictating how the Harbor Department can use port property. He said those restrictions may inhibit the city from being able to use some property there for this purpose.
Outside of the Harbor Department, Feuer said that one of his top objectives as mayor “is to right away get everybody working towards the same goals and if they can’t do it, they won’t keep their jobs.”
To provide an idea of what an all-hands-on-deck solution would look like, he said he would create a strike team of leaders at the Department of Water and Power, Engineering, Planning, Housing… all the departments that had something to say about the siting and approval of housing for people experiencing homelessness and affordable housing.
“I would say we are going to cut the time within which this gets accomplished,” Feuer said. “If we don’t, you will not have a job. And it’s not because I want to be tough about it in a mean way. It’s because if we have an emergency we have to act like there are lives on the line on the streets of the city.”
To illustrate how he would operate in a declared state of emergency, Feuer noted that several years ago, before the advent of Project Roomkey (which involved hotels and motels), he advocated that the city take advantage of existing infrastructure that is motels and get them converted into housing for people experiencing homelessness.
“I was the leader of getting that to happen in City Hall. I then held town hall meetings of owners of those motels to encourage them to participate with us in this process,” Feuer said. “I said, look, I can guarantee you a hundred percent occupancy because right now even with a booming economy, that’s not what you’re experiencing.”
He said he was a fan of moving things cheaply and faster.
“That’s what an emergency requires,” he said.
Feuer believes tiny homes can be a part of the solution, but doesn’t believe the city has been innovative enough about the idea. He argues that 3D printing can build tiny homes much more cheaply and faster. He said that as mayor, he wants to be the innovator when it comes to taking action.
Feuer repeatedly argues that the body politic of Los Angeles too often are forced into making false choices in regards to addressing homelessness.
“You’re either for a humane and compassionate approach on the street or you’re for making sure our public spaces are safe and accessible with some order,” he said.
Feuer noted that editorial boards often rail against temporary solutions in favor of permanent supportive housing on the premise that every dollar is finite.
“You have to put [the money] someplace. Put it to the more biting solution and that’s a permanent part of housing, but we have an emergency on our streets right now,” Feuer said.
Feuer said the city cannot simply wait for the perfect solution down the road because if it does, the city is going to be pervaded with homelessness.
“It’s a disgrace that’s inhumane [to] people experiencing homelessness, and completely unfair to people who are housed and have businesses,” Feuer said. “We need to take into account the rights of everybody here… Let’s try to find that common ground.”
Feuer is also proposing to clean up the city with a million more hours of trash cleanup and neighborhood beautification efforts. That would mean 200 additional hours per week for every neighborhood council area in Los Angeles.
“These are issues that are not tied necessarily to people experiencing homelessness,” Feuer explained. “It’s just the city has a problem with illegal dumping and trash on the street. I mention this only because I think it’s crucial that we have pride in our city again where little kids in their neighborhoods would think, “somebody cares about me.”
When I bemoaned the lack of affordable housing in Los Angeles, and that over the past 40 years we have lowered the expectations of middle class living and our teachers can’t even afford to live close to the schools where they work. I have said in the past that the school district itself, probably with all of its extra property, should be building housing units on their vacant parcels. Feuer agreed, but said there are proposals on the table to address that very thing.
“ I completely agree with you, and that is not just some vague idea,” Feuer said. “As mayor, I want to work with the school district, because yes, school properties can be locations where we also place housing for teachers and others that is affordable.”
Opposed to Defunding Police
On policing, Feuer is opposed to defunding the police and says he is looking to get the number of Los Angeles Police Departmentofficers back to 10,000 and making some other kind of investments in reform efforts.
Feuer said we should be investing in training to assure that law enforcement deescalates violent confrontation and uses of force and expanding community partnerships when it comes to community policing, like the community safety partnership in housing projects in Watts.
Feuer favors a balancing of police reform while at the same time advocating for a display of solidarity with its police department for the things it gets right.
“I think we need to be able as leaders to identify the areas where reform is appropriate and the moments to stand up for our law enforcement officers when they’re doing the right thing. And I think that we don’t have enough of that balance today.”
On Doubling the Number of Council Districts
On bringing city government closer to residents, Feuer said as mayor, he’d pursue a charter amendment that would cut city council districts in half to about 130,000 residents. Currently, 250,000 people comprise a city council district.
Referencing the role San Pedro played in the secession movement more than 20 years ago, Feuer noted that if we had cut districts in half back then, the Los Angeles Harbor district would only include San Pedro, Wilmington and Harbor City.
“You take those three communities, they comprise about 140,000 people. That gives you a sense of a kind of local control and engagement,” Feuer said. He noted that the other thing about having smaller council districts is you have council members who are much more intimately familiar with the issues and are much more easily held accountable.
Feuer has a whole page on his website dedicated to his platform. I must admit that it reads as very thorough and well thought out. I strongly recommend RLn readers to check it out at https://mikeforla.com/.
Managing Editor Terelle Jerricks contributed to this story.