Mayor Outlines Los Angeles Jobs Plan at Town Hall
LOS ANGELES (CBS) — With the city's unemployment rate hovering just shy of 14 percent, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa told the audience at a town hall meeting Thursday he is not waiting for politicians in Washington to create jobs.
Instead, the mayor said he is focusing on ways to make Los Angeles more business friendly, to partner with the private sector, and advance job-creating projects at LAX and the Port of Los Angeles.
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KNX 1070's Pete Demetriou reports.
Villaraigosa also announced the launch of a new website, www.LocateLA.org, to help businesses find office or manufacturing space in the city and find tax and other incentives to reduce the cost of working in the city of Los Angeles.
"With Congress failing to take action, my administration is taking steps right now to put people to work," the mayor said.
About 130 business owners and community leaders attended the town hall at Grifols Biologicals, Inc., a health care company northeast of downtown that is investing $135 million to expand its facilities and create 300 jobs.
Villaraigosa told the audience he is focused on three main ways to make the city more business-friendly. They include reducing or eliminating certain business taxes, expediting permitting processes and policy changes to give preference to local businesses bidding for city contracts.
The mayor also touted major construction projects at LAX and the Port of Los Angeles. The airport is undergoing a $4.1 billion modernization. Villaraigosa said the project would create as many as 39,000 jobs. He said a $1.2 billion investment in construction projects at the port would create about 20,000 jobs.
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