Terry Hughes

I have lived in Los Feliz for over 35 years. I am married and my children attended local schools here.

I have always been concerned about our community and the quality of life here. For years I was on the Board of the Los Feliz Improvement Association (“LFIA”) and was also president of that organization for several years. When I was on the LFIA Board, LFIA was instrumental in establishing the Los Feliz Neighborhood Council and I was then, and am now, supportive of our Neighborhood Council and what Neighborhood Councils in general bring to City government.

I believe Los Feliz is a great neighborhood in which to live and shop. Los Feliz has a range of great restaurants and vibrant small businesses, and I would like to try to make our community even better for their proprietors. However, I feel the quality of life in Los Feliz has declined in the past few years. We all know of the homeless problem, and I think crime is up, notwithstanding what the published statistics may show. I know of several cases where merchants and residents have not even bothered to report crimes because of the effort involved and the likely little benefit that reporting would engender. Granted, these are not serious violent crimes that I am referring to, but they do diminish the quality of life for our residents. I am not blaming our police officers, as I think they are generally doing what they can with the resources and laws they have to deal with. I think our traffic and parking problems are other areas in which some improvement may be found with creative thinking. I know these are all difficult problems, but we should still try to do what we can, and new thinking may be helpful in this regard.

I am seeking to fill this vacancy on the Governing Board because I now have more free time than I have had in the recent past, and I would rather light a candle than curse the darkness, as that old saying goes. I would like to use some of my time and talent to try to make things better for our community. I am an attorney by training, but also have an accounting background (having passed the California CPA exam) and, if possible, I would like to use these skills on our Neighborhood Council Governing Board.

Over the years I have attended numerous City Council and various other neighborhood and community meetings and know how time intensive and seemingly unproductive these meetings can seem to be, but I do think they are important and good often comes out of them. Not having such meetings would be worse than having them. I have no illusions that things can magically change overnight, but I do think incremental change is possible to make our community better and I am willing to work for that change.

Thank you for your consideration.