{"id":9173,"date":"2012-02-27T21:36:30","date_gmt":"2012-02-28T05:36:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/198.57.196.122\/~gdatwofo\/theavtimes\/?p=9173"},"modified":"2012-07-01T14:09:21","modified_gmt":"2012-07-01T21:09:21","slug":"meet-lancaster-city-council-candidate-isaac-grajeda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/2012\/02\/27\/meet-lancaster-city-council-candidate-isaac-grajeda\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Lancaster City Council Candidate Isaac Grajeda"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>LANCASTER \u2013 Residents who follow Lancaster City Council meetings may know David Grajeda, the outspoken council critic who was arrested and jailed for his behavior at City Hall.<\/p>\n

Less familiar is his older brother, Isaac Grajeda, a music teacher, writer and musician. However, this may change if the elder Grajeda realizes his goal of becoming the next Lancaster City Council Member.<\/p>\n

Isaac Grajeda, 29, describes himself as an advocate for reformed felons, minorities, the working class, and the younger generation. He said he is running for Lancaster City Council because he is fed up with the current administration.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s made up of business tycoons and millionaires that are all friends,\u201d Grajeda said. \u201cIt\u2019s only for the in-crowd.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said if elected he would fight to ensure that city policies benefit the entire community and not just a select few. He said he would also fight to control spending.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought these people were conservatives, but nothing that they\u2019ve done is conservative at all because they\u2019ve been splurging in a down economy,\u201d Grajeda said. \u201cThey seem like college frat boys that just got a credit card called the \u2018redevelopment agency\u2019 and just ran it all the way up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grajeda admits to having no political experience or public service background, but says these factors should not be an issue because government should be of the people, for the people and by the people.<\/p>\n

Grajeda believes the three biggest issues facing Lancaster are unemployment, violations on First Amendment rights, and heavy-handed law enforcement.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnemployment is at a 17% rate, which is more than double the national unemployment rate,\u201d Grajeda said. \u201cI would affect change in this matter by opening the bidding process.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grajeda said for the past four years, local contractors have rarely received the opportunity to bid on development projects for the city, particularly projects involving The Blvd. He believes this factor has contributed to the city\u2019s high unemployment rate.<\/p>\n

\u201cLocal contractors that could have gained didn\u2019t have the chance to because they give everything to Scott Ehrlich,\u201d he said. \u201cAny public development will go to open bid for me and I would have a three tier system.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grajeda said his three tier system would mandate that the city solicit bids from only Lancaster businesses first. If no qualified contractors are found in Lancaster, they would open the bidding process to Palmdale contractors. Finding no qualified contractors in Palmdale, the bidding process would be opened to all other areas in the Antelope Valley.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo that we keep it in house rather than hiring friends who take away free market from the people,\u201d Grajeda said. \u201cFree market should give us the ability to choose where we spend our money.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grajeda said the City Council refuses to broadcast nonagendized public comments and places many other restrictions on public comments at city meetings, which he believes violates the First Amendment rights of residents. He believes this to be the second biggest issue facing Lancaster.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey restrict public comments down to three minutes at the end of the meetings, but yet you see them expediting three meetings at once,\u201d Grajeda said. He said the Council, the Housing Authority, and the former Redevelopment Agency are three separate entities, therefore residents should be allowed three minutes of public comment per entity.<\/p>\n

Grajeda believes the third most important issue facing the city is its overly aggressive approach to law enforcement.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know people are ready for \u2018Eye in the Sky<\/a>\u2019 and stronger law enforcement, but I don\u2019t think that approach has worked,\u201d Grajeda said. \u201cNow we have discrimination issues, lawsuits coming out the woodworks, and DOJ and Housing Authority investigations just because of how heavy handed we have enforced crime.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grajeda said if elected he would push for the city to scale back its aggressive stance on law enforcement in favor of criminal rehabilitation and reform programs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to reach out to the community and help instead of trying to lock everybody up,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Asked about similarities between him and younger brother, David Grajeda, he says: \u201cI love my brother, and I am my brother\u2019s keeper, but on everything else I would like to say that we are completely different people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Isaac Grajeda said he may not be as vocal as his brother but that doesn\u2019t mean that he is any less effective.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can be effective for this community in making the changes that will be best for everyone,\u201d said the 29-year-old. \u201cI am young and I represent change.\u201d<\/p>\n

*This is the fourth in a series of profiles The AV Times will be publishing featuring Lancaster city council candidates, as well as mayoral candidates. The first profile featured council candidate John Kiramis<\/a>, the second profile featured council candidate Michael Rives<\/a>, and the third profile featured incumbent council candidate Ken Mann<\/a>. Profiles are published in random order.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LANCASTER \u2013 Residents who follow Lancaster City Council meetings may know David Grajeda, the outspoken council critic who was arrested and jailed for his behavior at City Hall. Less familiar is his older brother, Isaac Grajeda, a music teacher, writer and musician. However, this may change if the elder Grajeda realizes his goal of becoming […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":9178,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11,23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9173"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9173\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}