The fireworks citation numbers are "citywide," meaning one can't tell at this point in what parts of the city those citations were issued. Some areas could be disproportionately impacted, as they are for other crimes. LBPD's listed July 4th non-fireworks incidents are only for shoreline areas; at some point perhaps we'll see neighborhood and citywide totals.

As also separately reported on LBREPORT.com, a few days before the officially released data our North Division Commander responded to a resident's question and indicated that roughly a third of this year's fireworks related citations were in LBPD's North Division. He indicated there were roughly 10 in North Division out of about 30 citywide, and since we now know there were 35 fireworks citations citywide, one can presume there were roughly 10-12 fireworks citations in North Division.

And we know that there were no fireworks arrests in North Division or anywhere in Long Beach.

This took place while North Long Beach experienced what I (and others) have likened to a War Zone, complete with explosions and mortar launched rockets.

This speaks volumes about services we receive in North Long Beach.

If, as City Hall claims, it is doing "more with less," why are there less, not more, LBPD fireworks citations than last year? The answer in my view is that when you limit service anywhere, you limit the ability to serve the community.

For police, that means limiting the ability of dispatch to properly and adequately get officers to respond. Lack of manpower produces a definite deficit in technology acquired and used.

Although there were no major violent crimes reported and no major incidents along the shore, when will we know what happened to the rest of the city?

You can't tell me that a lawless few shooting mortars in the air should rule the city. If some of the undesirables take note of what happened -- or didn't happen -- here regarding fireworks, we are in for one heck of a summer with our first responders clearly being unable respond adequately.

This is not LBPD's fault. The City Council by its voted actions has let police numbers fall drastically over the last four years. We are just now seeing the first replenishment police academy in nearly half a decade which, when its rookies graduate near year end, won't offset the magnitude of vanished officers and won't produce fully trained officers on the street for about the next 18 months. By that time, I expect Long Beach will lose roughly 35 to 50 more officers to retirement / attrition.

In North Long Beach, the City Council's cuts eliminated a Paramedic unit and in the very first month it took almost 15 minutes for a unit from Fire Station 18 (Palo Verde/Wardlow, which has a paramedic instead of a fire engine) to get up here to handle the incident. Yet the Council has continued to cut police and fire while selling off taxpayer assets, including City Hall East (100 Long Beach Blvd.) for roughly 1/5 of what the City agreed it was worth when it was acquired. Then there's nearly $1 million for an unbuilt pedestrian tunnel to securely transport prisoners from the city's jail to a new Courthouse; Long Beach officials included one in the 1960s, but today's officials failed to include one in their "public-private-partnership" deal. As a result, Long Beach taxpayers will end up paying roughly a quarter of a million dollars each year to convey prisoners by van roughly a block away.

I've heard some people say the City of Long Beach doesn't have enough money. Well, how is it that other cities -- without oil revenue and Port revenue to prop them up -- manage to provide their taxpayers with higher levels of public safety service than Long Beach City Hall does?

It's time to end the excuses and require results. The citizens of North Long Beach -- and for that matter the entire city -- deserve better public safety for their taxpayer dollars instead of an urban warzone complete with rockets and mortar fire every 4th of July.