(July 5, 2015, 9:25 p.m.) -- A few hours ago, after LBREPORT.com reported that a number of Long Beach neighborhoods resembled war zones on July 4 from illegal fireworks, Mayor Robert Garcia took to Facebook to say he was disappointed by the amount of illegal fireworks, he's going to strategize on this and was interested in hearing the public's ideas on Facebook.

We want to be constructive in this. There's nothing wrong with Mayor Garcia asking the public for ideas...but what's needed now is facing facts that this Mayor thus far has resisted facing.

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What took place on July 4 didn't happen overnight. There were booming illegal fireworks on July 3 and July 2 and July 1 and stretching back into June in Wrigley and parts of Central LB. Residents on the Wrigley Neighborhood Group's Facebook page described them for weeks. During Saturday's (June 27) "State of the 5th district" event in ELB's Pan Am park, a very loud explosion (heard by the Police Chief) rocked the area. Mayor Garcia was present and heard it for himself.

The fact is there aren't enough police to deal with fireworks when they're dealing with multiple other high priority calls. In addition, history shows it's difficult, if not impossible, to prohibit something that a sizable number of people really want. That said, we believe the measures we recommend below could have better managed last night's out-of-control illegal fireworks AND would have public safety benefits beyond (they have dual uses.)

1. Restore budgeted funding for ShotSpotter. That's a high tech system -- used by a number of cities across the country and in some LASD areas now -- that combines remote microphones and computer analytics to near-instantly identify the location of gunfire AND determine whether it's gunfire or fireworks. That would have come in VERY handy last night. In 2011, then Councilman Garcia proposed budgeting ShotSpotter with $350,000 allocated from upland oil revenue in FY12 -- and LBREPORT.com supported this -- and a Council majority voted to approve ShotSpotter. However LBPD brass dragged its feet and never deployed the system, offering endless excuses when the real reason was that the Council hadn't provided sufficient funding for police basics like officer overtime. [PD OT is unavoidable because murders, shootings, suspect searches don't always adhere to PD shifts.] Faced with the choice between needed boots on the ground and a nice bit of optional equipment, LBPD management understandably preferred basic boots. A year later, Garcia and the Council un-budgeted ShotSpotter and used the money to pay ongoing police salaries.

At this point, ShotSpotter can't be funded with oil revenue (given the current price of oil) so the Council would have to look elsewhere. We recommend reducing management staff to offset for the costly unbudgeted management raises that the Council unwisely approved in 2012. We'd also explore closing City Hall one day a week to save money, as other cities do. If Long Beach really has the "24 hour City Hall" that Mayor Garcia boasts about, it's time to use it. And we'd dramatically cut City Hall travel budgets and other perks...and take a fresh look at the politically-incorrect cost saving measures advised by Management Partners (a consulting firm City Hall hired a few years ago at considerable expense.)

2. Start restoring LBPD staffing. LBPD can't respond to calls for service and deploy officers that the City Council doesn't budget to employ. Long Beach now has roughly 200 fewer budgeted officers than it did when Robert Garcia was elected to the Council in 2009...after telling voters his first priority would be clean and safe streets. Once in office, he voted with Council majorities to approve budgets that erased the largest number of budgeted sworn officers within five years in the more than 100 year history of the City of Long Beach. Today, Long Beach has a budgeted sworn officer level available for citywide deployment roughly equivalent per capita to what Los Angeles would have if it cut nearly a third of LAPD's officers. (This would get L.A. Mayor Garcetti run out of town.)

So...how is it that L.A. County's largest city (Los Angeles) and one of its smallest (Signal Hill) can provide their taxpayers with police levels that L.A. County's second largest city says it can't? That question needs to be asked and answered...and the buck stops with the City Council.

Mayor Garcia didn't use Facebook to discuss the shootings (fatal and non-fatal) that good and decent residents in some parts of Long Beach continue to endure while others don't. For LBREPORT.com coverage, see: Tale of Two Cities: In First 6 Mos on 2015: Shootings And Murders Mainly Impact These Council Districts, Leave Others Totally Or Nearly Untouched; Fatal Shootings Down In First 6 Mos. From Previous Years

In the next few weeks, Mayor Garcia will hand Councilmembers the City Manager's proposed budget with Mayoral recommendations. If the City Manager and the Mayor don't recommend funding for ShotSpotter or restoring (or at least starting to restore) LBPD's field anti-gang unit, your neighborhood group should adopt a resolution explicitly urging your Councilmember(s) to do so. That's your right. Your Councilmember is supposed to answer to you, not vice versa.

July 4th is about the "consent of the governed." If your neighborhood was among those plagued by illegal fireworks, and if it is likewise impacted by gang violence, don't consent to the status quo.

Happy July 4th...and beyond.

Opinions expressed by LBREPORT.com, our contributors and/or our readers are not necessary those of our advertisers. We welcome our readers' comments/opinions 24/7 via Disqus, Facebook and moderate length letters and longer-form op-ed pieces submitted to us at mail@LBReport.com.

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