Sitting on the rocker this past weekend conversing with neighbors and passersby, here are some things that were discussed:

 

Long Beach Unified School District has been getting zero publicity on its $1.2 billion construction bond that will be on our ballots in November, and that is unfortunate.  A lot of the criticism directed at the Measure I ballot measure for City of Long Beach infrastructure would not apply to the LBUSD bond measure.  First is the criticism of the process.  LBUSD spent over two years meeting with parents, teachers, staff and community members to put together their School Building Improvement Plan and then prioritizing that list.  Second is the criticism that while Measure I may be needed in some part, it may be too big in all parts.  LBUSD has put together their bond measure in such a way that, if passed, the district would received $286.1 million in matching funds from the state—almost 25% more than what the local measure would provide.  Some may say, “Well, why should we burden the rest of the state with our needs?”  Good question, my answer is that the matching funds money has already been spent by voters when they passed the bond measure to provide matching funds to school districts.  In essence let’s get ours while we can.  I fully support the passage of the school construction and renovation bond measure and you should too.

 

Was I the only one scratching my head when I heard comments about the super-rich, and average Americans needing help, and broken politics coming from a $28,500 per plate dinner hosted by Barbara Streisand last week?  For the twenty-eight point five g’s the Hollywood elite got to listen to four songs from Babs and then Senator Obama serenade them with his twenty-four month old stump speech.  I am sure it played well in Scranton.

 

The City of Long Beach is struggling to make its budget work, threatening to close libraries, cutting staff positions and otherwise tightening the belt.  It finalized the budget in last week’s City Council meeting on Tuesday.  On Wednesday, I believe it was, I received the bulletin from the City Manager’s Office that we now have an “Office of Sustainability.”  Huh?  I thought we were broke and we open another office?  From what I can tell of the three staff members, one is a new hire and two are a shuffle from other departments.  The stated purpose of the office is “to facilitate the process of developing and implementing model sustainability programs.”  I understand the desire of many to make the City as “green” as possible and work towards more efficient use of our resources, that is great; but at a time when we are struggling to keep libraries open and pave streets do we need to open a new office and incur more expenses?  By the way, the Sustainable City Commission should be enough to facilitate greening the city.   Speaking of this commission, for a city that goes out of its way to ensure commissions and boards are sufficiently diverse to represent the city, this one appears to be extremely gender specific.  Given the current economic environment I think everyone at the city should be thinking “green” as in money and how to save it.

 

Chicago evidently is having some creative solutions from some residents to the high gas prices.  The Chicago Sun-Times reported last week that a cocaine dealer was adding a fuel surcharge to his clientele.  Hey if United Airlines can charge $25 per bag why can’t the corner drug dealer?

 

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid summed up a lot of people’s thoughts early last week, and for once he said something without blaming President Bush or the GOP—a noteworthy event in itself.  When speaking of the credit crisis on Wall Street he said, “No one knows what to do at the moment.” 

 

Seven Hundred Billion dollars is what the Feds feel is needed to lay off foreclosed and delinquent mortgage debt from the private sector.  Note, please, please note, this does not mean the Federal Government just dumps $7 Billion into the private sector and the money is gone.  For that money the Feds will also pick up the assets that go with the mortgages—remember mortgages are secured by real estate.  While in many cases not covering 100% of the mortgage most of the assets are covering over 70-75% of the debt.  This still puts a lot of funds at risk, but if managed properly—a big if whenever the words government and managed are juxtaposed—this maneuver can turn into a benefit for many communities.  As I suggested on my mortgage blog posting Friday, the Federal government should work with local communities, with the City of Long Beach, and Signal Hill and Carson and Tulsa and Orlando for that matter.  Work with local communities to turn over the new federal assets to be managed and developed into home ownership opportunities for moderate income families.  This will enable the communities to develop more comprehensive home ownership plans to assist moderate income families step their way into home ownership through lease option programs or through sweat equity projects.  Bring in the local Habitat For Humanity folks and learn why they are so successful in providing housing to those not ordinarily able to qualify.  This would prevent a massive dumping of foreclosed properties on the local real estate markets, it would increase home ownership in many areas, it would improve the condition of the local housing stock, and it would allow local communities more say and control over their neighborhoods.  Unfortunately, such a plan has too many opportunities for politics to become involved so it either will not happen or will end up transforming into something entirely different.

 

If you want to take a simple task and make it impossible to happen, give it to Congress.  If your problem was that you wanted to boil a quart of water it would take them two years and a billion dollars to issue the two-thousand page regulations on what resources you must use, what agencies must have oversight, how you must obtain your water and what you must pay for the right to heat your water for pasta.

 

Smoothcentric, in the past year or more we have become very Smoothcentric.  With all of the different parties, announcements, celebrations, fund raisers and what not at Smooth’s, it is an undeclared proclamation by the people voting with their gatherings that John Morris is the Official Host of Long Beach.   And a happy host he is to all his patrons and visitors.

 

Have a great week!

 

Your thoughts welcome, click here to email me or on “Leave A Comment” below for public response.

Disclosure: Smooth’s is an advertiser of the lbpost.com.

The lbpost.com does not make political endorsements.  However, as elections for officials and measures draw nearer, our writers/posters are free to endorse or support political candidates if they wish.  In the coming weeks and months, you will notice endorsements from our writers concerning all levels of government. These are their opinions and words.  Individual endorsements do not express the opinion of the other writers and/or the founders and staff of the lbpost.com.