October 2010 Archives

The Long Beach City Council signed off on a milestone Tuesday, approving the issuance of up to $70 million in bonds to begin terminal improvements at the Long Beach Airport. The bonds will be backed only by airport revenues and won't affect the city's general fund or put the city on the hook for any money, officials said.

The Phase I terminal improvements will replace the existing temporary airport buildings with permanent passenger holdrooms and concession facilities. The project will include 34,750 square feet of new construction and 6,500 square feet of remodeled space.

City officials expect to break ground in January. Work has already begun on a new airport parking garage.

Check out the video below of a rendering of the new airport terminal and modernization plan.

Long Beach City Council meeting almost became an English-only function this week.

As part of the budget cuts that went into effect Oct. 1, a television Spanish simulcast of council meetings was eliminated. Spanish and other language interpreters were still to be provided on request at City Hall during the meetings. Yet, when housing advocates asked Monday to have interpreters at Tuesday's meeting, they were told that interpreters were no longer available.

City Clerk Larry Herrera said Tuesday that after his attempts to get other city departments to help pick up the cost of providing interpreters had failed, he decided to no longer offer the service. He since has changed his mind, he said.

"I thought about it overnight, and I thought the right thing to do was go ahead and step up and absorb the cost," Herrera said.

City departments face pressure to keep costs down because revenue could fall short over the next year. Adding to the pressure, Mayor Bob Foster vetoed part of the budget to cut an extra 1 percent from every city department.

Herrera said that cutting the interpreters would give his budget about $24,000 of "wiggle room." He said he's now hoping that he won't have to provide the interpreters more than once a month, keeping costs close to $12,000.

Costs are already mounting, however. Providing two pairs of state-certified court interpreters at Tuesday's meeting -- one for Spanish and the other for Khmer -- cost $2,220 for five hours, Herrera calculated Wednesday.

When Newport Beach wants to get rid of 150,000 cubic yards of toxic sediment, to whom does it turn? To the Port of Long Beach..

The Daily Pilot, a community newspaper covering Costa Mesa and Newport Beach and owned by the Los Angeles Times, is reporting that Port officials have agreed to take the waste, which would be costly to ship farther away, off of the Orange County city's hands.

From the Daily Pilot article:

The Port of Long Beach has agreed to accept 150,000 cubic yards of dredged toxic sediment from the city of Newport Beach, Newport officials said Tuesday.

The sediment will come from the Rhine Channel, an area near Cannery Village that once housed shipyards and canneries, boat-building and metal plating facilities. It will be dumped in an area of the port reserved for such dirt, a site that will accommodate future expanded shipping operations.

The Middle Harbor Redevelopment Project is a $750-million, 10-year project that, according to the Port, "would modernize two older shipping terminals, create about 14,000 new permanent jobs and cut air pollution at those terminals by 50 percent or more from existing levels." Newport Beach's toxic sediment will be used as land fill at the Middle Harbor, according to the Daily Pilot. Here's what the article says is in that fill: 

According to the city, the sediment contains elevated concentrations of metals, pesticides, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) that pose an ecological risk.

The article doesn't say how much Newport Beach is paying to give Long Beach its waste, and the Long Beach Harbor Commission hasn't taken up any matters related to accepting the sediment in recent weeks. We here at the Press-Telegram are following up on this issue today.

The City Council indicated late Tuesday that it may step back and take a closer look at the controversial Downtown Community Plan before moving forward on it.

The council voted unanimously to hold a study session about the plan on Nov. 9, which will allow members the opportunity to consider delaying the release of an environmental report as demanded by housing advocates.

The Downtown Community Plan is a longterm development vision for downtown that housing advocates say doesn't provide for any new affordable housing.

Council members Rae Gabelich, Patrick O'Donnell and Steven Neal had requested that a study session be held before the city releases the environmental impact report, but the council had to first sign off Tuesday on whether to have the session at all. The environmental report is the first step toward implementing the plan.

During the study session, the council will be able to give city management direction on the plan, including whether to let housing advocates have their way.

The advocates want the city to wait until an economic benefits study that they have commissioned on the plan is finished, which will take four months, before the environmental report is released. The $100,000 economic benefits study is being funded by a grant from the California Endowment.

City Manager Pat West said he had expected to release the report by late November.
Gabelich, O'Donnell and Neal said the study session is also needed because the council hadn't heard any updates on the plan since putting it in motion in 2007. Councilwoman Suja Lowenthal, whose 2nd District includes most of downtown, said she was concerned about delaying the development plan.

The plan calls for increasing density in a one-square-mile area to allow up to 9,200 new residential units, 2 million square feet of office and retail space, and 3,200 new hotel rooms over 25 years. The plan would also streamline and speed up processes for developers to get projects approved and under way by removing some environmental impact report requirements. It has been estimated that the approval time for new developments could be cut by a year to 16 months, providing considerable savings for developers.

A legion of housing advocates showed up at Tuesday's meeting to voice their support for having a study session and seeing the results of the economic study before moving forward.

Former Reagan Sec. of State George Shultz has joined a growing list of political, business and community leaders in urging voters to reject Prop 23 on Nov. 2, a ballot initiative seeking to end California's landmark greenhouse gases law.

Shultz calls Proposition 23, a measure largely funded by well-moneyed oil companies - including the owners of two oil refineries credited with spewing thousands of tons of pollution into local skies annually - an issue that "transcends party divisions and is important to all of California and, for that matter, the United States and the world."

The video, "Prop 23, the Battle Over California's Future," depicts the forces behind the ballot measure and the grass-roots organizations fighting to defeat it at the polls Nov. 2.
Prop 23 would suspend AB 32, a landmark 2006 law that seeks to lower carbon dioxide to 1990 levels by 2020.

