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I'm Stephen Box.
Congratulations on your good hard work with the budget. You should be
commended especially in these, what should we say? Tough time for the city of
LA when the neighborhood councils are getting crushed because of their budget. I
admire your fortitude.
The reason I came by tonight was to say hello and introduce myself, my name is
Stephen Box, I live in Hollywood, just up yonder. And I'm running for city council in
council district 4.
So I may or may not have you as voters but I do have you as good friends and our
paths have crossed in the past.
David and I go way back with neighborhood council elections. Our
paths have crossed with 'social media' if you will and other opportunities to
improve the quality of live in our community.
Most of all I would like to come and introduce myself and ask for your
support. So whether you have advise for me, whether you have some ideas for me.
If you have some insight I'd love for you to visit stephenbox.com
Can you spell that?
S-t-e-p-h-e-n.com
No, stephenbox.com
Oh, I'm sorry stephenbox.com
Is that B-o-x?
B-o-x. And you'll find opportunities to follow me on twitter, join me on facebook,
visit me on youtube and participate in some of the great opportunities for us to
connect without going face to face.
So the long and the short of it is, I'd like to know what is it you would like from the
city of LA? Big picture as well as the specific opportunities we have to improve
the quality of life in our neighborhoods. And I think the city council should work
for the people that live here. And so we're proposing four very simple things. The
first one is a vision for connectivity, which means not just as a transportation
activist you go to get from one side of town to the other but also you go to
connect and with 4 million people it's kinda tough to get to city hall or to find
the person in charge. Especially in the city of LA where there are so many
agencies and department and authorities that have a piece of the streets, a piece of
the neighborhoods, a piece of the funding. So in the spiriting of connectivity
we are proposing a vision for connecting physically, connecting socially, and then
for connecting in regarding to the agencies and the authorities and the
funding. So that we can work together to make LA a great city.
So anyway I just wanted to say hi, looking forward to working with you.
And bicycles.
I look forward to riding bicycles with you.
Yes.
How did you get here?
Tonight?
Yes.
We rode our bicycles.
Good! That's the right answer.
Woohoo.
So we were over at the farmers market and then we were at Griffith Park and we
rode over here. So my wife and I are car free. In fact last year Enci's production
company is Rebel Without a Car Productions, and Enci shot a film in East
Hollywood sustainably. So there was a second film shot about the film. Which is
two film for the price of one, which is fairly sustainable. But the film was shot
without the use of cars, it was shot sustainably. Which means that we used
17 cyclists, The Greensters, instead of The Teamsters to do all of the
transportation. So all of the grip, electric, cameras, audio, and two camera
operators were moved around. We picked up all the gear using bicycles, bicycle
trailer, xtracycles and it was a really fun experience. We also had composting
onset, we had fresh food! Which is not just sustainable but so much better than
packaged food or processed food. So it started off as just a no styrofoam
commitment and the next thing you know it really went crazy.
Stephen what about the bicycle plan?
You know the Mayor was out riding his bicycle this weekend.
[laughter]
Yeah, and a taxicab pulled out. Which meant that this theoretical 'what are our
streets like' became a very real topic for him. So we've proposed 10 things that the
Mayor can do, now that we have his attention. It's an unfortunate incident that
took place but one that happens all too often for all us. So now that we have his
attention and he is extremely sensitive, literally sensitive right now, I'm sure his
arm is very sore. We have his attention, so we've proposed 10 things that he can
do to make LA a great bikeable city. So we'd like to see if perhaps you'd be
interested in forming a committee that would take on some transportation
issues. The reason for this is that we think what is good for cyclists is good for
the community. Street that are walkable, rideable, crossable, it's good for the
merchants, it's good for mass transit, it's good for the people that live in the
community. And the quality of life when it increases means that we need less police
to respond or react because the quality of life is actually improving. Community
policing is the most powerful opportunity we have to manage...yes.
Is this on a greater scale that what the USC proposed for breaking up the
sidewalks over there on Jefferson.
I don't know about that, USC is proposing, as part of their master plan to
improve the quality of life. Well if you would be interested in forming a
committee it would be just quite simply to address some of these issues, that could
be one of them. Some are policy some are behavior, some is just encouraging
people to ride and some is education. So that's the pitch if you're interested.