Joe Lisuzzo, Republican, businessman and 30 year owner of “Al Gelato” a restaurant in West LA.

BP: How would you describe the 30th State Senatorial district in any way you’d like? 

Joe Lisuzzo: How would I describe it, oh my goodness!  It’s a wonderful place, in my opinion. Lived and worked here for over 30 years, still do and it’s a wonderfully diverse community. Believe it or not, I even learned so much about this while running for this race. 

You know, I’m not a career politician. I’m a community member who was in business for decades here, and I just wanted so much to make it better since I have seen it precipitously decline under current leadership. Crime has gone up as we know, homelessness has gone up terribly, as well as business shuttering and leaving the state, and it just distubred me so much that I said, ‘Coach, pull me off the bench, put me in’. I’ve got to do something to help with my expertise.’

Regarding the district itself, I learned so much — I had no idea that it’s actually larger than the Congressional districts here in California. There are 55 Congressional districts, so when you divide that into the 40 million, it’s about 750,000 people per Congressional district. However, Senate District 30 actually comprises about a million people, because there are 40 Senate seats in the state of California. Consequently when you divide that by 40 million you have almost a million per seat. 

I did the analysis of the district and was amazed to find the demographic breakdown to be approximately 55% Hispanic believe it or not. And in addition to that, 28% African American, about 18% percent Anglo and about three percent or so Asian. I was really surprised, because you know like they say sometimes we live in our own little bubble. I live in the Pico-Robertson area and worked in that area for many years, and of course I’ve traveled the district. But I had no idea of the actual racial demographics breakdown until I analyzed that. 

The district itself runs on the west almost to the ocean — to Mar Vista actually on the west side — all the way across, right past Pico Robertson all the way downtown and then from downtown all the way south, right through South LA to parts of East LA, Inglewood area and then back towards the airport but not as far as the airport, Westchester-ish or so. So it’s really an amazingly large and ethnically diverse and great district. I love it. 

BP: What do you think is the biggest challenge for the district?

JL: First of all, it’s making sure that the moneys that we have raised in terms of taxes and allocated in terms of special propositions — like the money that the people so generously gave the city in terms of wanting to help with the homeless issue, gave them $1.2 billion dollars. Unfortunately, for some reason, a lot of times when money goes into government, they shuffle that money around and use it for different things that they have to pay off, or they hire analysts and consultants — instead of putting that money to use for which it was given to the city. 

So in 2016, the city was given through proposition HHH $1.2 billion dollars — and I emphasize ‘billion’ because it just seems today we throw around these numbers as a nation without really thinking about them. And being a businessperson, I think to myself 1.2 billion — wait a minute. Just imagine being a millionaire, right? If you were a millionaire you’d have six zeros after that one million. If you’re a billionaire you’d have nine zeros after that and it was 1.2 billion. Nothing was built in 2016, nothing was built in 2017 for the homeless shelters, nothing in 2018, nothing in 2019. Wasn’t until 2020 that we opened our first homeless shelter, and when you did the math as a businessman regarding that it was $500,000 per unit. 

And you stop and you think you know what are the biggest problems: it’s following the money, and making sure that the money is properly used for which it’s been allocated and levied in terms of taxes.  

And the homeless issue again, it’s exploded. It’s doubled since 2013. There are more homeless in LA County now that can fit inside of Dodger Stadium. Dodger Stadium I think holds about 59,000 people. Just imagine we have more homeless citizens on the streets, to the tune of 70,000 people, not enough room for them. That and businesses shuttering and leaving California. This has got to stop,  because small business are the lifeblood of any state any city, and when you realize that California as a state itself is almost the fifth largest economy in the world, and we’ve been shut down and a lot of people, it’s devastated their businesses and they’ve just decided to leave altogether to find a better place to live. 

If you have people fleeing from a place, that’s a serious, serious thing. And it’s not just small mom-and-pop shops, it’s people like Elon Musk, the founder of Space X and Tesla. Just last month, he left California for Texas. Inexcusable. Politicians really have to appreciate the businesspeople and allow them to stay. 

BP: What do you think Sacramento can do about some of the challenges facing the district? 

