January 2011 Archives

Three Long Beach City Council members want to make Long Beach's ballots fairer for candidates.

Council members James Johnson, Dee Andrews and Steve Neal are asking the council Tuesday to implement ballot rotation on local election ballots.

The change would rotate the order of candidates on ballots so that each candidate is listed first on an equal number of ballots throughout the city. In his proposal, Johnson points to a study that found that California candidates are 5.6 percent more likely to win an election if they are listed first on the ballot.

The cost of using ballot rotation would be about $10,000 per election, depending on the number of candidates, according to City Clerk Larry Herrera. Long Beach's next regular city election is scheduled for April 2012.

The memory of Jenny Oropeza, the state senator and former Long Beach City Council member who died last year, may live on at a local community center.

The City Council on Tuesday will consider renaming the community center at Cesar E.

Chavez Park after Oropeza, who died Oct. 20 from complications related to an abdominal blood clot. Oropeza had been up for re-election in November, and because she died so close to the election, her name remained on the ballot.

A special election to replace her is scheduled for Feb. 15.

Council members Robert Garcia, Suja Lowenthal, Gerrie Schipske and Steve Neal are asking the council to send the proposal of naming the park building The Jenny Oropeza Community Center to the Housing and Neighborhoods Committee for consideration.

Oropeza previously represented Long Beach's 1st Council District, which includes Cesar E. Chavez Park on the east side of the Los Angeles River north of Broadway. She advocated for the park's construction during her time on the council.

Port of Long Beach Executive Director Richard Steinke recently explained to Fox News about the increased port traffic and what it signals for the economy. Check out the video here.

Seventh District CouncilmanJames Johnson and Harbor Commissioners Mario Cordero and Thomas Fields want a zero-emissions option to be included in the environmental impact report of a proposed Intermodal Container Transfer Facility expansion. That would mean a potential expansion of the rail yard that serves the Port of Long Beach without increasing pollution in an area that already is known as the "diesel death zone." The ICTF is located in West Long Beach between the San Diego (405) Freeway and Willow Street, east of the Alameda Street.

The environmental report on the proposed expansion is expected to be released later this year and will be available for public comments. The ICTF expansion would double the goods-movement capacity at the facility over the next several years, while modernizing it. Learn more at www.ictf-jpa.org/.

 

Johnson said in a press release that he and the commissioners have sent the ICTF Joint Powers Authority a letter saying that this is the time to move forward on zero emissions goods movement. From the letter:

Zero-emissions goods-movement technology represents a true paradigm shift, as we would be able to move goods quickly and efficiently to market without sacrificing the health of our neighborhoods.

He also said that "by working now to develop zero-emissions goods movement, the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles could secure a competitive edge by increasing the efficiency of moving goods." Again from the letter:

The success of the Port is important to Long Beach and the region. We must find a way to allow the Port to grow but to grow green and not sacrifice the health of the citizens. By developing a "win-win" method to move goods to the train facilities without polluting our communities, we can do that.

Long Beach is abuzz after the City Council and the Redevelopment Agency Board this week approved $1.2 billion in projects over the next decade in order to keep local property tax revenue out of state hands. Some projects have already been planned, and others are just concepts that city officials would like to have, so they estimated the costs for those and added them to the list. The alternative, of course, is to lose Long Beach's redevelopment area funding, which will happen if the Legislature approves Gov. Jerry Brown's proposal to end redevelopment programs.
 
Check out the list below of all of the future projects. The list follows the staff report in the document. The projects listed in regular type were already planned or approved, while those in italics were only the conceptual ones whose details haven't been worked out. Maybe there are some projects in your neighborhood.

Redevelopment projects list.PDF

The City Council's three members of its State Legislation Committee will head to Sacramento Monday for an annual trip to meet with member's of Long Beach's state delegation. Those going are Councilman Patrick O'Donnell, who is the chairman of the committee, and council members Robert Garcia and James Johnson.

"We will spend the day meeting with our legislators, focusing on halting the state's intended takeaways from local government, as well as preserving our local tax credit," O'Donnell said in a press release. "We are also looking forward to sharing the City's State Legislative agenda, which is also strongly focused on preserving funding for Long Beach and its residents."

One of the top issues is likely to be Gov. Jerry Brown's plan to eliminate redevelopment agencies throughout the state. The council and the Long Beach Redevelopment Agency Board this week approved measures to keep $1.2 billion out of state heads by dedicating a decade's worth of property tax revenues to redevelopment area projects.

