10:00am | If the main event of Tuesday night’s city council meeting was the agendized discussion of the Downtown Community Plan, the unscheduled undercard came when 2nd+PCH co-developer David Malmuth told the council his project team intends to do whatever it can to keep the project alive despite its 5-3 defeat at the December 21 council meeting — and was told how this might be achieved.
During the open public comment period at the beginning of Tuesday’s meeting, Malmuth expressed his dismay about the December 21 vote, stating that although his project team had followed the direction provided to them to the City, ultimately the project was not judged on its merits and “was rejected because the council decided to take a different direction and begin a CDIP process from scratch — an option that was never on the table until four days prior to our hearing.”
“We thought long and hard about the options,” Malmuth continued, “and we believe very strongly that we’ve all worked too hard and too long and had too much support from the community to allow this project to die.”
He then urged the council to “reconsider that [December 21] vote,” and said this project team would “reach out to the council to see if we can find an opportunity to make this project successful.”
Councilmember Gary DeLong expressed his “appreciat[ion of] your willingness to work at this just a little bit harder. […] I’m fully prepared to support an opportunity to come back and see what changes can be made to gather a little bit more [council] support” for the project.”
DeLong also encouraged Malmuth to “[c]ontinue to make the rounds at the council offices, find out what needs to be changed to get a favorable outcome. […] Thanks you for hanging in there, and hopefully we’ll get across the finish line shortly.”
At Vice-Mayor Suja Lowenthal’s request, Assistant City Attorney Mike Mais outlined for the council the steps that would necessary for the council to rescind its December 21 vote on the project, should enough councilmembers who originally voted against the plan experience a change of heart.
“It’s good to know there’s still an opportunity to have a discussion and revisit […] a project that I think could really be an economic boon not just to the east side but all of Long Beach,” said Councilmember Robert Garcia. “So it’s good to continue that discussion, and hopefully we can come up with something that there would be some wide support for.”