JL: Oh so much, so much. They have to embrace businesses to the point of saying to them look we know you provide jobs for people, you provide taxes, we provide money for their salaries. Think about that, we have to do everything we can for businesses small and large to stay and how do they do that, regulations, cutting these regulations. There are so many regulations that are imposed upon small businesses and large businesses alike. We’ve got to step back and say this is a serious time. We have to loosen these regulations to make sure that businesses can flourish, people can find jobs. We can generate the revenue that’s needed to take care of our infrastructure. It’s oversight. A lot of what is going on in the state is very serious. 

There’s something called the EDD, the Employment Development Department, which employers pay into in order to have moneys for people if they should lose their job. Well guess what happened during the Covid crisis? Everyone was filing for unemployment, to the EDD, only to find that under this current administration and the way things are running in this state, the mismanagement, they lost $11 billion dollars — with a B, Eleven billion dollars, and they think an additional $15 billion has been misappropriated. So these are serious times, and you need a businessperson to step in, follow that money and make sure it’s used properly. Very important. 

BP: What are some of your priorities or goals you have if you’re elected? 

JL: I mentioned the business development committee, so important to me. Oversight, like I said, the budget committees. All that stuff has to be watched and analyzed and reconsidered. This is not a Democratic issue, this is not a Republican issue. This is a humanitarian issue, and if you just look out your front door or when you’re going down the street,to the market or wherever it is, you see the homeless people on the street and you see the businesses closed. We can’t hide from the reality of what’s happened, and it’s time to stop casting aspersions and pointing fingers. It’s time to roll up our sleeves. We know it’s bad. It  hasn’t gotten better. Let’s work together to make it better. 

I love simple analogies. Let’s say your car breaks down. You take it to the shop to get it fixed, right? You come back home you drive it a week or two, and the car breaks down again. It’s the same problem. You bring it back you say look, okay give the guy the benefit of the doubt, want to give this one more shot, see what happens. I know we have a warranty — can you try it again?  He fixes it, you take it home again, it breaks down again. Do you keep bringing it back to the same mechanic after a while? 

It’s like Einstein said: wanting to do the same thing over and over again and expecting a difference is only a form of insanity. It’s really time to bring in some fresh blood, a different perspective, because it’s got to change for the better, it’s got to.

BP: What steps or actions do you plan to take to reach out to the other party not only in the legislature but in the district?

JL: I did not join this race for the party, I joined it for the people. However, I realize that there is a great majority of people that are involved in politics from the other side. It’s perfect to put a businessman in this position. When you’re working for the people instead of a party, you’re concerned about the people. When people would come into my business, I never asked ‘Are you a Democrat?’ before I served them, are you a Republican, are you a socialist, are you progressive, are you a conservative?  No. They’re all equal. 

And I think when you come into government with that perspective, it’s not a matter of left or right — it’s a matter of solving the problem right. What’s the issue? Let’s solve this together because the bottom line is we all want the same thing. We want safe neighborhoods, were all human beings we all want the same things. I think a lot of times in life we look at each other’s differences, instead of looking at each other’s similarites. It’s really easy to get along if you put aside all of the labels that seem to be attached to being in government.

BP: Why should you be elected to the state senate over the other candidates?

JL: This is the first time I’ve ever run for office. However, I was involved in politics in the last year, I actually tried to make things better by trying to help someone who was running for Congress, and I was so upset with the way the Congressional district looked. I said let me help you. So I worked for a year, but after that I said well I tried my best — that’s it. 

Well lo and behold, Hashem had a different plan for me, and I looked and found out that there was a special election being run and I thought where is this special election being run, and it was in my Senate district. I thought, oh boy, I can’t walk away. I’ve got to step up and try. And I think being a business person brought me to the table, and that’s what makes me different than the rest.

 A lot of these people are career politicians, they’ve never done a payroll, they’ve never hired employees, never trained employees, they never had to pay the taxes, they’ve never had to go through the regulations that it takes just to open a storefront. When I opened my storefront it took me over a year. Just imagine having to pay rent on a location not one month, not two months, not three months, not four months, not five months, not six months. I say it that way purposely slowly cause just imagine a year — 12 months — of paying rent and electricity and water and not being able to open your front door and start to generate some money to pay those bills and hire people and serve the public. That’s the thing I love serving the public. That’s why I’m in this — to serve the people. It’s not for a title or a salary.