LOS ANGELES (KABC) — Tech entrepreneur Adam Miller isn’t the only candidate in the Los Angeles mayor’s race who has never held elected office, but he says he’s the only one who can turn the city around.
“We’re wasting a lot of money. We waste an inordinate amount of time. We’re just not operating efficiently,” Miller told Eyewitness News. “But it makes sense because the people running the government have never operated before.
“They don’t know how to optimize budgets and maximize resources, and neither do any of the other candidates. I’ve been doing it for decades.”
Tech entrepreneur and candidate for Los Angeles mayor Adam Miller joined Eyewitness News to discuss his plans for the city and make his case for why he’s the best person to fix its problems.
Miller, who lives in Brentwood, isn’t widely known across the city. Another candidate in the race who has no issue with name ID and is also running as a City Hall outsider is reality TV star Spencer Pratt.
“Spencer Pratt should have our sympathy. He lost his home. He has very justified outrage, and I think a lot of Angelenos share that anger,” Miller said. “The problem is, it’s not just about anger. It’s about results. We’re not going to be able to turn the city around based just on talking.
“We have to have somebody that knows how to get things done. Spencer has never operated any business that has been successful. He’s never managed people. He doesn’t have the fiscal responsibility or the budgetary experience to be able to manage a 14-plus billion-dollar budget, 44 departments and 50,000 employees. This is not time for an apprenticeship.”
On building affordable housing, Miller said, “We can cut permitting time by 80-plus percent in this city. That means enabling more self-certification by licensed architects and engineers, eliminating permitting requirements for things that shouldn’t have permits, like if you remodel your house and it’s non-structural, why do you need a permit in the first place?”
Miller started his first company, an e-learning business – Cornerstone – when he was 29 and later sold it for $5 billion. A lifelong Democrat, Miller started the nonprofit Better Angels, which prevents people from falling into homelessness.
Miller says his background in innovation and technology would modernize City Hall.
“Karen Bass has clearly failed,” Miller responded when asked why the current mayor doesn’t deserve a second term. “Housing production down 30% since 2019. The entertainment business down 40% since 2019. We had all the failures of the fires.”
Miller has poured millions of his personal fortune into his own campaign because he says Los Angeles is running out of time.
“I have three kids. Two of them are in college, out of state. We want them to come back and move back to L.A.,” Miller said. “… We’re already feeling unsafe. There’s homeless encampments everywhere. The streets are broken. People don’t have the jobs they used to have, people don’t feel like the city’s affordable.”
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