(April 21, 2013) -- At the April 16 Long Beach City Council meeting, Councilwoman Schipske introduced an agenda item that would have sent to a council committee for discussion and recommendations a new set of political reforms. She wanted much fuller disclosure of communications between councilmembers and lobbyists, eliminating texting and emailing lobbyists during council meetings and also ending special interest political contributions from lobbyists, contractors and those who have business before the City Council.

In actuality, I find little disagreement with what she is trying to do but I do have issues with how she went about trying to accomplish this. The mere fact that she couldn't even get a second for her motion before council tells me several things, none of which can be considered positive. Probably the most significant downside, politically speaking is that her failure to secure support does nothing but open her up to criticism alleging that she was just grand-standing. After all she has now officially kicked off her Gerrie Schipske for Mayor, 2014 Campaign and many in the political world will just view this as something else that she may try to campaign on. If all she really wanted out of this was the ability to say that she was the only person on the council who cares about this stuff then I guess that she may consider her effort a success.

Like I have already said, I don’t find fault with what she is attempting to do as much as I find fault with how she went about it. IF you want to be Mayor you need to be able to LEAD. And if you are going to be a successful LEADER, you have to have FOLLOWERS, and for the past seven years Councilwoman Schipske has continually demonstrated an inability to get much support for whatever she wants to accomplish. People follow leaders because they believe in them and they respect them. You develop relationships with those you work with and if you have a demonstrated track record of being unable to develop those relationships your ability to be a successful LEADER, in this case MAYOR, could be questionable.

All of the aforementioned aside, I have a much bigger issue with what Councilmember Schipske is trying to do. It has been 15 years since I left the City Council after being elected three times covering a period of ten years. During that time we had NO, I will repeat, NO registered lobbyists who worked City Hall. Furthermore no one who tried to do business with the city did so by going through any member of the City Council and conducting business with them directly, like we see today. We had a City Manager, and his name was Jim Hankla and all requests to do business with this city were directed to and through his office. No one on the council took it upon themselves to cut deals and/or do any direct business with anyone who had business before the city. A City Manager form of government allows the city manager to operate the city and the council sets direction and establishes policy.

This city had then, and still has today, a City Manager Form of Government. Per our City Charter no one on the council has the LEGAL authority to enter into agreements, deal with personnel issues of any type, or do anything that interferes with the ability of the City Manager and his staff when it comes to conducting business with the city. Also no member of the city council, including the Mayor, has the legal authority to negotiate with city employee unions, but in the past 7 years we have seen this happen repeatedly.

The policies that Councilwoman Schipske is proposing shouldn't even be an issue. This really is the problem here and unfortunately there are far too many things that our current elected officials are doing that should not be done. I have asked, on several occasions, why the City Attorney doesn't step in and force the council to abide by the Charter. I am told, by councilmembers, that his position, whether you like it or not and I don’t, is that he isn't going to get in the middle of this morass unless the City Council wants to change the way business is being conducted in this town. In other words I guess, if the Council doesn't care then why should he? Perhaps his position is wrong, but I can understand it to a degree. The real problem here is that we even need the policies proposed by Councilwoman Schipske.

There is an underlying reason why we now see business conducted in the manner that it is in Long Beach. Term Limits is that reason because no longer do city council members consider their roles as long term ones. No longer do they really care about the business of Long Beach. No longer do they really concern themselves with the long term implications of their actions. After all, they will be termed out and it will be the next person's problem, right?

Today our councilmembers spend a huge portion of their time maneuvering for their next political move. We can see that right now as we have at least 4 members of the council who are either already announced candidates for higher political office or who have made it clear that they are seriously exploring their next move up the political food chain. In one instance a Councilmember, who was just re-elected a year ago, and was continually confronted during the campaign with the possibility that he would not serve out his full term if re-elected. He continually denied that this would happen. Well, he has already publicly announced his candidacy for State Assembly and if elected will cost the City of Long Beach hundreds of thousands of dollars because the citizens will have to fund a special election.

How does this all tie into the way the city’s elected officials conduct business you may be asking. Well, when you are continually looking toward your next political position, you are also spending a great deal of time fundraising. How do you fundraise? You fundraise by doing a number of things and when you have the power and the ability to cut deals on behalf of the city, you enhance your chances to get campaign contributions for your efforts.

In the past when business would approach the city they would be directed through the City Manager's Office and he would direct that person/business, etc. to the appropriate staffer who would then vet their issue or proposal and then may or may not bring it before council for approval or consideration. That may not be a perfect way of keeping out the ugly influence of money but it is a far superior way to doing business than what we are currently seeing in Long Beach today. In the world of business it is considered "Pay to play" and in Long Beach it shouldn’t be the way things, unfortunately, too often appear to be done.