Sep 19, 2006
Sep 18, 2006
Sep 15, 2006
Sep 14, 2006
Eric M. Garcetti, Los Angeles City Council President
"Canvassing helped teach me that democracy is something that is best practiced face-to-face. My experience prepared me for reaching out to people who tune out television ads and mailings, but who will engage with a direct interaction at their door. I am certainly a better and more effective public servant because of this experience." Eric M Garcetti
Mr. Garcetti won a hotly-contested election to the Los Angeles City Council in 2001, becoming one of the youngest city councilmembers in the city's history. Over 100 languages are spoken on the streets of his district, from Hollywood to Downtown and across the Los Angeles River. The neighborhoods he represents constitute the beating heart of Los Angeles.
Council President Garcetti chairs the Rules and Elections Committee. He also serves as Vice-Chair of the Energy and the Environment Committee and sits on the Housing, Community, and Economic Development Committee, which he chaired for four and a half years. He is also the Vice-Chair of the Ad Hoc River Committee and the Ad Hoc Homelessness Committee, and serves on the Ad Hoc Stadium Committee. He was unopposed for re-election and began his second term in office in July 2005.
During his first term in office, Garcetti led the effort to fund the nation's largest Affordable Housing Trust Fund, oversaw the economic and cultural revitalization of Hollywood, wrote and championed Proposition O to clean up our local water, won passage of a plan that eliminated the city’s business tax for 60% of all businesses, and helped bring thousands of new high wage jobs to Los Angeles and his district. In his district, he doubled the number of parks, ensured the availability of an after-school program in every school in the district, and reduced graffiti by more than 60 percent.
Councilmember Garcetti's work has been recognized in dozens of awards, including a Green Cross Millennium Award from former President Mikhail Gorbachev for his environmental leadership, a "Tiger Award" from the Valley Industry and Commerce Association for his work on business tax reform, and the first Olson Award from Human Rights Watch for his human rights activism. The Los Angeles Times writes that Garcetti is "smart” and “imaginative” and offers the city “refreshing idealism.” He was featured in LA Weekly's Best of Los Angeles issue and the Los Angeles Alternative Press readers named him "L.A.'s Favorite Elected Official" of 2003. In 2004, The Los Angeles Business Journal named him one of the 25 Angelenos who stand out for their potential to shape lives in Los Angeles. A profile in Los Angeles magazine in 2006 called him "a rising star".
Prior to his election, Garcetti taught public policy, diplomacy and world affairs at Occidental College and the University of Southern California. In 1998, the Rockefeller Foundation selected him as a Next Generation Leadership Fellow. Garcetti studied urban planning and political science at Columbia University, where he received his B.A. and M.A. in International Relations. He studied as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University and the London School of Economics. Council President Garcetti canvassed with the Fund during college.
Sep 13, 2006
Abe Scarr, MASSPIRG, Organizing Director (former Student Empowerment Training (SET) Project, Director)
“I began canvassing after I graduated from college in 2002. I was politically motivated and engaged in my community in both high school and college, but had never worked on a campaign that made an impact on the scale I wanted. When I graduated, I knew I wanted to work as an activist but had no idea how. Canvassing changed all of that. For the first time, I could see concrete results from my actions both on a daily basis and over the course of a campaign. As a developing activist, I especially appreciated the challenge of canvassing: every day I was forced to push myself to perform, and to develop and hone my communication skills. Canvassing opened up the doors for a career in organizing. Six months after I started, I was hired as a campus organizer with the student PIRGs, where I worked for two years, returning over three summers to direct canvass offices. Now I direct my own project, working with student governments all over the country, teaching student leaders skills and organizing techniques that help them be more effective advocates for students. I use the skills I learned canvassing every day.” Abe Scarr
Abe was the Project Director for the Student Empowerment Training Project, which works with student governments and state student associations across the country, a position he began in August 2005. Over the course of his first year with the SET Project, Abe launched and organized three regional conferences, training hundreds of students in organizing and campaign skills, hired and trained field organizers to run field campaigns for the Minnesota State University Student Association and the California State Student Association, worked closely with students in South Carolina working to institutionalize the South Carolina State Student Association, and raised enough money to hire 5 additional staff to work with the SET Project over the 2006/2007 school year. Abe launched his public interest career as a Fund canvasser in October 2002, in Washington DC, working on Greenpeace renewable energy campaign and helping to launch the first U.S. PIRG street canvass. In April of 2003, he started working with the Student PIRGs as a campus organizer. Abe worked with students on the North Shore of Massachusetts to help pass tough new legislation to clean up Massachusetts coal burning power plants, including the Salem Harbor power plant. Between 2003 and 2005, he directed Fund canvass offices in Washington DC, Chicago, Milwaukee, and Manhattan.
Elizabeth Ouzts, Environment North Carolina, Executive Director
"Canvassing is absolutely essential to the work that we do. Having tens of thousands of one on one conversations with people about our campaigns ensures that we are rooted in work that the people of North Carolina care about. Funding our organization through thousands of small, individual contributions allows us to be independent from corporations and political parties. Canvassing has not only built up Environment North Carolina from scratch; it has also played an essential role in a host of victories for the environment--from cleaning up coal-fired power plants to protecting our rivers and lakes." Elizabeth Ouzts
Ms. Ouzts is responsible for coordinating policy development, research, and legislative advocacy for Environment North Carolina. She works to clean up the largest sources of air pollution in the state—automobiles and power plants—and to preserve the state’s forests, farmlands, and natural areas. Elizabeth serves as the organization’s main representative in North Carolina’s General Assembly, and was one of the primary environmental advocates for the state Clean Smokestacks law in 2002. She has appeared on local affiliates of NBC, ABC, and CBS in Raleigh and Charlotte, and has testified before the state legislature on issues ranging from cleaner gasoline to cleaning up factory hog farms. She is on the executive board of the NC Conservation Network and is a steering committee member of the Land for Tomorrow coalition, the statewide effort to create a permanent, dedicated source of funding for protecting forests and farmlands. A graduate of the NC School of Science and Math and Yale University, Ms. Ouzts began her work with the state PIRGs in New Jersey in 1997, where she completed service for NJ Community Water Watch, a project of NJPIRG Law and Policy Center. In 1998, she returned to North Carolina to work with NCPIRG. She became the director of NCPIRG in 2001, and in 2006 assumed leadership of Environment North Carolina.
Home
About this Site
About "the Fund"
Once Canvassers, Now Leaders
- Sarah Hodgdon, Sierra Club
- Seth Kilbourn, openhouse
- Maggie Drummond, GrowSmart Maine
- E. Chris Wilder, Valley Medical Center Foundation
- Eric M. Garcetti, Los Angeles City Council President
- Abe Scarr, MASSPIRG
- Elizabeth Ouzts, Environment North Carolina
- Bernadette Del Chiaro, Environment California
- Janet Domenitz, MASSPIRG
- Matt Baker, State of Colorado
- Rob Sargent, Environment America
- Cassandra McKee, USAction
- Carrie Doyle, Western Energy Project
- Philip D. Radford, Greenpeace
