Customer Service and the City of Los Angeles

I have a strong dislike for automated phone menus. Like many people, I used to press “zero” the moment a recording began, hoping to reach a real person. As you’ve probably noticed, that rarely works anymore. And while businesses continue to automate more and more interactions, most customers still want the same thing they’ve always wanted: to be heard by a live human being.

When I was building my insurance agency, I saw this as an opportunity.

Let’s be honest—most people don’t enjoy dealing with insurance. They don’t like buying it, talking about it, or using it. When someone called my office, it usually meant they were stressed, frustrated, or facing a problem. My goal was simple: make sure that when they hung up the phone or walked out of our office, they felt better than when they walked in.

That required a relentless focus on customer service. It meant making sure our team answered calls and emails quickly. It meant delivering exactly what we promised. Most importantly, it meant making sure our customers felt valued and appreciated. I understood something fundamental: if customers don’t feel valued, they leave—and they take their business with them. Building a company around responsiveness, accountability, and respect for the customer is why my agency became one of the largest in the city.

The City of Los Angeles has customers too.

As residents and business owners, we rely on the city for essential services: trash pickup, safe parks, clean streets, functioning sidewalks, public safety, road maintenance, and timely permits. None of these services are free. We pay for them through property taxes, utility taxes, business taxes, sales taxes, permit fees, and fines.

Yet over the past several years, taxpaying residents and businesses have increasingly felt unappreciated by City Hall. Fees and taxes continue to rise, while the quality and reliability of services decline. When I talk to families, small-business owners, and developers—especially here in the San Fernando Valley—I hear the same frustration over and over again: we don’t feel like valued customers of our own city.

And just like in the private sector, when customers don’t feel valued, they leave.

That’s exactly what we’re seeing today. Families move to communities that are safer, cleaner, and more responsive. Businesses relocate to cities like Burbank, Calabasas, and Pasadena—or leave California altogether. The problem isn’t that Los Angeles lacks resources; it’s that those resources are increasingly directed away from the people and businesses who fund the city and toward priorities that do not improve quality of life or economic stability.

This year alone, Los Angeles will spend roughly $900 million on homelessness while simultaneously eliminating its economic development department, allowing the LAPD to fall to its lowest staffing levels in nearly 30 years, and cutting basic services like street cleaning by roughly 50%. These choices send a clear message to taxpaying residents and businesses—and it’s not a good one.

We cannot cut our way out of this decline.

The only way to turn Los Angeles around is to start investing in the things that make life better for the people who live, work, and build here—especially in the San Fernando Valley. That means restoring a serious commitment to economic development, investing meaningfully in youth programs (our future, which currently receives just $1.5 million annually citywide), supporting FilmLA to keep production and good-paying jobs here, and ensuring that tax dollars generated in the Valley come back to the Valley.

When you provide real value, people stay. They raise families. They grow businesses. They invest in their communities—and they encourage others to do the same.

Los Angeles doesn’t need slogans or platitudes. It needs leadership that understands a basic truth I learned in business: when people feel valued and appreciated, they step up and help make the whole organization stronger. The same principle applies to our city. If we start treating our residents and businesses like valued customers again, they will help lift Los Angeles up—together.