Where it all truly started is still unclear.

On May 8, the technical staff of Seal Beach City Manager Jill Ingram asked Long Beach Transit (LBT) to host a community meeting at the Marina Community Center to discuss proposed changes to LBT bus routes 171 and 131 which traverse through Long Beach into neighboring Seal Beach.

The reason for the meeting was simple. LBT wants to use its more environmentally sound, 10-feet-longer buses for the lines, but needed to first gather opinions from Seal Beach residents. Since some of the city’s streets are too small to accomodate the new vehicles, the current route would need to be altered. More than 50 people showed up to talk about LBT’s rerouting proposal, which would have the buses go down Marina Drive through Seal Beach’s Bridgeport neighborhood.

But here is where things become murky. The meeting–unattended by both Ingram and LBT President and CEO Laurence W. Jackson–was entirely unrecorded and yet days later, accusations arose that both Seal Beach residents and City Council Member Gordon Shanks had made hateful, if not racist, comments about Long Beach’s bus-riding constituency.

However, it remains entirely unknown as to what the comments exactly were.

Two days following the incident, Jackson sent Ingram a letter via email stating the following: “Although it is best if I don’t go into the details of specific comments, Seal Beach City staff present can give you a sense of the ‘colorful’ comments from residents and the Seal Beach Council member. A prolonged dialogue putting one group of Seal Beach residents against transit users would not serve any useful purpose, but merely inflame deep-seated ugly feelings that were expressed during the meeting.”

Jackson ended the letter with a harsh decision. In the best interest of LBT, all transit services to Seal Beach will cease effective August 26.

Kevin Lee, Marketing Manager for the LBT (who was also absent from the meeting) told the Post that the decision was entirely monetarily based. While he did admit that language used that night “could be considered by some to be offensive,” he refused to elaborate on the specifics of what were said.

“The important thing to note is that regardless of possibly offensive remarks, a decision was made to modify Long Beach Transit service and reroute within Long Beach due to the denial of access into Seal Beach,” Lee said. “Because if we do not have approval to access Seal Beach, then we have to consider costly infrastructure modifications and pull resources in order to make that happen. In turn this affected the 171 route.”

Ingram does not entirely agree with the accusations and instead sees Jackson’s email as an inability to deal with the throes of public comment. After all, he did avoid discussion of the matter and instead simply sent an accusatory letter about a meeting he never attended.

“What does ‘colorful’ mean anyway? Citizens have a right to comment on the possibility of [increased bus traffic] coming through their neighborhoods,” she said, “they do not have the right to make any comments which are racially driven. But reports from my staff that I got back stated there were no such comments made.”

Bus route 171, one of the two lines that will not be going into Seal Beach after August 26. Long Beach Transit’s new, longer buses can no longer make the turnaround and Seal Beach residents were at odds with a proposed route through residential area.

Citing her community’s passion and engagement with the happenings that occur within their neighborhoods, Ingram feels the situation was handled emotionally rather than professionally.

“Whether there’s perceived racism or not, if I reacted that way every time public comment got out of hand, I wouldn’t have my job,” Ingram said. “It seems like [the LBT staff] doesn’t have a lot of experience dealing with public meetings.”

Jackson was unavailable for comment as of press time, however, Lee was adamant on stating that LBT has no formal obligation to Seal Beach nor to Orange County Transit Authority (OCTA), which is Seal Beach’s “obligated bus service.”

“In all honesty, I am trying to just calm this situation down,” Ingram said, emphasizing that the relationship between Seal Beach and Long Beach has been a rich one, since each city is somewhat removed from their corresponding county’s overall culture.

And even though Ingram hopes to rebuild that special relationship between the two cities, it does not look like it will be possible right now from a transit perspective. As bus riders from both the Long Beach and Seal Beach side of the county line attempt to reorganize their travel schedules for the fall, both parties insist they are doing what they can to make the transition as smooth as possible.

UPDATE: A previous version of this story listed only LBT’s line 171 as being pulled out of Seal Beach. Line 131, which currently also terminates in Seal Beach, will also cease operation in Orange County.