Results tagged “Patrick O'Donnell” from Press Corps

City Council members Tonia Reyes Uranga and Patrick O'Donnell are endorsing Third District Long Beach Unified School Richard Lewis, his campaign announced today.

Lewis seems to be the chosen one for this seat to replace Michael Shane Ellis, who resigned. Council members Robert Garcia, Suja Lowenthal and Val Lerch, and the Long Beach Area Chamber of Commerce have also endorsed Lewis in the Dec. 29 special election.

Lewis, a financial controller, is a member of the Downtown Long Beach Associates' executive board and president of the East Village Association.

Councilman Gary DeLong seemed to surprise everyone in the Council Chambers moments ago when he announced he would vote against a new contract with the Long Beach Police Officers Association that would save the city millions of dollars.

After months of negotiations between POA and city officials to get police officers to forgo some pay raises, POA President Steve James called DeLong's vote a "slap ... in the face" and Councilman Patrick O'Donnell said DeLong was "grandstanding."

DeLong said he couldn't support the contract because it doesn't contain reforms of the city's costly pension program. Other council members thanked police officers for reopening their contract and reducing their pay raises even though they didn't have to.

The new contract will give officers an 11 percent raise spread out over five years instead of the nearly 9.3 percent raise they were due Sept. 30. The deal, which was overwhelmingly approved by POA members, will save the city $7.6 million this year and $15 million over the next five years.

"Your comments are the epitome of the dysfunction we've dealt with," James told DeLong. "Don't slap these people (police officers) in the face. This needs to pass with a 9-0 vote. They deserve it."

DeLong responded that he had tried to reach James on Monday to inform him of his decision and that he doesn't like to "blindside" people, but O'Donnell interrupted DeLong, saying: "Why didn't you tell us?"

As DeLong and O'Donnell began to argue and Mayor Bob Foster tried to silence O'Donnell for speaking out of turn, O'Donnell shouted out: "This is grandstanding."

The council approved the POA contract 8-1, with DeLong dissenting.

The second phase of a project to improve and cover Atherton Ditch in the 4th District to prevent flooding is about to begin. Councilman Patrick O'Donnell announced today that he will have a groundbreaking ceremony for phase II on Saturday. Here is the press release:

LONG BEACH - Fourth District Councilmember Patrick O'Donnell will be hosting a ceremony on September 12^th to celebrate Phase II of the Atherton Ditch improvement project. The event will take place on the Atherton Service Road at McNab Avenue.

The Atherton Ditch was put in over 40 years ago and has been a hazard during flooding as well as an eyesore to the community. The Councilmember has rallied for years, promising to take on the Atherton Ditch. Extensive input was sought from members of the community and Public Works officials on the ditch.

The final phase of a two-phase project, this achievement will allow the ditch to finally be covered over and replaced with natural vegetation and trees. An underground drainage pipe will allow for water to drain out of the region replacing the ditch that is currently in place. The construction is expected to start in the working days following the ceremonial events.

"I've been working with Public Works and members of the community for many years on this project," O'Donnell said.  "I am looking forward to the completion of the project- 40 years in the making."

The event will begin at 9:00 am on the 12^th of September along the Atherton Ditch, and will feature construction information from the Department of Public Works. Following the brief ceremony, light refreshments will be served. Members of the community are invited to attend and commemorate this historic event.

It wasn't heated debate, fiery dialogue or hot tempers that stoked the fires of Monday evening's Budget Oversight Committee meeting and City Council budget workshop. It was the air conditioning system, or lack thereof.

Apparently, the AC wasn't turned on for the meetings that began at 5 p.m. and ended close to 8:30 p.m. True, it is unusual for a meeting to take place in the council chambers on a Monday night. The chambers are tall and spacious, and the crowd was small, both of which probably helped the situation. But by night's end, the room was hot, humid and uncomfortable on a day when the high temperature reached 91 degrees in Long Beach. I know I was sweating, and I wasn't one of the city staffers sitting in the hot seat (no pun intended, really) as council members asked them rapid-fire questions about the budget.

Maybe that's why council members Gary DeLong and Patrick O'Donnell disappeared midway through the 6 p.m. workshop (both are part of the Budget Oversight Committee and had been there since 5 p.m.). Councilman Dee Andrews disappeared later as well, as did Mayor Bob Foster, ironically just shortly after he responded to Councilwoman Rae Gabelich, who had been complaining about the members being absent during an important budget meeting. He told there was nothing he could do to make people stay, and apparently that included himself.

