State Controller Requires Posting of All Cities' Salaries and Benefits

Click here to see salaries and benefits for city of Long Beach

The State Controller of California has directed all cities to provide information concerning salaries, pensions and other benefits paid to public employees.

By clicking the above link you can find the City of Long Beach and all other cities in California.

5th District Night at the Aquarium

First of all, if you haven't been to the Aquarium of the Pacific lately, you will find a great surprise. It looks great. The exhibits are fantastic.

Secondly, we had a wonderful time with the kids and their families. Lil Devils and the Aquarium provided gift certificates for the "winners" of the sea theme Halloween contest for those under 10 years of age.

Here are some of the highlights:

And it came from the sea...

Non costumed adults

Elmo as a garabaldi.

Sweet little sea creatures

A winning octopus

The family that swims together...Psst..the adults are kelp

Yes you can go to the Aquarium gift shop now

A sea cowgirl. Love the boots.

For residents without a $400 Smart Phone..You can Still Call Me for Help

The City announced that owners of Smart phones can download an application that allows you to text in any problems you encounter in the city of Long Beach -- like sidewalks, trees, graffiti, etc.

Many people in Long Beach cannot afford an expensive smart phone, so please remember how you can contact my office without downloading an application:

• Call me -- 562 570-6932.
• Email me -- district5@longbeach.com
• Go on my website and fill out a service request (a system that I installed several years ago to make it easier on residents): http://www.lbdistrict5.com/
• Fill out a contact me on this blog -- look in column on right.

I applaud the move to modern technology. But constituent service can still be and is accomplished the old fashioned way as I have outlined above.

And while we may develop new and fancy ways to receive requests for service, we still as a council need to grapple on how we can pay to provide those services.

Check this information out

The City Manager's Recent Newsletter

Friday Newsletter 10-22-10

Get Ready for the Big One!!

Senator Jenny Oropeza Passes Away

It is with a heavy heart that I tell you Senator Jenny Oropeza died last evening at Memorial Medical Center.

My partner, Flo, and I have known Jenny since she first ran for office -- we held a fundraiser in our home.

Our prayers go out to her husband, Tom, and to her family.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Offers a Message of Hope to Lesbian, Gay and Transgendered Youth

Need Your Help for Holiday Events

Dear Readers,

 

Due to our budget cuts, the City is unable to put those wooden triangles with Christmas lights (that look like trees on the water) in any of our local parks.

 

Also, our annual tree lighting, santa claus and outdoor movies have also been cancelled due to to lack of funding.

So I need your help:

• We can restore the "christmas lights" at Heartwell Park and at the duck pond in El Dorado Park at Willow if we can raise $576.00 for each tree/set of lights. We need at least 3 for each location for a grand cost of: $1728 x 2 locations= $2456. Contributions can be sent to Partner of Parks,  2760 N. Studebaker Road, Long Beach , CA 90815
• We have a living Christmas tree at Good Neighbor Park which local children are decorating the first week of December. I would like to host a holiday/tree lighting/Christmas carols on Sunday, December 12 at 6pm -- and again need help organizing this event and am inviting any school or church choir that would like to come and lead christmas carols to contact my office at: 562 570-6932.

Pertussis Shots Required by State Law

Pertussis

Octoberfest Coming to El Dorado Park.

Oktoberfest Flyer

Free Medical and Dental Care for Women

I just received this announcement from the First Lady of California -- Maria Shriver. Please pass it along.

Free Medical and Dental Care for Women

October 28 -- 5th District Night at the Aquarium and Halloween Contest

Aquarium 2010

City Management Explains Budget Impact on Fire Department

FIRE DEPARTMENT FACTS
OCTOBER 2010
The City of Long Beach has released the following statement regarding our Fire Department: 

Fire and Medical response times continue to meet the City’s response standards.

Our Fire Department’s response time standard, based on the national standard, is "To arrive on scene of an emergency call within 6 minutes 90% of the time." The department monitors system performance and makes changes based on this standard. Currently, our average response time is less than 5 minutes to emergency calls, an excellent response time for a large department.

In order to offset the pay increase taken by the Firefighters’ Association (FFA), the new service model reduces one engine company per day, while managing responses with the City’s 17 other engines companies, four fire trucks, and eight paramedic/rescues.

