LB Literary Women Festival Wonderful As Usual

Isabel Wilkerson at the Miller Center Forum (Photo credit: Miller_Center)

Enjoyed the Literary Women Festival of Authors today in the LB Convention Center. Today was the 30th year of this wonderful event. The event was sold out as usual. The authors were witty and fascinating. The attendees so engaged.

Many of the women in attendance work diligently in Long Beach to preserve and expand our library services. 

One of the featured writers is Pultizer Prize Winner Isabel Wilkerson who talked about writing her amazing book on the migration of 6 million Americans from the south to escape Jim Crow laws. The book: The Warmth of Other Suns is an epic non fiction account of how lives were changed forever when African Americans left the south beginning in WWI.


Congrats to the women who put this event on today! Thanks for doing this in Long Beach for 30 years.

Related articles

• "The Warmth of Other Suns" by Isabel Wilkerson (beautifulunion.wordpress.com)
• Part III of a Four-Part Q & A with Pulitzer-Winner Isabel Wilkerson on Her Book, 'The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration' (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
• Part II of a Four-Part Series with Pulitzer-Winner Isabel Wilkerson, Author of 'The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration' (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
• Book Review: The Warmth of Other Suns, Isabel Wilkerson (chalkthesun.wordpress.com)

City Management's Response on SEADIP

In my haste to get the document published, I missed scanning some pages. Below is the complete memo.

The Long Beach City Council directed City management to detail how the city could move forward to amend the local coastal plan that includes the area known as SEADIP. Below is the memo just recently sent to the council from city management. The difficulty will be to secure funding to conduct the process necessary to amend the plan.Unless the coastal plan is updated and there is agreement as to how if any development will take place in the area, potential developments like 2nd and PCH that was rejected by the majority of the city council will happen again.

Sea Dip

City Needs to Utilize Next 10

For several years I have pushed for the City of Long Beach to get our budget on line in a format that residents can use to provide their input on what cuts need to be made to the City budget and for those cuts to be shown in a graphic way so residents can see what the cuts will do to services.

This will also actually help the City Council see the impact and the input of our residents.

The California Budget project (http://www.budgetchallenge.org/pages/home) though the non profit Next10 has provided such a capability for cities. The City of Los Angeles uses this program as well as the city of Alameda (http://www.cityofalamedaca.gov/Budget-Challenge/sim/budget_master.html).

Next10 has offered this program to the City of Long Beach for $15,000 which I am willing to take out of my neighborhood services budget and provide for the entire city.

As we launch this effort, I look forward to the involvement of all of our residents who have a real stake in the budget decisions that will impact our city services and the quality of life here.

Related articles

• Schipske Launches "Open Up Long Beach" Effort (openuplongbeach.com)

Come Learn How to Track LB City Council

COME LEARN HOW TO TRACK THE CITY COUNCIL March 12th Meeting of Open Up Long Beach to Focus on Legistar System (LONG BEACH, CA; March 5, 2012) – Councilwoman Gerrie Schipske is inviting the public to learn how to track the activities of the Long Beach City Council at the next meeting of Open Up Long Beach. “Long Beach City Clerk, Larry Herrera, will provide a presentation on how to access the Legistar system used to track the activities of the City Council,” says Schipske. Legistar is a comprehensive, integrated document management and information retrieval system designed specifically to support the legislative process in cities, towns, and counties. Legistar parallels and supports the customary flow of legislative operations, tracking every action taken on each matter, along with dates, free-form notation, and individual votes where appropriate. The March 12th meeting is a part of Councilwoman Schipske’s “Open Up Long Beach” effort which is focusing on how to make city government more open, transparent and accountable. The meeting will take place at 2800 N. Studebaker Road, Long Beach, CA 90815, from 6:30 to 8:30 pm and is open to the public. From the time of her election to council in 2006, Fifth District Councilwoman Gerrie Schipske has been dedicated to open and transparent government. She is the first and only councilmember in Long Beach to communicate with her constituents via blog. She also utilizes Facebook, Twitter, electronic newsletters and email. More information on the effort to make Long Beach more open, transparent and accountable can be found at www.openuplongbeach.com or by calling the Office of Councilwoman Gerrie Schipske at 562-570-6932.