Sole Newcomer in 2017 City Council Race Says He Will Focus on Giving Residents Bigger Say at City Hall

City Council District 7 candidate and attorney Phil Hosp says if elected, he will focus on Pasadena residents have a bigger say in decisions made at City Hall.

Hosp, who announced last week that he will be running for the Council in 2017 to fill the seat currently occupied by Councilmember Andy Wilson, said on his website he believes that City Hall is not listening to Pasadena residents and instead favors those with the deepest pockets and loudest voices.

“The primary focus of this campaign is community outreach and the participation of the community in decisions that are being made at City Hall,” Hosp said. “Basically, I’m running because I think it’s time that someone needs to make sure the voices of current Pasadena residents are heard first and local residents should be consulted with because often times, in various development projects, they’re consulted too little, too late.”

Hosp, who lists irresponsible development at the top of his list of issues on his webpage, said that he’s not anti-development, but an advocate for conscientious development that doesn’t come at the expense of the city’s community.

“I think Pasadena needs to grow and prosper, but not at the expense of our neighborhoods and quality of life,” Hosp said. “I would like the neighbors to be consulted and have a say as to what gets put in their neighborhoods.”

Hosp went on to say that he’s been examining the budget and thinks that not only could spending be controlled better in certain areas, the City Council should also find ways around certain budgetary problems that aren’t popular, but are absolutely necessary.

“You need to make the tough decisions,” Hosp said. “Doing things that generate revenue in the short term at the expense of the long term quality of life is not the way to do it. Residents care about what Pasadena is going to look like in 10 years, and the way things are going, they don’t like the direction of the city, such as incoming traffic issues and certain development projects.”

Hosp said that out of all the people who have a stake in the well being of Pasadena, no one is more important the current residents of Pasadena, the people he plans to represent.

“Their concerns are totally being ignored by City Hall,” he said.

Pasadena’s District 7, known to many as one of Pasadena’s most attractive neighborhoods, includes the South Lake Business and Playhouse Districts, Caltech and Pasadena City College as well as Hamilton Elementary, McKinley School, Blair International Baccalaureate School, St. Philip the Apostle School and Polytechnic School.

Hosp, a military veteran who served two tours in Iraq, first moved to Pasadena with his family as a teenager twenty years ago. He obtained a law degree from Loyola Law School and is now a resident of District 7 along with his wife and two young daughters.