Let's just hope the AC is on tonight, when budget discussions very well could go on for hours. My guess is the meeting could approach midnight. So, a plea to whoever is in charge of that "on" switch at City Hall: Sitting through hours of city budget meetings can seem like hell, but please don't make the room temperature feel like it.

I'm still catching my breath after covering last week's news about Police Chief Tony Batts leaving for Oakland, so here is something that the City Council approved last week -- their committee appointments.

Snoozing already? Sure, committees aren't the sexiest things in the world, but they do serve a purpose, as gatekeepers to much of the legislation that ends up before the council. Mayor Bob Foster made the committee appointments, and most members are on three or four committees, not including the Charter Amendment Committee that is headed by the mayor and on which every council member sits. However, Councilwoman Rae Gabelich sits on five committees.

Councilman Gary DeLong will continue as chairman of the Budget Oversight Committee, supported by council members Patrick O'Donnell and Suja Lowenthal, which could be considered one of the most important ones right now during Long Beach's budget crisis.

Many of the committee appointments seem quite appropriate. Who better to head the Housing and Neighborhoods Committee than man-of-the-people Councilman Dee Andrews? And of course, the 1st, 2nd and 3rd district council members are on the Tidelands and Harbor Committee, since they're the only ones whose districts include a shoreline or port areas. Unlike the other council members, who each leads one or two committees, newcomer Councilman Robert Garcia doesn't have such a role, but he is a member of the Federal Legislation Committee, the State Legislation Commitee and the Tidelands and Harbor Committee.

Click the following link and see the entire committee list for yourself:

Council committees.pdf

Last year, two Long Beach City Council members sat on the four-member Los Cerritos Wetlands Authority board. But that only lasted about two months until someone discovered a stipulation in the Authority's bylaws that says elected officials, appointed officials or employees of city governments can't represent the two non-government entities that make up half of the organization.

So, Councilman Patrick O'Donnell, then representing the Rivers and Mountains Conservancy, was out. Councilman Gary DeLong continued to represent the city of Long Beach on the Wetlands Authority's board. The other two entitities on the board are the city of Seal Beach and the State Coastal Conservancy.

Now, O'Donnell or any other elected official may soon be able to represent any of the agencies that oversee the Wetlands Authority, which is in the process of acquiring and restoring pieces of Los Cerritos Wetlands in southeast Long Beach and by Seal Beach.

Tonight, the council will consider approving this change to the Wetlands Authority's bylaws, which also has been approved by Seal Beach's city council and the Rivers and Mountains Conservancy. The Coastal Conservancy is expected to approve the change next month, which would make the bylaw revision official.

DeLong has asked the council to approve the change tonight, although O'Donnell wouldn't tell me yesterday whether he necessarily wants to return to the Wetlands Authority.

"Our goal is to potentially give Long Beach one more voice on the board, which would allow us to further advocate for the wetlands area and ultimately its restoration," O'Donnell said.

O'Donnell, long an environmental advocate, received some flack last week for joining the council in a 5-4 vote approving a deal to exchange Long Beach's public service yard for part of the wetlands. Environmentalists criticized the lack of a provision to ensure that the wetlands area is preserved and won't ever be sold off or developed by a greedy council. Under the wetlands plan, the Wetlands Authority will buy the property from the city and preserve it.

The Wetlands Authority's board won't have the power to pay more for the wetlands than the state is willing to fork over based on the land's appraised value, so having multiple Long Beach representatives on the board shouldn't influence the deal one way or the other.

The Long Beach City Council has been in its closed session since 4 p.m. this afternoon to talk about the city's negotiations to get pay raise concessions from the Police Officers Association and other employee unions. The city needs employees to forgo scheduled pay raises to cut $23 million from a $43.3 million budget deficit.

That's not unusual. The council's been having these closed sessions regularly for months. What is unusual is that everyone from City Manager Pat West to finance director Lori Ann Farrell to Mayor Bob Foster's chief of staff Becki Ames is sitting outside of the council lounge in the regular council chambers with all of us plebes.

