According to the report, business is booming in Council District 2. Private sector employment in CD2 grew slightly, with double digit growth in education, transportation, healthcare and warehouse jobs. Wages were boosted in professional, scientific, technical and financial services and real estate jobs.

 

Gross business receipts continued to grow as well, with all industry sectors having a combined annual growth of 18.9 percent over the previous year. The East Valley also continues to grow in consumer spending, with sales tax receipts up 2.8 percent, a figure that will surely increase as more retail options come to the district, including NoHo West, which will open in late 2019.

 

The report validated the City Council's efforts to raise wages for workers and cut the red tape for businesses. With unemployment low and wages increasing due, at least in part, to the Council-enacted minimum wage increase and other economic development policies, people are spending more money at restaurants and mom-and-pop shops in their communities, leading to more jobs, economic growth, increased services and, ultimately, a better quality of life for everyone.

As chair of the city's Job Creation Committee, Councilmember Krekorian has lead the City Council's efforts to enact policies and programs that attract new businesses and stimulate economic and job growth in the East Valley and throughout Los Angeles.

 

More than 400 people attended the meeting, many of them from Council District 2, where residents are concerned about the FAA's plans to route all the fights taking off from Hollywood Burbank Airport over a much smaller, narrower area than that previously used.

 

In August, Krekorian and City Attorney Feuer sent a letter asking the FAA to fully consider and vet the environmental impacts that channeling the flight paths would have on the city of Los Angeles.

 

Krekorian told the Airport Authority, "I want the FAA to do a comprehensive environmental review of this project and gather input from every part of my district and the surrounding area. We deserve to know how it impacts our lives, how it impacts our natural environment, and how it impacts public health on the ground when you concentrate that many flights in a tiny area. We need to understand those environmental issues before the FAA moves forward and makes any new flight patterns permanent."

 

Councilmember Krekorian also urged federal representatives in Washington to continue advocating for East Valley communities, to carry residents' voices and concerns directly to the FAA, and to work with his office to make sure the FAA listens to Angelenos.