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Throwing a ceremony for the occasion of the civic inauguration was like hosting a viewing party for the airing of a re-run episode of “The Big Bang Theory.”

The inauguration of a slate of newly elected Long Beach city officials, including five council members, took place on July 17, and I’m only just now getting around to it. It’s taking a while to sink in.

The swearing-in ceremony, held outdoors at the Terrace Theater Plaza, drew a nice crowd, but I had other plans. I forget what those other plans were, but they obviously were more important than attending the political fun fair that reintroduced Long Beach to its mayor, city attorney, city prosecutor, city auditor and the five council people, all of whom were re-elected handily, if not unopposed.

Throwing a ceremony for the occasion was like hosting a viewing party for the airing of a re-run episode of “The Big Bang Theory.” The election itself was sleepier than the town of Zzyzx, with no one equipped with any brilliant plans for the city — or at least no one with brilliant plans and a robust war chest — stepping up to make a decent challenge.

I’m blessed to live in the 5th District, where there was at least a bit of a buzzy race, accompanied by thousands of warring lawn signs (this in a district where people keel over dead with rage over the blight of bike bollards). But ultimately, it became a race between a tortoise (challenger Rich Dines) and another tortoise (incumbent Stacy Mungo).

It almost drove me to apathy, as it did to most voters in the election, but I still managed to force myself to the voting booth like a good little citizen. (And also to vote for Measure M. It may not be a tax, but it’s close enough that I still like it.)

I’m not going to tell you who I voted for; I’ve almost forgotten already, but the result made me sad, the exact same feeling I’d be stuck with regardless of who won. The campaign was marked by each candidate trying to out-NIMBY the other with their attacks on a Land Use Element plan that had already been watered down by height-race-hobo-phobic residents to something that resembled a glass of water with an unopened Kool-Aid flavor packet just sort of waved over the glass.

It’s almost enough to make me move to Canada, or at least the 3rd or 9th districts where Suzie Price and Rex Richardson, respectively, will re-reign for another four years.

Both pay a lot of attention to their districts, which are as far apart demographically as they are geographically, and both are readily accessible to the media, which, yes, that’s handy for those of us who made a series of life-decisions that led to a job in the media, but it also demonstrates their own faith in their decisions when it comes to running their districts.

You may take my lack of any strong opinion regarding the other three newly re-elected council people as charity or discretion.

As for the other elected officials—City Attorney Charles Parkin, City Prosecutor Doug Haubert and City Auditor Laura Doud—all ran breezy “campaigns” that lacked opponents, which is fine. They’ve all performed well enough in the last four years to scare off any challengers, and I am hesitant to pick a fight with any of them, what with our own closet full of missteps and errors that could potentially make me a person of interest to any or all of them.

And that leaves me with your mayor, who ran virtually unopposed and who may, in fact, finish his second four-year term without giving into the temptation to run for something loftier. I hope he does stay. He’s done a good enough job, given the weird complexities of running a city like Long Beach that has its $5-million-plus bayfront palaces as well as its share of central-city squalor, its progressives who want to continue to make change and tiptoe into the future as well as its people who want to stem growth by all but building Trumpian walls to preserve their coziness; its law-abiders and criminals; its contented people and those who are dis- or mal-contented; its DC Comics fans and its Marvel Comics fans.

But at least he answers his phone.