Garcetti Praises 'Quality of Life Issues' in Eagle Rock

Besides bike lanes and medical marijuana dispensaries, Eagle Rock appears to be “very focused on the quality of life issues,” mayoral runoff candidate Eric Garcetti said Wednesday in a private breakfast meeting in the neighborhood.

Speaking to a group of about 30 people gathered in the so-called Screaming Room at Colombo’s restaurant, Garcetti said “there’s always been the tension in Eagle Rock between people who want to keep it a walkable community” and those who favor greater development.

For a long time, there has been a sense among Eagle Rock residents that “a lot of things bypassed this community and that they were stuck between Pasadena, which had a lot of great things, and Glendale that had a lot of great things,” Garcetti said.

“I think what’s happening to Eagle Rock now is very similar to what’s happened to Atwater Village and Silver Lake lately,” he said, adding: “We’ve seen a lot of old businesses coming back and a lot of new businesses come for the first time. But the scale is going to be really important in terms of parking, keeping businesses going, and recruiting small businesses and helping them go from the small to the medium-sized.

Garcetti said he was very glad to be back in Eagle Rock, where he also has a campaign office (in the Citibank building on Eagle Rock Boulevard). “I spent a lot of days here and loved being here—it’s a very special community,” he said, referring to the time before his political career when he used to teach at Occidental College. 

“One of the things I’d like to do in Northeast L.A. that would serve Eagle Rock and Highland Park and others is to have a Business Source Center,” Garcetti said, adding: “We started one of these in Hollywood—it’s basically a one-stop shop for small businesses, where you can get a loan, you can get your business plan developed, you can get mentorship and people who can help you out.”

Los Angeles has “too many small businesses that get up and running, get through the city bureaucracy, pay their gross receipts tax and after a few years or so they go under,” Garcetti said. “We can’t afford that.”

The other issue that Eagle Rock is focused on is “educational excellence” from the point of view of both charter and non-charter schools. “I’m very impressed with that and I think that continues to be an issue—to see scores go up for charters and non-charters,” the mayoral candidate said.

Garcetti was invited to speak before a select audience of residents and representatives of a section of L.A.’s hotel and hospitality industry. The event was co-hosted by Eagle Rock resident and entrepreneur Ray Patel, owner of the Welcome Inn on Colorado Boulevard. Senior Assistant City Attorney Eduardo Angeles moderated the event.

Also present at the breakfast was Kevin James, the Republican mayoral candidate in last month’s primaries, who has since endorsed Garcetti’s candidature. James, who said he had held several of his mayoral campaign meetings in Colombo’s Screaming Room, praised Garcetti’s record in representing Hollywood in the City Council. “It’s a record we want throughout the city,” he said.

“We’ve got 34 days left in this race,” Garcetti said in his roughly half-hour speech, referring to the May 21 mayoral election. “This is the Number One race in the world right now,” he said. “Everyone’s looking at L.A. because they want L.A. to succeed.”

Garcetti appealed to the gathering not just to donate to his campaign but, more importantly, to get people to vote.

“If everybody talked to five people today and five people tomorrow and five people the day after that for the next 34 days, that’s about two or three thousand votes just in this room, which literally could be the margin of victory,” he said. “It could be that close, it could be a percent or two.”