7:55am | Long Beach City Councilmember Patrick O’Donnell (D) announced his candidacy for the State Assembly today calling on Sacramento to make schools “priority number one” and for the Legislature to have a greater “focus on creating quality jobs.”
“We need to ensure that California is competitive and job friendly to get our economy moving once again,” O’Donnell said in a media release. “We must create an environment that creates jobs,” he added.
O’Donnell is running in an open seat as current Assemblymember Bonnie Lowenthal (D) has already announced that she will be running for the Long Beach-based State Senate seat. O’Donnell, who is a school- teacher by profession, will be termed out of the city council in 2012.
The current Assembly District, numbered the 54th, covers over half of Long Beach, and extends along the coast to Palos Verdes, encompassing San Pedro and Rolling Hills Estates along the way.
The new Long Beach Assembly seat almost exclusively contains Long Beach. Sources indicate that Fifth District Long Beach Councilwoman Gerrie Schipske (D) is also considering a run in the district.
According to the release, O’Donnell has been active in a number of significant environmental efforts in Long Beach, including efforts to clean our coastal waters. He has been a strong advocate to preserve the wetlands and has secured funding for a number of key environmental projects across the city. As a teacher, he knows the impact of asthma on children and will fight to reduce air pollution generated by our ports by advocating for a goods movement system that reduces the pollution generated by the ports.
“Councilman Patrick O’Donnell is the ideal candidate for the new 70th Assembly District, given his strong record of accomplishments on the Long Beach City Council and his ability to bring people together, he will be the consensus choice for the State Assembly.” said Signal Hill Mayor Larry Forester.
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