As reported by lbpost.com columnist Keith Higginbotham in this article, during its August 4th General Session, the Long Beach City Council voted 5-4 to approve a highly controversial wetlands for public service yard land-swap proposal.
The entire portion of the Council Meeting concerning this proposal can be viewed here. Click on the “video” link next to “City Council” dated August 4th, commencing at time stamp 03:16:35.
As has become typical of any hearing on this ongoing and highly contentious issue, many community members rose to speak up in opposition.
I believe the most compelling and pertinent comments of the entire session were offered by Mr. Marchese (commencing at time stamp 04:24:35 on the video) who, due to his formal legal training and considerable experience on this issue, could have no doubt spent hours picking apart this proposal from beginning to end and piece by piece for us. Just the few highlights he was limited to in the 3 minutes he had last night served to clarify in my mind and, I believe, should have in any one else’s, that the deal, as proposed, is fraught with inaccuracy, unsupported supposition, assumption, unanswered questions and simple poor timing.
The preponderance of questions raised by this proposal…questions asked by many reasonable and highly-educated people, questions without clear, complete and accurate answers…should raise red flags and ring alarm bells for all of us, including our elected Mayor and Council.
Some in the room, both before and behind the rail, asked for more time to further consider the proposal before them. For them, the many reasonable questions needed to be answered. LCW Partners LLC’s spokesperson made it clear, however (at time stamp 04:18:05), that “If the City is unable or unwilling to approve the LCW exchange this evening, LCW will elect not to expend further time, effort or expense in pursuing the land exchange and, instead, will concentrate on pursuing other alternative courses of action relating to the LCW property”. Lofty language that in essence means, “Look, you either approve this deal tonight and as is, or we take our ball and go home”.
This stance seemed to sway one or more of our Council members, who cited in their own comments what they believed to be the urgency of closing this deal. But I believe it to be patently unwise for us, as a City, to make public policy decisions with any degree of haste, absent clearly exigent or emergent circumstances. None such were identified here. But, in any case, we should never do so according to anyone’s timetable other than our own.
Even if we accept every other part of this proposal on face value…all of the estimates, all of the admitted unknowns, all of the assumptions and suppositions; this proposal, according to Ms. Gabelich’s summary (time stamp 04:48:24), has the potential for costing our City a *minimum* of $19.8 million.
Just a few short hours earlier, the same Council heard City Manager West explain that even though we have cut operating costs in our City over the past 6 years by $111.5 million and have eliminated 527 non-sworn positions, we currently project a FY10 General Fund structural budget deficit of $38 million and that we project structural deficits to persist in all of our City’s funds for *at least* the next 3 years.
So our Council heard from our City Manager of a General Fund deficit of $38 million and just a few hours later voted to approve a non-urgent and non-emergent proposal that will cost us a minimum of $19.8 million. Some are necessarily confused by this.
With but a single exception, the people who stood at the podium before the Council on August 4th counseled caution, patience and circumspection. To a person they disclosed a desire to protect and preserve the Los Cerritos Wetlands.
And to a person they asked the Council to wait.
I think the Council would have demonstrated greater wisdom had they heeded those requests.
I very much welcome your questions and your comments.
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