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Friday, Mar 29, 2024

More It Changes The More It Stays The Same

Editor, Jason Schaff As I write this column there are a few news items that really illustrate what’s going on these days – opposing forces are at work and ultimately who wins will affect the economy in some way. What are the opposing forces? The status quo and change, of course. First of all, gasoline prices are the highest since the economic crash in 2008. What’s to blame? Who the heck knows. The high and low cycle of energy prices seems to be a constant in our overall economic cycles in the past several years. But it’s unfortunate that prices are so high just as things truly start to look better – consumers are spending more as are businesses. This will surely put a damper on things at a very crucial time. The local economy as well as the national economy will never be completely stable with vastly fluctuating energy prices. We have to equalize this or our economy can’t grow to its full potential. The high gas prices are just more of the same. What else is more of the same? Low voter turnout. People still claim to be disengaged although they complain more than ever. There are more and more people who are too ignorant to understand that they can change things that they complain about by voting. Or they are just too lazy. Fewer than 1 in 8 eligible voters cast ballots in the March 8 L.A. city election. Incredibly pathetic as far as I’m concerned. This affects the economy because at least locally there were business-related items on the ballot. What outcome of ballot items reflects more of the same? The L.A. city council election results show this but not necessarily. And that may not be so bad. The council’s 12th district results reflected more of the same. Mitch Englander, current 12th district councilmember Greig Smith’s chief of staff, won that race outright without a runoff. Englander is a good guy who I think cares about the city and is a friend to business, but there were several challengers in his race. They came up short but their existence showed that everybody in that district doesn’t like the Smith regime. Councilmember Bernard Parks, who has really shown over the years that he is a friend to business and really cares about the city’s budget crisis, was winning re-election despite being opposed by labor. Parks has tried to limit pension costs in the city and they don’t like that. More of the same? Parks, you might think is more of the same, but labor actually outweighs him in being more of the same and it lost. Their loss shows some change in the thinking of L.A. and the electorate. Unions have been strong for a long time. What else may signify change in the thinking of people? The measure to cut city pensions and raising the health-care contributions of some new city hires also won. This shows a refreshing change. The people who actually voted told city bureaucrats who absolutely fight change all the time that they need to take a little of the medicine that the private sector has been taking the past few years. The vote to approve a ratepayer advocate for the Department of Water and Power seems like a change, but I don’t think it really is. It approves just another bureaucrat. So we come down to the most important vote as far as I’m concerned: the vote to approve the increase of libraries’ share of city revenue. That’s the best because I’m all for people reading and being smarter. Business Journal Editor Jason Schaff can be reached at (818) 316-3125 or at [email protected].

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