Culver City Observer -

Mayor Eric Garcetti was inaugurated for a second time Saturday under a dusk sky on the steps of Los Angeles City Hall. The packed event included performances by the Los Angeles Master Chorale, a jazz band, and ping pong and fencing from 2024 Olympic hopefuls. But the shining performance of the night didn’ t come from any of those: it came from the Mayor himself. Fresh off of being named by the New York Times as a person the Democratic Party may be courting for a run at the presidency in 2020, Mayor Garcetti did not shy away from speaking about the current President, naming issues like immigration as key things Los Angeles faces. He called Los Angeles a “united city in a divided nation,” and announced that while many others “shrink from the call,” Los Angeles “thrives in [its] great diversity.”“Today let us take all colors in.”Mayor Garcetti recalled some of his greatest successes of his first term: guiding Los Angeles out of the recession, improving school graduation rates, and increasing fiscal responsibility and transparency. He also focused on the future, saying that a visitor to Los Angeles in four years will see a revived city. “She will take the train to a new museum.”Naming the Lucas Museum and the new purple Wilshire line of the LA Metro alongside a plan for two years of free community college and a $15 minimum wage, Mayor Garcetti announced that there was a lot of good coming to Los Angeles in the near future. He further spoke about the city’ s bid for the 2024 Olympics, which would be LA’ s third. Either Los Angeles or Paris will win the bid, with the other receiving the 2028 games. Garcetti never said that Los Angeles was without problems. He called it “a city without a middle class,” and didn’ t stray away from talking about the homeless, which is a growing demographic in the second-largest city in America. “I wear many names...but there is none I wear as proudly as ‘ Angeleno.’”Mayor Garcetti faces his final term in office, ending in 2021, and has made it clear that he plans to make great accomplishments. But with a California gubernatorial election in 2018 and a

presidential election in three years there are rumors that he may vacate the office early to move on to higher things. Though Mayor Garcetti knows the issues his city faces, and he appears to plan to tackle them, promising “[not] to be flatfooted.”Eric Garcetti faces challenges coming in his second term as Los Angeles Mayor, but he doesn’ t plan on backing down. Joshua Rush (15) plays ‘ Cyrus’ on Disney Channel’ s Andi Mack, and can also be seen in movies like Parental Guidance, Emelie, and Break Point. A native of Houston, he moved with his family to Los Angeles in 2008 to pursue a dream of becoming an actor. His interests for the future include politics, film, and broadcast journalism.