Prison Job Bid

* I am a Los Angeles resident who owns a small manufacturing plant located in North Hollywood. We employ approximately 100 other residents. Recently we bid on manufacturing custom binders for the city. We were notified that we lost the bids to an organization called Oak Park Industries, which is in reality the Minnesota state prison system.

Setting aside the obvious unfairness of private business competing against another state’s prison system during an economic crisis as severe as the current one, Los Angeles should be promoting growth and business within the city limits, not exporting it! It doesn’t make sense for the city to subsidize the prisons of Minnesota at the expense of the residents of Los Angeles.

City government can demonstrate that it is responsible and responsive by changing a self-defeating practice.

LARRY WURZEL

North Hollywood