Whether two city officials will be censured for appearing in public service announcements during the 2022 election campaign season now rests with the Long Beach City Council.
The Long Beach Ethics Commission voted 4-2 last month to recommend that Mayor Rex Richardson and Councilmember Al Austin be formally censured for appearing in a series of PSAs in which they spoke about fire safety and the city’s fireworks ban. In the PSAs, which came out while Richardson was still on the council and when Austin was running for the state Assembly, the officials appeared to speak on behalf of the full City Council, which they were not authorized to do. But for the censure to move forward, the City Council must place the issue on its agenda in order for it to not die at the commission level.
Beyond the appearance that Richardson and Austin were speaking on behalf of the full council, the issue was further complicated by the fact that the videos, which were shared on Instagram, included links to the two candidates’ campaign accounts. The Ethics Commission determined that was a violation of the city’s ethics policy because it gave the appearance that the council was endorsing their respective runs for mayor and the state Legislature.
Rex Pritchard, the president of the Long Beach Fire Fighters, the union that produced the PSAs, took full responsibility for tagging the political accounts. Austin said last month that he supported ethics in local government—he backed the formation of the commission in 2018—but said he wouldn’t vote to censure someone for things that were beyond their control.
A memo explaining this to the full City Council was published on the city’s website this week. The council had not been formally told that two of its members were facing possible ethics violations, according to discussions between the city attorney’s office and ethics commissioners in December and January.
The memo notified the council that the Ethics Commission recommended the council censure the two as well as amend the city’s municipal code to include a ban on appearing in PSAs once a person declares candidacy for office. The city already has rules prohibiting candidates from appearing on things like the city’s broadcast channel, Long Beach TV, because it could be seen using public assets for their campaigns.
In order for the council to vote on the recommendation from the Ethics Commission, multiple council members would have to agree to place the issue on a future agenda. Just one of the nine members, other than Austin, responded to an email from the Post asking if they’d support putting the issue to a vote.
Councilmember Roberto Uranga said he did not support bringing the item forward for a full council discussion.
Austin said in a text message that he had no further comments beyond what he said last month.
Ethics Commission recommends censure for mayor, councilman over unauthorized PSAs