The Long Beach City Council met for the final time in 2023 earlier this month and as the calendar turns to 2024, the body could see its membership changes and be forced to address lingering issues that are big priorities for the city’s residents.
Crime and homelessness have been two of the top concerns for residents in recent years, and Long Beach is facing them with less funding because of the end of COVID-19 relief funding. Budget cuts could be on the horizon.
Those ongoing issues will be intertwined with an election that will see four City Council seats on the ballot in the new year.
Here are four topics to watch closely in 2024:
Homelessness
Homelessness in the region is a humanitarian crisis, but it’s also become an intractable political issue that has taken much more time and money to fix than many residents hoped.
Long Beach declared an emergency over its homeless situation in 2023 and has indicated it may end that emergency in early 2024, but that likely won’t stop constituents’ calls for more to be done to get people off the streets.
There are several unanswered questions surrounding homelessness in Long Beach. What will become of the Metro A Line end-of-the-line issue? City leaders have blamed the policy, which requires people to leave the train at the end of the night, for increasing homelessness in Downtown Long Beach. That’s something the city and Metro are currently trying to resolve through closed-door meetings.
How will the county’s new CARE Court program, which could allow judges to place mentally ill unhoused people into treatment programs, affect the city? Where will a potential tent village and other future homeless services be located throughout Long Beach?
With the emergency ending, will homelessness projects continue to fall behind schedule?
And in a potentially wide-reaching change, If the U.S. Supreme Court decides to overturn an appeals court ruling that has made it hard for cities to clear encampments, what will Long Beach’s response be?
These are just some of the questions that the city could have to face in the new year, with or without a declared emergency.
Budget crunch
Long Beach has been able to avoid budget cuts over the past few years largely due to an influx of pandemic relief funds (over $200 million) from the state and federal governments, but that money is expected to run out this year.
The city used those funds to pay for programs that helped businesses stay open, feed residents, backfill its reserves and stave off a structural budget deficit that essentially kicked the problem down the road.
But the upcoming fiscal year that starts in October is projected to have a $17.5 million deficit with the city’s three-year outlook projecting a $38.6 million shortfall. Unlike the federal government, cities have to pass balanced budgets, which could require cuts if revenue doesn’t increase.
While Long Beach officials indicated this year that the local economy was rebounding with some areas overperforming, 2024 could throw the city’s finance department another curveball in the form of a state law that threatens to speed up the city’s phase-out of oil production, something the city has said could cost it $20 million per year.
Voters will decide on this in November, but, the City Council will have to adopt a budget for the upcoming year in September, without the benefit of knowing whether the potentially expensive ballot measure will pass or not.
What will the City Council look like?
Every two years, Long Beach voters have the ability to change the composition of the City Council, and this year has the potential to swing the balance of power even more firmly to the side of members allied with Mayor Rex Richardson.
The current council is already chock full of Richardson allies, with even the most contentious issues breaking on a 6-3 vote with some of the more independent members in East Long Beach districts typically being part of any dissenting.
However, two of the districts whose incumbents have historically been part of the outgroup are on the ballot.
The city’s 8th City Council district has been held by Councilmember Al Austin since 2012, but he’s termed out, and the two-person race to replace him includes Tunua Thrash-Ntuk, who lost to Austin in 2020 and helped lead Richardson’s campaign for mayor. She will likely have massive support from Long Beach’s political establishment.
In East Long Beach, incumbent Daryl Supernaw is facing his first contested race since 2015 when he won a special election to take over the 4th City Council District seat. Herlinda Chico, who is now a member of the Long Beach City College board of trustees, was part of the field in 2015 and is again challenging Supernaw for the seat in 2024. If she wins, Chico, too, could prove to be a close ally of Richardson.
A complicating factor in the 4th District race could be the addition of former 5th District Councilmember Gerrie Schipske, who could draw votes away from one or both of Supernaw and Chico, pushing the race into the November runoff.
Those are the two pivotal races to watch in the March primary.
Rising property taxes?
Raising property taxes is always a contentious move, even if it’s in a city where the majority of the residents rent, like Long Beach. But that’s exactly what the LBCC board of trustees could ask voters to do in November if it opts to move forward with a bond measure that could raise $990 million to be paid back with the increased property taxes.
The proposal would raise property taxes by $25 for every $100,000 of assessed value for properties within the college’s district, which includes Long Beach, Lakewood, Signal Hill and Avalon.
The college says it needs the funding to tear down and rebuild Veterans Stadium, which the college says is seismically unsafe. The bonds could also pay for affordable student housing projects and cover other security and technological upgrades for existing facilities.
Board members are expected to vote before August 2024, the deadline to place something on the November 2024 ballot, where turnout could be historically high. It’s a presidential year, after all.
The board decided against asking voters to approve a bond measure in 2022 after a consultant told the college that it was “not viable” given the economic conditions. But survey results presented to the board in June suggested a bond on this year’s ballot could have community support.
What will they do? We’ll have to wait and see.