3:00pm | The Long Beach City Council met to discuss two items Tuesday—an appeal to overturn the Gerald Desmond Bridge replacement project’s environmental documents, and, a motion by Council members Gabelich, O’Donnell, Schipske and Neal to discuss Mayor Foster’s recent line-item vetoes of various city budget items.
The Gerald Desmond Bridge project, being paid for by a combination of federal, state and local funds, would replace the existing bridge with a new $1.1 billion structure that would have greater traffic capacity and allow the largest container vessels to access the Port of Long Beach back channel areas.
The current bridge opened in 1968, and despite multi-million dollar upgrades by the port, is deteriorating at a rapid pace. Trucks traversing the bridge currently carry an estimated 15-percent of the nation’s container traffic.
The replacement of the bridge has been called one of the most critical infrastructure projects in the Southern California region.
The Harbor Department approved the replacement bridge environmental impact documents, which have been in development since 2002, in early August. An appeal seeking to overturn the approval of the environmental documents was subsequently filed by two area environmental groups, citing 20 grounds for dismissing the documents.
The City Council on Tuesday dismissed all 20 grounds cited in the appeal and upheld the Harbor Department approval of the project environmental documents.
The Council then turned to the issue of the Mayor’s Sept. 19 line-item vetoes of several budget items–$2.7 million in General Fund expenditures and $60 million in the port’s capital outlay budget.
In their agenda item, the four Council members point out that at no time during the two-month-long deliberations over crafting the FY2011 budget did the Mayor raise an objection to the items he vetoed. The agenda item also points out that in the five days from when the budget was approved until the Mayor issued his vetoes, no new financial figures were issued indicating that the FY2011 budget need to be reduced beyond the $18.5 million in cuts already approved.
The Mayor’s veto, according to the agenda item, cut an additional $1.26 million from the Police budget, $393,000 from the Fire Department, $284,000 from Public Works, $248,000 from Parks and Rec, $124,000 from Library Services, $101,000 from Financial Management, and $54,000 from Health and Human Services.
The Mayor described his additional cuts as “prudent financial policy,” saying that the intention by cutting deeper than approved by the Council was to send a strong message to all city employees about the serious nature of the city’s financial situation.
City Manager Pat West said that despite the Mayor’s additional $2.7 million in cuts he was not directing any city department to cut jobs or services.
After further criticism from the dais about the process, the Mayor appeared apologetic about the last minute nature of the veto.
“I am unhappy about the way it appears,” he told the Council members. “It was not intentional.”
Councilmember Gabelich pressed West about what the cut would actually mean for the departments impacted.
“When we are cutting $250,000 from Public Works after we just reinstated a $240,000 pot hole truck, that will have an impact on city services. This is not pencils and paper. What does it mean?” she asked, requesting that West have each city department identify what action each will take to meet the Mayor’s additional cuts. Councilmember Neal supported Councilmember Gabelich’s request.
During the ensuing public comment period, the Mayor was pummeled by speakers, including Rich Brandt, president of the Long Beach Firefighters Association.
Brandt warned that Monday’s narrow approval by the firefighters to forego raises to meet budget numbers were now thrown into question by the additional cuts.
“The deal is no longer valid,” said Brandt.
He added that the additional cuts could lead to issues of service due to brownouts at some fire stations.
“When that little boy dies because of a brownout, it’s your fault, not ours,” Brandt said.
Brandt was cut off by the Mayor as he attempted to finish his statement.
Additional comment by directors of various firefighter groups urged the Council to overturn the Mayor’s veto cuts.
The Council agreed to receive and file the comments of the meeting.
The last item taken up by the Council was the Mayor’s veto of a $50 million line-item in the port’s capital outlay budget.
The item is for the relocation of the port’s maintenance yard which sits in the path of the Gerald Desmond Bridge replacement. The yard, which houses port maintenance staff and equipment, must be moved as a precursor to starting construction on the bridge project. The yard relocation was originally intended to be part of a much larger project that would consolidate port staff and the maintenance yard in a new port administration building. The Mayor has opposed the construction of a new port administration building.
The Mayor vetoed the port line-item arguing that because the yard relocation was still itemized under the new administration building project line, he could not approve it. The Mayor insinuated that even though port officials have publicly said the administration project is not moving forward, the relocation of the yard was a way for the port to move forward with the administration building project.
The port maintains that the yard relocation is necessary for the bridge replacement project.
Mayor Foster said that the port can still obtain the funds by coming to the Council as soon as it wants with a port budget amendment reflecting the yard relocation under a line item not associated with the administration building project.
Because the Council must now approve the port’s funding for the yard relocation, this would appear to place the purse strings of the initial component of the Gerald Desmond Bridge replacement project in the hands of the Council instead of the Board of Harbor Commissioners.
The Council took no action on the port budget veto other than to receive and file the comments on the discussion.