The Long Beach City Council’s first meeting of 2022 started with a strange announcement from Mayor Robert Garcia Tuesday night; the in-person meeting would go on as planned but the public would not be allowed to watch from inside the council chambers.

Residents who did attend the meeting were forced to watch the meeting on the media wall inside the lobby of City Hall and were shuttled in to give public comment before being escorted back to the lobby. It was an in-person meeting with no members of the public allowed to be present.

Garcia’s announcement comes as the city is experiencing an unprecedented surge in COVID-19 cases with city health officials saying Wednesday that Long Beach is now reporting over 1,700 new cases per day.

A hearing about a Port of Long Beach construction project was delayed over concerns that public participation was curtailed by the new rules, and also people’s aversion to being in public spaces.

“This is like it was a year ago, remember when no one left their home?” said Councilwoman Cindy Allen, as she peered out of her Downtown condo window Wednesday morning. “It’s dead right now in Downtown. How do we balance that so everyone can participate? I think the best way to do that is to go back to virtual.”

The City Council is the last of the city’s meeting bodies that are meeting in person despite a state law implemented in September that allows all public meetings to be held virtually if telephonic or another virtual form of public comment is provided.

As the chair of the City Council meetings, the decision has been Garcia’s to stick with in-person meetings or to pivot to a virtual setting.

On Wednesday, the Long Beach Health Department announced that City Council meetings starting Jan. 18 will be virtual.

Garcia said Wednesday that the decision was made in consultation with the health department and city management and that in-person meetings won’t resume again until there is a recommendation from health officials that it’s the safe thing to do.

“Just like other bodies, Congress, state Legislature, we should be accountable to the public and should be able to meet the public where they are,” Garcia said. “But it got to a point where we felt like it was right to go to virtual.”

Garcia said that some people want virtual, but some people also want in-person, and the in-person could benefit those who can’t access virtual meetings because of technological barriers. But for now, the safe thing to do is to go virtual, he said.

“It’s a balance, but right now it’s important to keep people safe,” Garcia said.

A Dec. 22 memo from the City Clerk’s office said that switching to a virtual format could be accomplished with existing staffing, with Zoom and Kudo, which could cost up to $25,000 annually, being options that could be implemented relatively quickly.

A young girl runs up to a giant video screen as jellyfish are viewed on the screen at Long Beach City Hall after a council meeting Tuesday Feb. 18, 2020. Photo by Thomas Cordova

Multiple members of the council said before the announcement by health officials Wednesday that they would prefer a return to virtual meetings to protect the health and safety of others, and also to allow all those who want to participate in public meetings to be able to do so.

“I appreciate taking precautions to keep everyone safe and healthy,” said Councilman Al Austin, adding that he and others were double-masked. “With the rapid infection rate that we’re dealing with, and if you’ve seen the chart lately, it’s through the roof and more dramatic than it’s ever been.”

Austin said he didn’t know about the protocols for Tuesday night until he showed up at City Hall about 15 minutes before the start of the meeting.

Councilman Daryl Supernaw said he thought of the optics of Tuesday as much as he did about his personal health as the meeting unfolded. Supernaw is vaccinated, but also one of the older members of the City Council.

“I’m concerned that we’re sending an [in]consistent message,” Supernaw said. “If we’re telling people not to gather, not to meet, then we’re sending a mixed message in being behind the dais.”

Councilman Roberto Uranga, who requested the port hearing to be continued to a later date, said he felt comfortable being physically present for the meeting because he’s fully vaccinated and boosted, but said that others in the community may not share his confidence.

Uranga was previously exposed to COVID-19 during a 2020 meeting when California Coastal Commission President Steve Padilla tested positive, forcing Uranga to isolate.

Uranga said he was aware that any member of the City Council could have pulled an item from the consent calendar that must be periodically approved by the council to allow other commissions and committees to continue to meet virtually to discuss how the council should operate going forward.

However, he opted not to because he was told that there were discussions between Garcia and city management to move toward virtual meetings.

Assembly Bill 361, the bill that created new public meeting rules that will last until Jan. 2024, wipes away some of Long Beach’s established rules like requiring people to sign up in advance of the item they want to speak on. It also requires a reasonable amount of public comment time for each item.

The rules of the bill are supposed to be triggered whenever the public is not allowed to attend a meeting in person. Tuesday night, the public was forced to wait in the lobby and watch the meeting on the City Hall media wall while the council and other public officials met in the chamber.

City Attorney Charlie Parkin said there were seats spaced out in the lobby to provide physical distancing and there was an overflow room outside the building but Parkin noted it was cold Tuesday night and standing outside listening to a council meeting through speakers outdoors “didn’t make much sense” to him.

Long Beach reached a low of 42 degrees on Tuesday night.

Parkin said he didn’t see the situation repeating itself but did say that he felt that last night’s last-minute health precautions met the spirit of AB 361. Parkin, who spoke from a trailer separate from his normal office, said that the virtual setting seemed like a safer environment for everyone.

The last time the city was fully virtual Parkin said everyone was able to spread out with Parkin sitting in one of the council members’ seats and other city officials sitting in the public areas or in their offices upstairs, or at home.

“That was much more comfortable than having the nine council members, and their staff members and everyone else so close together,” Parkin said.

Jason Ruiz covers City Hall and politics for the Long Beach Post. Reach him at [email protected] or @JasonRuiz_LB on Twitter.