LANCASTER – Lancaster Mayor R. Rex Parris gave the annual State of the City address at a luncheon hosted by the Antelope Valley Chamber of Commerce Wednesday. He addressed Lancaster’s challenges – one in particular — before highlighting the city’s economic growth and strides in health, wellness, education, and solar energy.
“The biggest threat to the city right now are the people using Section 8 for their own purposes, for their own political agenda,” Parris said.
Parris described the city as being “under attack” by both the lawsuit (read the complaint here), which claims blacks and Latinos on Section 8 face discrimination in Lancaster and the ongoing federal investigation into alleged harassment and mistreatment of Section 8 recipients in the Antelope Valley.
Parris said federal officials were demanding several years’ worth of documents, phone messages and emails from the city that were impossible to produce.
“It would literally take us about $100,000 to respond, and there’s no way we can respond,” he said.
Parris said requesting the documents was a tactic meant to scare the city into a settlement, and said the city would not be backing down.
“It doesn’t matter how big the dog in the fight is, it matters how big the fight is in the dog, and they picked on the wrong dog,” Parris said. “This is the city of Lancaster and we are proud of what we are doing.”
In listing the city’s highlights, Parris said Lancaster had rebuilt its downtown during one of the worst economic turns, had cut its crime rate nearly in half, and now boasted the most diverse and integrated population in Los Angeles County.
“I actually think we may be the most integrated city in America,” he said.
He pointed to the revitalized BLVD as one of the city’s grandest accomplishments — creating 40 new businesses and providing 1,100 construction jobs and 802 permanent jobs within the city’s core.
He said even with the city’s reduction in crime, the much talked about aerial surveillance system or “Eye in Sky” was still needed.
“We have to be the safest city in America,” Parris said. “It’s no more intrusive than the helicopters up there now, it’s just available when we need it. That’s the only difference.”
Parris also touted the city’s five Wellness Homes as evidence of commitment by the city to proactively address the healthcare needs of community residents and said the Master Plan of Trails and Bikeways would put in motion a community-wide project to make staying healthy easier.
Parris stressed the city’s commitment to seeking foreign investors, saying he was willingly investing his own money for trips such as the one recently taken to Abu Dhabi in order to secure foreign investment.
Parris also listed some of the city’s ongoing solar generation projects as evidence of its commitment to becoming one of the first net-zero cities in the world.
View the slide presentation used for the State of the City Address 2012 here.
Dr. Miguel A. Coronado says
Mr. Carter, I appreciate your comment. Do you have any degress or accomplish anything of significance to put down anyones education. Are you involve en the community? By the way, I have earned an Ed.D. Not a Ph.D.
Furthermore, I speak for the family and we are in the process of hiring an attorney. We would love your imput in matters concerning our community. Once again thank you for your comments.
Dr. Miguel A. Coronado
Ps. Before outing peoples education down, reasearch the academic degree…
Facts says
Hey Doc, try “researching” the English language. The number of misspellings in your various posts is alarming considering you are claiming to hold a doctorate in education. Please tell me you didn’t attend a university in the USA?
Dr. Miguel a. Coronado says
Hey, thank you for your comments. Please contact me and let me know what you can do make our community better. We have a lot of problems in our community and you are more concern with my spelling.
Shunnon, I have used my phone to reply to post. I was confronted by members of my group, they told me it does not make me look good. Well, let me tell you, I’m not in it to look good, nor to prove anything. I was contacted by a family for sopport, and that concerns me, not my spelling. So for those of you that are concern about my spelling, my doctorate degree or whether I call myself doctor. Please join me and work with me to make our community better.
Amy, thank you for your comments. Shunnon, I will see you at starbucks.
Dr. Miguel A. Coronado
James says
probably went to University of Phoenix.
Shunnon Thomas says
My Dear friend Dr. Miguel Coronado,
Please stop replying to these posts using your cell phone.
You type to fast and your fingers are too fat.
Much love,
Shunnon Thomas
Dr. Miguel A. Corondo says
This is Dr. Miguel A. Coronado. I am the spokes person for the Cobien family. I thank you for puting the Mayor on the spot. The League of Latin American Citicens thanks you as well…
Sincerely,
Dr. Miguel A. Coronado, Ed.D.
T,J, says
LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Dr. Miguel A. Coronado says
I’m not sure what you found to be so funny, T.J. I want your support to make this community much better. For you and all, no matter who you are or where you come from.
Dr. Miguel A. Coronado, Ed.D.
Mike Rives says
You are welcome Dr. Coronado. I intend to use this tragedy and turn it into something positive that will benefit our community and prevent any others from occurring.
Facts says
Glad to hear that you are all using this incident to focus on positive solutions.
Such as gang prevention and alternative programs; substance abuse programs; illicit narcotics enforcement programs; active probation and parole enforcement efforts; all of which may have possibly kept this 26 year old young man and the Cobien family from a life that ultimately led to this fateful demise.
Thank you for taking on this platform law and order that could ultimately benefit so many on the REAL problems affecting any law abiding civilization.
Dr. Miguel A. Coronado says
My pleasure. Please make an effort to contact me. I need sopport. My intentions are not to attack the Mayor or anybody else. I want this beautiful community to thrive for the benefit of our kids…
Sincerely,
Dr. Miguel A. Coronado, Ed.D.
Facts says
You can get off to a great start in your mission by supporting lawful behavior and teaching our children about right and wrong, the dangers of drug use, and self responsibility & accountability.
Local law enforcement has many great programs for our youth that you might want to recommend as they are always trying to help our greater community. I personally know some great kids, now productive young adults, who benefitted from those programs and are now excelling in life’s journey.
Matt S says
Make sure you teach them to drop and kiss the dirt whenever the cops roll up on them. Otherwise they’ll kill them.
G says
Its was great you should have been there and said something to the mayor.
he say the sheriff out here will chase you down and hmmm i better stop talking. it was very sad to watch
Mike Rives says
During the Q & A answer session, I asked Mayor Parris to offer condolences to the grieving mother of the victim of shooting on J4. His Honor just looked at me and didn’t respond.
CKAY says
The fact his lips were not moving was a good thing.
William says
He can’t produce the documents. He runs a law firm which is all about reams of paper documents and hard drives loaded with stuff. Who is he kidding unless the city is really bad at managing their documents which is equally bad news?
When is Parris going to start talking like normal person instead of a BSer?
Stinger says
Nah. What the real problem is that the US government is requiring Parris and his cronies to show that the community was actually involved in the decisionmaking process. Since they weren’t, he can’t show that!
This is just the beginning of the investigations that will culminate in Parris and several of his cronies doing the perp walk soon.
Mr. Parris, your cell is waiting…
Matt S says
Anyone else hear the shredders buzzing away, working overtime? Somebody should keep and eye on city hall’s trash bins. I have a feeling we’ll be seeing a whole lot of extra bags of confetti in them.