Current City Council Supports 1976 Boundaries -- Which Means Port Goes Back to First District

Several of my colleagues heaped praise on me the other night for distributing a copy of the 1976 council boundaries. Obviously, they liked the map because it showed the 7th District once had Bixby Road - which they used to support the taking of the same area grabbed the other night on a 7-2 vote.

So glad they appreciate history. I distributed the map to show that at one time, districts were very compact and not gerrymandered like most are now.

And now that I know how much they liked the "old boundaries" I am going to propose that we go back again to that map and move the Port of Long Beach back into the First Council district where it belongs. Fair? I think so. And I am sure they will heap more praise for bringing that to their attention as well.

See the 1976 map:

1976 Redistricting

Compare with current boundaries:

Current City Boundaries

LB Police Response to Constituent Concern About Burglaries

In response to a constituent's email to me about hearing about residential burglaries in the east side, I am posting Commander Lisa Lopez's response. I am also posting an illustration done by an alarm company in Maryland that pretty much sums it up about preventing residential burglaries:

The East Division has had an increase in residential burglary in 2011.  The East Division has been diligently working on suppression efforts, as well as increasing community awareness.  We have been assisted by volunteers, including Police Explorers and Search and Rescue, to distribute a flyer about residential burglary prevention and speak with residents about burglary trends in neighborhoods throughout East Division.  We have also been sharing information about crime trends at community meetings and encouraging people to report suspicious behavior in their neighborhoods.  Many great burglary-in-progress arrests have been made as a result of calls from the community about suspicious behavior.

In addition to Patrol Officers, we have an excellent team of Detectives who follow up on burglary incidents.  Our investigations are multifaceted, involving surveillance, follow up on repeat offenders, and search warrants.  We study trends within East Division, the entire city, and surrounding cities.  The majority of residential burglaries in East Division occur during daytime hours, when many houses and apartments are empty.  Over half of the residential burglaries in Long Beach occur to houses and apartments with open or unlocked doors and windows.  This is one of our most important messages for the community - please keep residences secure.  

Please call me if you would like to discuss this further.  I am happy to attend community meetings. 

Please know that I meet with Commander Lopez frequently and also receive updates via my Blackberry about what is occurring.You can also log onto www.Crimereports.com and enter your zip code to find out crimes that have been reported.

City Documents and Council Agenda Links

Happy 4th of July!

After you recover from this day and night of celebration, settle down and read several documents given to me down at City hall.

You will find them interesting -- I did.

Click here to read a proposal given to Councilman Patrick O'Donnell from the LB Firefighters Association which he gave to the Infrastructure and Transportation Committee. It proposes to create an independent Fire Protection District as a means of funding the department directly out of property tax increments instead of the City's general fund. There are a lot of questions that need to be answered before the City embarks on this. Other cities may be exploring this as well in light of recent state legislation that requires tax increment to be paid first to schools and then fire protection districts.

 

Southern California Edison provided me with a briefing (Click here) on their electricity utility. They are again reaching capacity over here in the 5th district due to all the electrical gadgets we use -- so they will be needing to install additional transformers so we don't have brownouts.   

As you already know, the City Council agenda is on line. Just click here to see what we are doing on Tuesday, July 5. You can leave a comment by clicking here. 

Hope you had a great holiday. And thanks for taking time to stay involved in the issues that face our City.

Yours,

Gerrie 

Councilwoman Gerrie Schipske