The engine reduction is necessary in order to offset the pay increase taken by the firefighters. The engine reduction is managed by removing one engine from service each day from stations that have more than one response unit. This is not a station closure. This service model will ensure at least one unit is assigned at every station throughout the City, allowing the unit to respond from the station, while other units respond from surrounding stations, if needed. This practice is similar to how our Fire Department manages daily operations such as when units are at training, deployed to major fire events or otherwise out of service. For example, in the area surrounding downtown Engines 6, 2, 10, 20, 24 and 3 are all able to respond to fire incidents, if needed. While the engine company was not in service at Station 1 on October 7, Station 1 had a fully staffed Truck and a fully staffed Paramedic Rescue to respond to calls for service.

These service reductions are not a result of a "budget cut;" rather, they are a result of pay increases to the FAA.

Our Fire Department’s budget has not decreased from last year; rather, this year, the City is obligated to pay an additional $2.3 million in firefighter salary increases. As there is no additional money to pay for those raises, service levels must change in order to maintain a responsibly balanced budget. The City tried to avoid the engine reduction by asking the FFA to fully offset the costs of these raises. Unfortunately, while our firefighters negotiated in good faith, an agreement could not be reached.

The City is willing to accept a "dollar for dollar" FFA giveback to restore the engine.

The City continues to engage in discussions with the Firefighters’ Association. As the FFA was previously willing to give up $1.7 million in salary increases, the City will accept those givebacks (subject to negotiations) and "dollar for dollar" restore services.

FIRE DEPARTMENT RESOURCES AVAILABLE FOR RESPONSE EVERY DAY

23 fire stations, including 4 within the Port, and 1 serving the airport

17 engines (each with 4 firefighters)

8 Paramedic / Rescue units (each with 2 firefighter/paramedics)

4 trucks (3 with 4 firefighters, and 1 downtown with 5 firefighters)

1 Engine/Truck Light Force (with 6 firefighters)

5 Basic Life Support Ambulances during the day and 3 at night (2 EMTs)

2 Fire Boats and 3 Rescue Boats (year-round)

Library Hours Changed Due to Budget Cuts

Effective Monday, October 11, 2010, the Long Beach Public Library will implement standardized hours for FY 11 as follows:

Four Neighborhood Libraries will close on Mondays:

• El Dorado Library, 2900 Studebaker Road
• Bret Harte Library, 1595 W. Willow St.
• Mark Twain Library, 1401 E. Anaheim St.
• North Library, 5571 Orange Ave.

"Despite these reductions, Long Beach Public Library is committed to providing excellent customer service to our Long Beach community," said Library Director Glenda Williams.  All libraries will now be open Tuesday - Saturday.  Open hours are:

MAIN LIBRARY

Tuesday:  10 am – 8 pm
Wednesday: 10 am – 6 pm
Thursday: 10 am – 6 pm
Friday:  10 am – 5 pm
Saturday:  10 am – 5 pm

ALL NEIGHBORHOOD LIBRARIES

Tuesday: 12 pm – 7 pm
Wednesday:  12 pm – 6 pm
Thursday:  12 pm – 7 pm
Friday:  10 am – 5 pm
Saturday: 10 am – 5 pm

For 24-hour access, visit www.lbpl.org

Council Shirks Its Responsibility -- Votes to Have State Legislature Change How Pensions Are Given

It would have been oh so easy to press the "Yes" button and to go along with the majority of the council members who lined up in support of an item that calls upon the state legislature to outlaw the granting of increasing pension benefits retroactively.

Sounds so politically correct, doesn't it?  So tough. Call upon that damn state legislature to stop allowing pension increases from being applied for past service.

The only problem, is that any increases allowed under the state pension system CALPERS were not mandated to be given. 

No one in the state held a gun to the past City Council's heads to make them retroactively increase city employee pensions.

Oh, no. The prior mayor and city council (not the state legislature) agreed to apply a pension increase retroactively to city employees because it allowed the city council to forgo increasing salaries in bad budget times by giving employees better retirement benefits in the future. (Let's examine: the city council agreed to give city employees an increase in the percentage of their salary they would receive at retirement from 2.0% to 2.7% for non public safety and 2.5% to 3.0% for public safety. The increase applied for every year the employee worked for the city -- before and after the increase. The City had the ability to limit when that increase would apply but it didn't.)

The dirty little secret is that this current council cannot take away the pensions that the prior city council gave because of a pesky little problem called the state constitution which clearly prohibits a governmental agency from taking away that which it has contracted to give.

Also there are all those cases in which the courts have held that the city can't take away that which it contracted to give and that it is perfectly legal when a city increases benefits and those benefits are given to everyone who is part of the employee group. 