One would think that they would get a friendly reception from at least a few of our area legislators. Two of them -- state Sen. Alan Lowenthal and Assemblywoman Bonnie Lowenthal -- are former Long Beach council members. Of course, as sympathetic as they may be to Long Beach's cause, they now have a new role, and the most pressing issue at the state level is how to eliminate California's $28 billion budget deficit.

The committee members will give the rest of the council and the public an update on their lobbying efforts afterward, O'Donnell said.

"Our goal is to give Long Beach a voice in Sacramento," O'Donnell said.   

The Long Beach Taxpayers Association will hear from an economics and political expert at its meeting tonight.

Alfred Balitzer will speak on the current economic conditions in California, the outlook for the future, and the fundamentals needed to return local and state government to prosperity.
Balitzer is Chairman of Pacific Research & Strategies, Inc. He has run numerous political campaigns at the local, state and national levels, and he was an adviser to several cabinet members during the Reagan Administration.

The Taxpayers Association meeting begins at 7 p.m. at Wagner Kitchen and Design, 1800 Palo Verde, Suite E. The business is at the Corner of Palo Verde and Atherton, above FedEx/Kinko's. The event is free and open to the public.

If you missed the somewhat confrontational State of the City Address given by Mayor Bob Foster last night, in which he presented an ultimatum to labor unions on pension reform, you can watch it or read it below. Click here for my article summarizing the speech and the issues it addressed.

If you simply must have more Bob Foster, you can read the text version of the address, though it doesn't include any ad libbing by the mayor, at this link:
State of the City 2011.PDF

Or watch the video:

Former 7th District City Councilwoman Tonia Reyes Uranga is keeping her hands in area politics.

She was one of 12 people to be elected Sunday as delegates representing the 54th Assembly District for the California Democratic Democratic Party. The 54th District includes most of Long Beach and is represented in the Assembly by Bonnie Lowenthal.

The Democratic Party has about 3,000 delegates statewide, including those elected by registered Democrats in each Assembly district, those chosen by county Democratic parties, and elected Democratic officials and their appointees.

Delegates' responsibilities includes attending annual party conventions, electing party officers, taking positions on party resolutions, and perhaps most importantly, voting on endorsements for candidates seeking state and federal offices.

Among the six men and six women chosen as delegates for the 54th Assembly District -- which Uranga once ran to represent but lost to Lowenthal -- Uranga was also chosen to be one of 300 executive board members statewide for the Democratic Party. The most important role of the executive board may be electing members of the Democratic National Committee.

The other 54th Assembly Democratic Party delegates are:

• Virginia Acevedo
• Cory Allen
• Lillie Bray
• David Greene
• Eric Kenney
• Elisa McConnehea
• Ronald (Ron) Nelson
• Tim Patton
• Carrie Scoville
• Adrian Tatum
  

From Mayor Bob Foster's office:

Although all 825 tickets have been distributed for the 2011 State of the City, Long Beach community members will be able to watch the event live over the internet.

People who were unable to attain tickets for the 2011 State of the City can visit www.longbeach.gov or www.MayorBobFoster.com on January 11 at 7:00 pm to watch the live webcast of the event.

LBTV, (Charter channel 3, Verizon FiOs channel 21) will be re-broadcasting the State of the City on the following dates and times:

·        Tuesday, January 11 at 10:00 pm
·        Wednesday, January 12 at 12:00 pm
·        Thursday, January 13 at 7:00 am and 12:00 pm
·        Friday, January 14 at 12:00 pm and 10:00 pm
·        Saturday, January 15 at 9:00 am, 3:00 pm, and 9:30 pm
·        Sunday, January 16 at 1:00 pm and 9:00 pm

Playback of the event will also be available on www.MayorBobFoster.com or www.longbeach.gov.

State of the City ticket holders are encouraged to help the Long Beach Community Food Drive by bringing a canned or packaged food item to the event.  Food Drive bins will be located in the plaza area of Center Theater.  Food Finders will be distributing the donated food to more than 100 organizations in Long Beach help out needy families.  The Long Beach Community Food Drive's goal is to collect 100,000 pounds of food, which would provide three meals a day to approximately 2,547 families for a week.

City Manager Pat West will speak Wednesday at 4th District City Councilman Patrick O'Donnell's monthly "Chat with Pat" community meeting.

West will talk about the new year and hear from residents about what they would like to see the city do in 2011.

The meeting is from 4:30 to 6 p.m. at Los Altos Library, 5614 N. Britton Drive. The event is free and open to the public.