Long Beach: Why Are Stupidities Tolerated, Mediocrities Applauded And Priorities Bewildering?

(February 19, 2013) -- There were two very important issues on last Tuesday's (Feb. 12) City Council Agenda that I find most interesting.

The first agenda item up was for Council's approval of the latest development proposal to rebuild the seismically challenged Belmont Plaza Pool. A good thing, in my view, since I spent many an hour attending swim meets and water polo matches in which my son and daughter competed and knew how important the facility was to so many people. Little did I know but a storm was brewing as staff had prepared a plan that omitted the diving platforms used by competitive diving teams.

All hell was about to break loose. Prior to the meeting, the Council members in ALL of the districts were inundated with telephone calls, emails and personal visits from the supporters of the diving program. And on Council night, they all showed up and brought with them signs, celebrity supporters, coaches and participants, some from outside the city, to convince Council to add diving to the development plan.

And they won. Council members enthusiastically voiced support for modifying the plan to include diving and thanked everyone for "educating" them on what was important and told staff to speed up the process. While I am pleased Council voted to add diving and rebuild the pool, it seems staff went a long way down the road spending taxpayer money without obtaining input from all of the pool's stakeholders, causing an unnecessary and costly uproar.

Diving had suddenly became a top priority for the Mayor and City Council and the proposed cost of something north of $60 Million didn't faze them one bit. Nor did the problem of "finding" the money for the project or the potential cancellation or deferral of projects that were already on the schedule cause any hesitation. It was a done deal!

The next agenda item was a request to receive a presentation on the Civic Center’s seismic deficiencies and allow the City Manager to release a Request for Qualifications for the financing, design, construction, operation and maintenance of a new City Hall, Main Library and the revitalization of Lincoln Park.

Wow, I thought, this is big and last week I thought they were only going to sell our Civic Center. Now they want to pay someone to build them a new one and they want to use the same P3 plan the state used on the Courthouse. A plan that wasn't originally designed for such social infrastructure developments and is costing the State more than $160 million more than a traditional building program. In fact if the State used the same $53 million per month they are paying the Developers, they could pay off the entire construction cost of the courthouse in less then 10 years instead of the 35 years to which they are currently obligated.

A P3 plan for a new Civic Center is in my opinion a fiscal disaster in the making. It will cost ten times the cost of the Belmont Pool, I thought, and Long Beach has so many problems that seem to be of a much higher priority I anticipated there would be a lot of people interested in knowing why this is a good idea.

It seems all it took for the Mayor to push for this was his concern for the safety of employees and a few "unsolicited" inquiries from unnamed individuals suggesting that the City should let them look at building a new City Hall.

But very few showed up. Oh, I know a few of the usual suspects attended and so did a few professionals. But the audience wasn't filled with people carrying signs and Councilmembers didn't mention receiving anything like the level of calls, emails and personal visits they received from residents lobbying for a diving platform.

Our wonderful City is suffering yet no one shows up save those who lobbied the city to add a diving platform to the Belmont Pool. In my view, something is very wrong with priorities in our fair city. I would think that civic leaders and those close to our elected officials would show up and speak for those who have less influence, much like what happened in urging inclusion of the diving platform.

But perhaps I ask or expect too much as all one needs to do is look back over the last dozen or so years and see that our civic leaders, business, banking and legal titans, activists and sadly voters influenced by I-don't-know-what have continued to reward politicians and managers who've put Long Beach in such a fiscal and physical mess.

Compare the overall performance of our elected officials with the deplorable condition of our streets, our untrimmed trees, bad sidewalks, understaffed police department, understaffed fire department, increasing neighborhood property crimes, violent crimes and closed libraries and wonder why are we supporting such performance. Don't we deserve better?

Previously on LBReport.com: Common Sense by Terry Jensen (continuing series):