I recently read, and heard on television about a woman in Los Angeles who is trying to do something very good for her community. She wants to halt the issuance of permits that would allow new fast-food restaurants in her local neighborhoods for at least two years. What an apparent waste of her time, or so it seems until you know a little more about the story.
Jan Perry is a Councilwoman who represents a South Los Angeles district. Areas in the district suffer from low wages, high unemployment, too few grocery stores, and too much fast-food according to what I have read on the net, and heard on television. In an area where CBS news correspondent Bill Whitaker visited, a comment was made, “…In an area where there are 40 fast food restaurants within a mile of where Whitaker visited and only one grocery store - the city council is taking a bold move - proposing a two year moratorium on all new fast food restaurants in south central - calling it “health zoning….” “
What a good thing for those areas, if they can change around the ratio of grocery stores to fast-food restaurants. I do not think that will be enough, though it is a great start. There will also need to be education put in place to help the people living in areas such as this understand about making better meal choices. It would not hurt for a program to go into effect for our whole country, as many parents today are second, or even third generation fast-food diners.
As much as I would like to rant on fast-food, and how it is making us sick, the real purpose of this blog entry is the work Councilwoman Perry is doing for her community, and indirectly the country. I am one of the least familiar with the biographies of public figures, but Councilwoman Perry sure sounds like a woman who is really working to make life better for her constituents.
While it is easy to present arguments against what Councilwoman Perry wants to do with fast food, she has done a lot for her community as her biography on her website reads, and she is trying to do even more if you read more of it. I think some minor and major politicians could learn from what Councilwoman Perry has done and is trying to do. I think Jan Perry is a role model for our country. It is too bad Jan Perry, and others working just as hard as she is to improve community life lose out to better selling news stories. We need to read and hear about people like Jan Perry, and what she is doing.
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