West and Ames confirmed that only Foster, City Attorney Robert Shannon and the nine council members -- perhaps minus Patrick O'Donnell, who was absent at the budget meeting earlier -- are in that closed session meeting. West said this is unusual, noting that he is usually in on every closed session.

So what's being said in there? Is the city going to reach a deal with its unions? Can the council come to agreement? Or will negotiations break down?

Oh, to be a fly on that wall.

In a city that prides itself for its "green" efforts, it's no surprise that a proposal by council members Robert Garcia and Patrick O'Donnell to have City Manager Pat West examine how Long Beach can reduce its permitting fees for residential solar panels was met with enthusiastic support.

The council on Tuesday night unanimously approved the recommendation, which stemmed from a Sierra Club study of how much California cities charge for solar panel permits. Long Beach charges $599, which is far below the $750 amount that the Sierra Club said was an exhorbitant charge and that some cities even exceed. Still, it wasn't at the $324 level that the Sierra Club says is all it should cost for cities to recover their expenses.

Read an article about that Sierra Club study here.

The monthly Chat with Pat, hosted by 4th District Councilman Patrick O'Donnell, will take place from 4:30 to 6 p.m. today at Los Altos Library, 5614 Britton. Mario Rodriguez, the new Long Beach Airport director, will be the guest speaker.

The event is free and open to the public. It's a great chance to meet the 4th District council member and to find out the latest on the planned airport improvements.

Among the many items that went before the Long Beach City Council in a busy and long-running meeting Tuesday was a resolution in support of the state propositions that will be on the ballot next week.

The council voted 4-3 to support the resolutions. Council members Suja Lowenthal, Patrick O'Donnell, Dee Andrews and Tonia Reyes Uranga voted in favor, while council members Robert Garcia, Gerrie Schipske and Rae Gabelich dissented. Vice Mayor Val Lerch abstained, as he usually does on resolutions about ballot measures or similar issues. Lerch has said a non-partisan governmental body like the council shouldn't take a position on issues going before voters, just as it shouldn't back political candidates. Councilman Gary DeLong was absent from the vote.

Will the council's vote make a difference? Polls show voters are likely to reject the propositions May 19. Only Garcia articulated Tuesday why he couldn't support the legislation -- he said he can't support Prop. 1D, which would shift First 5 Children's Commission funding to general health and human services programs for children, and he called the Prop. 1E mental health measure "draconian."

Read up on all of the propositions at the California League of Women Voters voter guide site. It's an objective site that shows the arguments on both sides of each proposition.

Councilwoman Gerrie Schipske says in her blog and a statement released today that something is amiss from the city's application with the federal government to resuse the Schroeder Hall Army Reserve Center at Willow Street and Grand Avenue.

That plan, of course, is the one that has stirred up a hornets nest of East Long Beach residents -- the site would be used for a new police substation, but a mental health facility for the homeless would be built across the street next to the Department of Health and Human Services. The feds require that former millitary bases provide some form of homeless services if requested by local homeless service agencies.

Schipske, whose 5th District contains Schroeder Hall, has asked the council Tuesday to rescind its December 2007 vote approving the project. Furthermore, now Schipske says that in reviewing the Schroeder Hall application that the city submitted to the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, she has discovered what she perceives as two problems. From her blog:

I have two serious concerns about the statements included in the submission. First of all, it contains several 'guiding principles' that were not approved by City Council.  The submission also fails to disclose to HUD the fact that when the Council voted on the reuse of Schroeder Hall in December 2007 and before the application was submitted three months later, that there were numerous objections by residents of the adjacent neighborhood. Moreover, I specifically asked that those objections be submitted as part of the official record and I don't see them in the submission.

While this may light an even bigger fire under Schroeder Hall opponents, whether it actually influences the council to withdraw the project is another matter. City Attorney Robert Shannon has warned there may be legal consequences associated with resubmitting the proposal to the feds, and city management says doing so could take the site completely out of the city's hands.

Councilman Patrick O'Donnell was the only council member to vote against the plan originally, and Schipske's obviously on board now too. Councilwoman Rae Gabelich has hinted she might be open to rescinding the past vote as well, but it's doubtful that many more council members will join in -- not only because of the legal risks, but because they sure don't want to take a chance that the homeless services end up in their districts instead.

