>> My name is Laura Dowd and I am the city auditor for the city of Long Beach.
I've been in the position for 10 years now, so I'm up for re-election every four years
and I've been elected a total of three times.
And over the past 10 years, I think we have made tremendous changes
and made a difference in the city.
We've brought in a significant amount of money and revenue due to the city
that was not otherwise being collected.
And this has been a great benefit to our public safety; our police and fire.
We've made great recommendations for the beautiful parks we have around this great city,
about having the proper funding to properly maintain them
and created some long term strategy and ideas on street repairs.
So I think we have made some very significant recommendations and changes
in the 10 years that I've been in office.
We just performed some really interesting audits at the parks and recs department.
1 in 4 trees within the city of Long Beach is dead or is dying.
Well, the city of Long Beach has done a really good job expanding and investing in parks.
But what happened is they didn't keep their maintenance contract up and fund it properly,
to make sure there was enough maintenance and watering and taking care of all
of these facilities that were expanding so big.
So that's a big deal!
We have to take care of our parks.
That's what makes, one of the things that makes Long Beach beautiful, right?
And adds to the quality of our life.
So as an auditor, we just don't sit there and look at numbers and contracts and things,
we're looking at the bigger picture.
Wait a minute!
Our trees are dying!
So that's just one example.