Pitching for parcel tax

Mayor Bob Foster made a stop on his Parcel Tax Approval Tour at the monthly meeting of the Alamitos Beach Neighborhood Association at Bixby Park Thursday night.

Foster proposed the tax to leverage a $571 million bond that would go to build and repair a frayed city infrastructure, including roads, alleys, storm drains, sidewalks and park and public safety facilities, not to mention a new main library. The measure will be on the November ballot, where it must receive two-thirds approval to pass.

The mayor has staked a significant amount of his political capital on the measure and is planning a major campaign to push for passage.

The City Council made Foster's pitch for the tax much more difficult when Councilwoman Gerrie Schipske went against her contemporaries. Schipske was the lone councilperson who refused to support the mayor in declaring that a "fiscal emergency" existed. That means the tax measure now requires the two-thirds approval, rather than the simple majority in the case of an emergency.

If Thursday night's appearance at the Alamitos Beach gathering is an indication, Foster will go all out for the measure. Foster spent nearly an hour presenting and defending his plan to the residents, who seemed generally supportive.

Foster says residents see everyday the need for upgrades to the city's deteriorating streets, alleys, curbs and public buildings. By failing to keep up with even routine maintenance in recent years, Foster said the costs for his plan have jumped nearly 50 percent. And he fears if the city waits any longer it could reach "what I call a death spiral, where things get so bad you can't fix them."

As an example, Foster pointed out that it costs 20 times as much rebuild a road, which is required if it becomes degraded enough, as to repair it. In Long Beach's 815 miles of street, 23 percent have a failed rating and 37 percent are rated fair to poor.

Degraded infrastructure also drives away businesses and lowers property values, Foster said.

"You cannot build wealth without infrastructure," Foster said.

Mike Wilson, president of the Alamitos Beach group, said he was amazed Foster would take time to talk to his small neighborhood association, which may underscore how seriously Foster is taking his campaign.

A packed house of about 70 residents packed the meeting room for the event. In addition to the mayor, the meeting also drew Second District Councilwoman Suja Lowenthal, Phil Hester, head of the Department of Parks, Recreation and Marine, Craig Beck, director of Development Services and Mike Conway, director of Public Works. Or as Wilson called them, "the big mucky mucks."

Lowenthal spoke and answered questions about parking, a moratorium on splitting bedrooms in the community, the clustering of sex offenders in the area, the repair of the Bixby Bandshell, parking and parking.

Lowethal spoke about a three-phased plan to relieve parking in the perennially congested area. These include everything from painting parking hashmarks on the street to tighten parking, to encouraging businesses to allow parking during their off hours, to more enforcement against illegally converted garages and unregistered vehicles.

In one particularly ambitious project, community members went out and mapped the lengths of all the red striped curbs in the neighborhood in the hopes that they can be tightened to make more room for cars.

Although the meeting ran nearly an hour longer than scheduled, it seemed residents still had plenty of questions that will have to wait until the group's next meeting in September.