Beverly O’Neill may have nearly every civic honor under the sun, a lifetime achievement award and a three-term mayoral legacy — the first and only to do so in a citywide election in Long Beach. But until Thursday, she had never been given a plaque on the city’s Motorsports Walk of Fame.
O’Neill was inducted into this now 35-member club at a ceremony outside the city convention center, along the palm-lined sidewalk and barricades one day ahead of the start of the Grand Prix of Long Beach’s 50th race weekend.
Longtime Grand Prix President and CEO Jim Michaelian, as well as IndyCar driver Scott Dixon, were also honored at the ceremony with the installation of 22-inch bronze medallions.
Fifty years of anything is no small feat, said Michaelian, who felt the race’s golden anniversary necessitated inductees who could match the grandness of this achievement.
“We were looking to see who we could honor in terms of epitomizing the growth of the city, along with what’s transpired with the track and the race,” Michaelian said. “And the obvious choice came up, and that was Beverly O’Neill.”
For a dozen years — 1994 to 2006 — Beverly O’Neill was the face of Long Beach politics.
In her tenure, she is credited with guiding the port city through the loss of its naval shipyard and the decline of its aerospace plants into a period of economic revival. Through her philosophy-turned-acronym, Tourism, Trade, Technology and Retail, O’Neill focused on investments in the city’s seaport, venues and hotels.
Leveraging her newfound political muster — she was chair of the U.S. Conference of Mayors and repeat guest at the White House during the Clinton Administration — O’Neill brought a sprawl of development to Long Beach’s Downtown waterfront.
“We saw some real significant development here in this town,” Michaelian said, listing the Long Beach Town Center, renewed shopping districts along the shoreline, Aquarium of the Pacific and the Beverly O’Neill Theater, among others.
From this role, O’Neill chipped away at Long Beach’s second-city syndrome and began raising it out of the shadow of neighboring Los Angeles. Through her, hundreds of the nation’s city leaders came to know Long Beach.
“When she was elected the president of the U.S. Council of Mayors, people in Washington wanted to know who this woman was,” said Chris Pook, the founder of Grand Prix of Long Beach, who gave the example of U.S. Senator Dick Durbin, D-Ill., saying, “‘How can I meet this Beverly O’Neill person?’”
Through an exception in the city’s term limits law, O’Neill won a third term in 2002 as a write-in candidate — a feat that’s yet to be replicated.
Around City Hall, O’Neill was known at the time as a consensus-builder, a team player and an approachable leader who kept her home number listed in the phonebook. At the Grand Prix of Long Beach, she is affectionately known as Mickey Mouse. O’Neill famously sported a red racing jacket, checkered scarf and necklace with a little race car.
“Because everybody knew her,” said Terrence McNally, who read aloud a letter on behalf of his wife Teresa, O’Neill’s daughter. “From the pit crew to spectators, friends, the race car drivers and perfect strangers, they were all happy to see her.”
At 94 years old and in declining health, O’Neill was not able to be at the ceremony and is no longer able to attend the race she enjoyed so much, but from her Peninsula home, according to the letter, O’Neill has a view that looks toward Downtown.
“Right now she’s looking at us and thinking about the Grand Prix,” McNally read on behalf of his wife. “My mother loved everything about the Grand Prix. It meant a lot to her to have such a world-class event in our Long Beach.”