Talks with Tim is a weekly Q&A by Tim Grobaty, who has been a columnist in Long Beach for nearly 50 years. If you’d like to suggest an interesting or influential person in Long Beach for this (unconventional) interview, reach him at [email protected].
Chris Garner is the general manager of Long Beach Utilities, overseeing water, natural gas and sewers in Long Beach. A lifelong resident of Long Beach, he has held utility-related positions in the city for nearly 40 years.
Tim Grobaty: Why don’t you ask yourself the first question to get things going.
Chris Garner: I’m starting my 40th year working for the city and there’ve been so many changes over that time. John Dever was the city manager, there were no term limits, no elected mayor and we had City Council meetings in the morning at, I think, 9 o’clock. I remember going to those meetings and it was convenient just to leave my office and walk down to the meetings and then walk back up to work.
Q: OK, but that wasn’t a question.
A: OK, my question would be, “You’re starting your 40th year with the city. How have things changed?”
Q: Did you grow up in Long Beach?
A: Yes, my grandparents moved to Long Beach from Nebraska in 1914. I’m third-generation Long Beach. I went to Our Lady of Refuge through eighth grade, then Stanford for a year then Millikan and Long Beach City College. You went to St. Joseph, right?
Q: Yeah, for eight years. Did you have the nuns at Our Lady of Refuge?
A: Oh, yes. Yes, we had nuns. They were scary. But I remember I knew a kid, a kind of wild kid at St. Joseph. His parents pulled him out and sent him to the military academy on Signal Hill
Q: Oh, lord. Yeah, my parents always held the military academy thing over my head. Things could always get worse. OK, enough about terror, let’s talk about water. I know you’re in charge of natural gas, too, but I prefer water. Gas is too ethereal. Is “Chinatown” the best water movie?
A: Yes. It came out in 1974 and at the time I had the gas background, I knew about that side, but now that I’ve been involved with water it’s a lot more fun to watch. It takes on a whole new meaning.
Q: How did you come to work for the city?
A: I was working for Security Pacific Bank and being transferred all over the place, and I thought if I could work for Long Beach I wouldn’t have to travel so much. I was working with the Tidelands Agency, which doesn’t exist anymore. We oversaw the city’s oil properties, the Queen Mary, the Convention Center.
Q: You didn’t want to travel so much, but I imagine you still do in terms of meeting with the various boards you’re on and other utilities-related business being in charge of water, natural gas and sewage?
A: I still travel, but not as much since COVID. I do a lot of meetings on Teams and Zoom now.
Q: My colleague Jason Ruiz says he’s noticed that you get involved with people on Nextdoor. Isn’t that a no-win thing squabbling with people over gas and water bills?
A: I get the caution “do not engage,” but there’s so much misinformation out there and there are things that are misunderstood. When the big gas bills went out at the first of the year, we got a lot of complaints, but I tried to explain things and tell people that the problem was short-term and that the rates would drop, and they did. On the water side, it’s the norm for annual rate increases throughout the industry. From year to year, things are more expensive, such as the chemicals we use to treat the water, lack of supply, and new laws and regulations that affect our expenses. People do complain, but you’re getting good rates. We’re the second-lowest of large cities in the state in terms of water and sewage rates.
Q: Did the huge rains of this last season provide significant relief?
A: That changed everything, obviously. It bought us more time to deal with the Colorado River issue. During the drought the Feds had given a deadline for the western states to come up with an agreement about the amount of water each state would get, then rains came and we got another year to come to an agreement.
Q: And what did the rains do for Long Beach in particular?
A: For us it helps by boosting the aqueducts and reservoirs, which allows us to conserve our local water. We get 60% of our water here and the other 40% is imported from other districts, which is almost twice as expensive, so we’re trying to maximize our local water use.
Q: Aren’t Long Beach residents doing a pretty fair job of conserving water now?
A: Yes. Long Beach has been a leader in the state for the last 20 years. When the last drought hit we were far ahead of the state in conservation. The usage here is roughly about where it was in the late ’50s and early ’60s, and we have a lot larger population now. We’re more water-conscious, and we’re really leaning in toward lawn-to-garden landscaping.
Q: Do you do that with your own house?
A: We just bought a new house near El Dorado. We move in in about a month. It doesn’t have much lawn. Just a small patch in the front.
Q: Some quick ones: Favorite book, TV show, music.
A: I just finished “Theodore Rex,” the second of three books by Edmund Morris about Theodore Roosevelt. He was a fascinating man. On TV I mostly watch sports, but my favorite series was “The Sopranos,” probably because of my Italian background. My favorite band is the Rolling Stones. I can’t believe they’re still around.
Q: Finally, when are the oil islands going to tap out?
A: When I started on the oil side back in the 1980s, they were saying the field would be tapped out in 15 years, and they’ve been saying 15 years for the last 40 years. So, 15 years.