Economists credit the bill with spurring investments topping $2 billion in California in 2009 ($9 billion since 2005) to fund research and development of alternative-fuel and energy sources needed to meet AB 32's goals - and put a dent in the nation's increasing reliance on foreign oil.
Despite a well-funded campaign to discredit man's contribution to climate change, the overwhelming majority of scientists across the globe consider the phenomenon real - and well underway.

"These oil companies are putting this proposition on our ballot for their bottom line and it's at the detriment of California's public health," said American Lung Association President Jane Warner. "It is a matter of life and death.

Where should voters turn when they want to learn about candidates and ballot measures? Beyond the media, there are many resources to help voters decide for whom to vote, if they really want to dig into the details of each candidate.

Long Beach has a relatively light city ballot in the Nov. 2 general election, with four ballot measures going before voters. At the state and federal level, residents of Long Beach and neighboring cities will choose members of the state Assembly and Congress to serve two-year terms, as well as joining other Californians to vote for governor, senator and other statewide offices and propositions.

Here are some sites that will help voters be informed:

• www.presstelegram.com/elections -- Press-Telegram coverage of the election and the editorial board's endorsements.
• www.longbeach.gov/elections -- The City Clerk's site for Long Beach's ballot measures, which include a tax on recreational marijuana and a plan to eliminate the Civil Service Department.
• www.voterguide.sos.ca.gov/propositions -- The California Secretary of State's website for the nine state propositions. It includes the pros, the cons, and even the full text of the measures, if you're so inclined to read them.
• www.smartvoter.org -- A nonpartisan site run by the League of Women Voters. It gives basic information on state and federal candidates, but relies on them to fill in the details.
• www.votesmart.org -- Not to be confused with the previous site, this may be one of the most comprehensive election sites around. Although the site doesn't always have much on the challengers, it is a trove of knowledge about incumbents both at the state and federal level -- their voting records on key issues, how they are rated by various special interest groups, public statements they have made and more.
• www.govtrack.us -- A great resource for learning about members of Congress.
• www.ontheissues.org -- A good site if you just want to keep it simple and see the basic voting records of state and federal officeholders on major issues.

The Monday closure of four neighborhood libraries went into effect this week. Because of budget cuts, all 12 of Long Beach's libraries are now open only Tuesday through Saturday.

The four libraries that are now closed Monday are El Dorado Library, 2900 Studebaker Road; Bret Harte Library, 1595 W. Willow St.; Mark Twain Library, 1401 E. Anaheim St.; and North Library, 5571 Orange Ave.

Library hours also have changed. The new hours at the downtown Main Library are:

• Tuesday -- 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
• Wednesday -- 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
• Thursday -- 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
• Friday -- 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
• Saturday -- 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
  

All neighborhood libraries hours:

• Tuesday -- noon to 7 p.m.
• Wednesday -- noon to 6 p.m.
• Thursday -- noon to 7 p.m.
• Friday -- 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
• Saturday -- 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
  

Visit the library online at www.lbpl.org.

The City Council voted 5-3 Tuesday to have City Manager Pat West implement seven days of worker furloughs for the city's largest union.

City Attorney Bob Shannon announced the vote just after 5 p.m. as the council was coming out of a closed session meeting in which it was to discuss labor negotiations. Shannon said the decision was "due to the fact that there exists and continues to exist a fiscal emergency."

The furloughs would apply to members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, which represents about 3,800 city employees, from janitors to librarians. Police, firefighters, city management and members of other unions wouldn't be affected. The city management association and five unions other than police, fire and IAM, previously agreed to pay freezes.

The council had already authorized West to begin talks with the union for up to 13 days of furloughs, so the seven-day decision could have been worse.

Shannon reported that council members Gary DeLong, Suja Lowenthal, Robert Garcia, Dee Andrews and James Johnson voted in favor of the furloughs, while council members Patrick O'Donnell, Gerrie Schipske and Rae Gabelich voted against them. Ninth District Councilman Steve Neal was absent.

The IAM, along with the police and firefighters associations, are the three largest and most expensive employee groups, and they are the three with which the city hasn't been able to agree to contract concessions. City officials had asked the associations to forgo their contractual pay raises to save almost $11.3 million of the city's $18.5 million general fund deficit.

Without the pay freezes in place, the council voted last month to cut additional personnel and services to eliminate the deficit. The new budget went into effect Friday.
Mayor Bob Foster also used his veto power to cut an extra 1 percent from every department because of the fear that revenue will fall short. In the fiscal year that just ended, Long Beach had about a $12 million revenue shortfall.

City officials didn't say when the furloughs would begin. However, they have said that they don't intend to close City Hall with the furloughs, as happened one day a month over five months at the beginning of 2009.

At the end of last year, the IAM narrowly avoided more furloughs, finally agreeing to a pay freeze in November. This time around, IAM officials have been adamant that they won't give up their salary hikes again.

Star Parker, the Republican challenger to Rep. Laura Richardson, D-Long Beach, is having a community town hall meeting tonight. The event is free and open to the public.

The town hall will take place at the Long Beach Petroleum Club, 3636 Linden Ave., from 7 to 9 p.m. Doors open at 6:45 p.m.

Richardson, a former Long Beach City Council member who briefly served in the state Assembly, is running for her second full term representing the 37th Congressional District. Parker runs a non-profit agency and is a conservative columnist who is in her first bid for political office.

The 37th District encompasses Long Beach, Signal Hill, Carson, Compton, and parts of Los Angeles.