Fourth District City Councilman Patrick O'Donnell will have his monthly "Chat with Pat" community meeting Wednesday from 4:30 to 6 p.m. at the Los Altos Library, 5614 Britton.

The meeting will feature a presentation by the Orange County Transportation Authority on the proposed West County Connectors Project, an improvement project to add carpool lanes at the connection of the San Diego (405) Freeway, CA-22 Freeway and the San Gabriel River (605) Freeway. The project will require a year-long closure of the 7^th Street bridge. Representatives of OCTA will be at the meeting to discuss the proposed construction schedule and detours, which will affect the local area.

If you live on the Eastside or often use 7th Street to get to and from the area freeways (as I do), this may be an important meeting to attend.

On March 20, environmentalists were outraged when the new owner of a parcel of wetlands on the Los Cerritos Channel near Loynes Drive and Studebaker Road bulldozed the property.

The owner says he was complying with a weed abatement order, while city officials say the property is zoned for open space and shouldn't have been touched without local and state Coastal Commission approval.

Tonight, the monthly Beer & Politics discussion will focus on this issue, with 4th District City Councilman Patrick O'Donnell and Assistant City Manager Suzanne Frick providing some answers. The event will take place at 7 p.m. at Gallagher's Pub & Grill, 2751 E. Broadway. It's free, open to the public, and always a lively dialogue.

There may not be any federal money in the pipeline for an Army Corps of Engineers review this year, but a city-funded study on reconfiguring the Long Beach Breakwater will still get underway this fall.

City Councilman Patrick O'Donnell told me this week that consulting firm Moffatt & Nichol will begin public hearings on its reconnaissance study of the breakwater in September or October. The council approved a $100,000 contract with the firm to conduct the study in June.

Advocates of reconfiguring the breakwater -- such as Long Beach Surfrider Foundation -- say removing parts of or lowering the 2.5-mile eastern end of the rock barrier could improve water quality by allowing polluted runoff waters to escape. Opponents say the breakwater protects homes along the coastline and that taking it down could damage or destroy their property.

According to a reconnaissance study timeline provided by O'Donnell, the council could be getting a presentation on the study by May.

But until Congress approves money for the Corps of Engineers to review the city's study, changes to the breakwater will remain just a controversial idea, Even if funding gets approved next year, the Corps would have to agree with the study, conduct its own feasibility study, and then possibly move forward with any changes to the breakwater.

Just like waves lose their momentum against the breakwater, proponents of reconfiguring it are being stymied by the breakwater of government bureaucracy. We'll wait and see whether either one can be taken down.

A couple days late, but here are some photos from Tuesday's council inauguration ceremony, courtesy of Councilman Dee Andrews' office. Four council members -- Suja Lowenthal, 2nd District; Patrick O'Donnell, 4th District; Andrews, 6th District; and Rae Gabelich, 8th District -- were sworn in to 4-year terms.

Later, the council members had a joint celebration on the Queen Mary, organized by Andrews, who also had over 100 seniors and 6th District residents bused to the celebration.

Here's Andrews taking the oath:

And O'Donnell:

And Lowenthal:

And Gabelich:

At the party later that night:

Sixth District Long Beach City Councilman Dee Andrews overcame a series of negative ads against him in April to get re-elected to the council for his first full term, tromping the competition with 75 percent of the vote. Now Andrews gets to enjoy the fruits of all his time spent beating the street.

On Thursday, a diverse mix of Long Beach business groups are hosting a free community dinner in Andrews' honor at New Paradise Restaurant, 1350 E. Anaheim Street, at 6 p.m. Anyone wanting to attend should RSVP to 562-590-7302. Valet parking will be available.

The dinner sponsors are the Regional Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the Cambodian American Chamber of Commerce, Cambodia Town Inc., the Long Beach African American Chamber of Commerce, the Long Beach Black Chamber of Commerce, BNSF Railway, Pacific Merchant Shipping Association and Watson Land Company.

No word yet on whether the other three council members who will be sworn in with Andrews for a new four-year term July 15 -- Suja Lowenthal (2nd District), Patrick O'Donnell (4th District) and Rae Gabelich (8th District) -- are planning similar events. Of course, those three went unchallenged in the election and were guaranteed new terms, so they may retake the reins next month as quietly as they as they retook their seats in April.