I find it interesting that some of the very people asserting that pension increases are "gifts of public funds" are the very same people who voted to ram through real estate transactions which sold city assets at fire sale prices and to give back sales tax to businesses -- which should have been given to the city -- as an enticement for the business to be in Long Beach.

Do I believe we need pension reform in Long Beach? Absolutely. That's why I offered several permanent, real proposals to deal with the problem which were soundly rejected by the City Council. First, I proposed a charter amendment that would prohibit this and future city councils from spending pension funds when CALPERS is superfunded and the city doesn't have to make contributions. This happened several years ago and the City spent the money.

Secondly, I offered a charter amendment that would have permanently required the city council to "sunshine" all negotiations so that the public could find out what was being given before it was a done deal. The council would also have to verify that the city had the funds to meet the obligations of the contract for the duration of the contract.

And what was the response to these real, permanent changes in pension and benefit matters? Oh no. We can't bind future city councils. Oh no. We don't want to change the way we disclose our negotiations. Oh no.

Really.

So I guess it must have felt good to vote for something that looks like "pension reform" but really does nothing to impact the current or future situations. I just couldn't join in the charade.

Don't Get in a Jam on the 405 and 22

Don't get stuck in a jam, check out OCTA's new and easy-to-use West County Connectors project interactive maps at

Simply scroll over the selected closure or the highlighted detour routes for in-depth directions that will ease your commute during construction.

Major closures include:

Northbound I-405 to Westbound SR-22 / 7th Street Connector - 12 months

Eastbound SR-22 to Northbound I-405 Connector - 10 months

Southbound I-605 to Southbound I-405 Connector - 2 weeks

Eastbound SR-22 to Southbound I-405 Connector - 2 weeks

For additional information about the West County Connectors project, please visit http://www.octa.net/wc_closures.aspx.www.octa.net/westcounty.

Visit LB Libraries on October 7th

Be a part of the Long Beach Public Library!


The Long Beach Public Library is joining libraries across the state in participating in "Snapshot: One Day in the Life of California Libraries" on Thursday, October 7th, to show how important academic, public, school, and special libraries and library systems are to the state of California.
LB Pubic Libraries will compile statistics, customer comments, photographs, and other data chronicling a typical library day. Community members are invited to visit their Long Beach neighborhood library on this day and be part of the snapshot.

For more information call Susan Jones at 562-570-5365.

For Library Locations and a calendar of summer events, please check the website at http://www.lbpl.org/

Let's Bring More Campaign Finance Reform to Long Beach

Got to admit it. The City of Santa Ana has two very interesting pieces of legislation on the books concerning when electeds can take campaign money that I think we should take a look at.

Sec. 425. - Disqualification due to campaign contributions.

A councilmember shall not participate in, nor use his or her official position to influence, a decision of the City Council if it is reasonably foreseeable that the decision will have a material financial effect, apart from its effect on the public generally or a significant portion thereof, on a recent major campaign contributor. As used herein, "recent major campaign contributor" means a person who has made campaign contributions totaling two hundred fifty dollars ($250.00) or more to the councilmember or to any campaign committee controlled by the councilmember in the twelve-month period immediately preceding the date of the decision. The mayor is a councilmember for purposes of this section. 

Sec. 2-107. - Prohibited campaign contributions.

No councilmember or any campaign committee controlled by the councilmember shall solicit or accept any campaign contribution or loan of two hundred fifty dollars ($250.00) or more from any person for a period of three (3) months following the date a final decision is rendered in any proceeding before the council involving a license, permit, or other entitlement, if the councilmember knows or has reason to know that the person had a financial interest in the proceeding. Financial interest, for purposes of this section, shall have the meaning it is defined to have in Title 9 of the California Government Code (the Political Reform Act). The mayor is a councilmember for purposes of this section.

Some may ask how can an elected official be influenced by a mere $250? (In Long Beach the limits are higher -- $350 for council and $500 for the mayor.) Campaign contributions are an indicator of support and while the amount doesn't look high enough to really have an impact on a vote, the reality is that the contribution is what it is: support for the elected official.

I am going to move forward on proposing these reforms -- with more to come about limiting how and when former City employees and/or appointees to key City Commissions, Committees and Boards may lobby or represent clients after they leave employment or appointment.

No wonder they want to sell marijuana in Long Beach

Take a look at how much medical marijuana sells for in California and across the US. Especially check out how much it sells for in Long Beach. No wonder they want to do business here.

Click here to see website on prices.