Community Meeting, C-17 Rally and Parking Tickets

What an interesting week.

We had a council meeting but the budget hearing that would have allowed the city council to start taking public action on the budget was canceled.

A community meeting at the El Dorado Senior Center with 80 people who came to talk about the budget and proposed cuts to police and fire services. People are not happy. And they want something done with the high costs of public pensions. Unfortunately, we can't address that problem in the next four weeks we have to pass the budget. But we will bring it forward and engage the public and the unions so we can make changes in the next budget.

Today, I attended a rally at Boeing to encourage Congress to fund 15 C-17's. Also there were Congressmembers Laura Richardson and Ed Royce, Supervisor Don Knabe, the Mayor of Los Alamitos, Troy Edgar. We all spoke about the importance of keeping over 5,000 jobs in Long Beach and the significance of the C-17 in military and commercial operations as an excellent cargo plane. CBS news was there. Please send letters to Senators Boxer and Feinstein because the funding for 15 planes needs their support.

Parking tickets. I once in a while get a letter or email from a resident who has received a parking ticket and wants me to get involved and get the ticket waived. As I explain, it is not appropriate for a councilmember to use their office to interfere with tickets. I am sure that doesn't make anyone happy. But the other day, I received an email from a young man who received a parking ticket downtown out front of the military recruiting center where he had gone inside to sign up for the military. When he came out the parking enforcement person was writing the ticket for an expired meter -- which was the right thing to do. He explained he had been inside signing up to serve his country and should be given some slack. But he was given the ticket -- as he should have been. I told him to send me the parking ticket and I would pay it. Which I did. It was least thing I could do.