[Editor’s Note: At a Los Angeles City Hall press conference Tuesday morning, mayoralty candidate Emanuel Pleitez will demand that rival Eric Garcetti return donations from anti-immigrant contributors.]
[img]1662|left|Emanuel Pleitez||no_popup[/img]The Los Angeles mayoralty race has begun to heat up among all five major candidates, lately between City Councilman Eric Garcetti and Emanuel Pleitez.
Mr. Pleitez, who experienced the largest gain amongst the Latino community in a recent poll, has been vocal and critical about Mr. Garcetti’s record and economic knowledge.
In the fifth debate of last week, Mr. Pleitez continued to portray himself as the only candidate who understands the economy, having worked in the private sector and having been appointed twice by the Obama administration to work on economic policy. This time, Mr. Pleitez was even more direct.
In response to Mr. Garcetti’s stock economic reform assertion that “we need to look not only at what we will do but what we have done…” Mr. Pleitez said:
“Cuts aren’t something to be proud of. That is not a record to stand on. We need to stop sitting and looking. We need to start making structural changes.”
His charge seemed to get under Mr. Garcetti’s skin, causing him to respond more directly to Mr. Pleitez’s indictment of his six years as City Council president.
Mr. Garcetti attempted to preempt Mr. Pletiez, contextualizing his past Council actions as different from the baby steps that “some candidates” paint them as being.
Mr. Garcetti also took the fight to Mr. Pleitez, claiming that his opponent would be the first “high tech mayor.” The declaration fell flat as Mr. Pleitez reminded the crowd that he was the only candidate who has tech experience having been a technology company executive, and proved it with an actual plan:
A technology package that would include a team of data scientists aimed at better technology and efficiency across the city.
The other candidates weren’t without their moments of contention. Wendy Greuel, who answered the budget question in the same way she had all week, by focusing on “waste, fraud, and abuse” as well as “pension spiking and double dipping”, earned an uncharacteristically snarky response from rival Jan Perry who advocated increasing employee health care contributions instead of what she called “pension spiking whatever…”
Mr. Pleitez is a former technology executive, with public, private, and non-profit sector experience. He was appointed to manage President Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board.
Mr. Hill, communications director for the Pleitez campaign, may be contacted at john_hill@pleitezforla.com
