One tree. One plaque. One bigger plaque. One shovel, two baseball caps, three signs and an American Flag, flown in Washington, D.C. in his honor.
These were the gifts presented to Councilmember Al Austin, who participated in his final City Council meeting Tuesday night after a lengthy political career in Long Beach. The councilman has termed out of office and will retire from the council he joined in 2012.
“I don’t know how I’m going to get all of this stuff home,” Austin joked. “And what I’m going to do with it. … I think we have a new project, Daysha, for the mancave,” he said to his wife.
In an exchange of speeches, some teary-eyed, the 56-year-old councilman bid farewell to colleagues, residents and a 12-year career on the city dais.
“I leave office today full, knowing I put it all out there and that my district is in a much stronger place today than it was when we started,” Austin said. “And for that, I am so grateful to so many people in this room, in this building, in our community and throughout the region.”
Following a career at the Boeing Company, Austin won an election to represent the 8th City Council District, a swath that ties together the neighborhoods of Los Cerritos, Bixby Knolls and other communities of North Long Beach. It’s a district bisected by train tracks and highways, banked along the Los Angeles River and downwind of port smog, that required him to balance the needs of country club members, environmentalists, small business owners and more.
It’s a body of residents “who were sometimes tough to love,” he said.
“But they held me accountable, and kept their foot on my neck,” Austin continued. “And that’s what is required to make progress. The folks sitting behind this dais need that motivation.”
In that balancing act, Austin’s peers commended him for being a great convener, a problem solver, and one who draws on a quiet strength and answers with “a smile,” said Councilmember Kristina Duggan.
“Sometimes the way we come into conversations is not the way we come out of conversations,” said Councilmember Joni Ricks-Oddie. “I see you do that regularly on the dais and in the community.”
During his tenure, Austin chaired the council’s Budget Oversight Committee and sat on the Committee for Homelessness. He was instrumental in creating a city ethics commission and Independent Citizen Redistricting Commission, and in his district, he lobbied heavily for an Uptown Business District.
He also lent influence to the Gateway Cities Council of Governments, worked on initiatives like the 710 Corridor Project and the Climate Action Planning Framework and was appointed by the California Secretary for Natural Resources to serve on the two-year Working Group to develop the Lower Los Angeles River Revitalization Plan.
Through the years, Austin has spoken about a “renaissance” of his district. This includes an expansion of city parkland, including the creation of C. David Molina Park and expansion of Davenport Park, and a burgeoning of neighborhood groups that “didn’t exist twelve years ago.”
Affordable housing construction also boomed under Austin’s leadership, said Long Beach Community Development Director Christopher Koontz, while Public Works Director Eric Lopez said potholes and street alleys were repaired with haste, along with the planting of more than a thousand trees in his district. “You helped build a city that’s affordable and thriving for residents,” Koontz said.
Member-elect Tunua Thrash-Ntuk, a nonprofit leader and Long Beach Transit Board Director, will assume the seat on Oct. 17 following a victory in the Mar. 5 primary election.
“The responsibility of being a leader in this community has been nothing short of amazing,” Austin said.