(May 11, 2015) -- We recently received a press release announcing that an official-sounding "Harvey Milk Promenade Park (HMPP)" Committee, working with the 1st district Council office, has decided the latest names to be honored by inclusion in Equality Plaza, a wall alongside Harvey Milk Promenade Park.

But as best we understand city civics, no individual Councilmember in any Council district (or any Committee they may enable) has the legal authority to decide what belongs on city property in any city park in their Council district or elsewhere.. Under LB's City Charter, LB's Parks and Recreation Commission has the authority to decide what's done in LB's parks...and a quick check shows it never voted to authorize any of this. If it's beyond the Parks & Rec Commission's Charter role, then the City Council decides, and it hasn't voted to do so. The City Manager and his subordinate Director of Parks, Recreation and Marine likewise don't decide whom the City honors or doesn't.

We are very old-school about certain things. In our view, a city is either governed by laws, or it's not.

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As best we can tell, what's been allowed to take place at Equality Plaza in Harvey Milk Promenade Park isn't authorized by city law or lawfully adopted rules. In our view, it's basically a usurpation of power enabled by a power vacuum. The result has now left Long Beach -- entering Gay/Lesbian Pride Week -- on the verge of (again) snubbing Long Beach's first elected gay/lesbian official...who came up with the idea of an area honoring gay/lesbian pioneers in the first place.

By any objective standard, former Councilwoman and former Long Beach Community College Trustee Gerrie Schipske's name belongs on Equality Wall. She is Long Beach's first openly gay/lesbian elected official. She was elected to the Long Beach Community College Board of Trustees in 1992. In her political career, she endured smears based on her sexual orientation. In 2006, she was elected, and in 2010 overwhelmingly re-elected, to LB's 5th Council district (among LB's more conservative areas.) In April 2014, she finished first in the initial Mayoral election among her 5th district voters who knew her record. Gerrie Schipske pioneered elective equality in Long Beach. The city's openly gay elected officials who today enjoy the benefits of political acceptance in Long Beach stand on her shoulders.

As Dave Wielenga put it in a May 2013 piece in the OC Weekly:

...[E]arly this year [2013], when the opening of the Historical Society of Long Beach's exhibition, "Coming Out In Long Beach," drew a large number of elected officials, Schipske observed, "At one time, politicians couldn't be seen with us; now, they can't be seen without us."...I'm not saying Schipske is somehow hiding who she is. She has lived openly with her partner, Flo Pickett, for 33 years, raising three children and now doting on a 3-year-old granddaughter...

During her two terms in office, she didn't pander to gay voters and instead handled her council job by addressing issues on the merits and calling things as she saw them. She didn't shrink in silence if she believed the incumbent mayor and his council allies were wrong (including on an attempted parcel property tax that she helped derail)...

Today, the names of three Signal Hill Councilmembers' names are on the Long Beach Equality Wall Long Beach while Councilwoman Schipske's name is not. In our opinion, this is an absurd, embarrassing outcome that makes a mockery of what should be an inclusive, historical place of honor in Long Beach.

How did this happen? In 2011, then-Councilman Garcia (LB's third openly gay Councilmember after Dan Baker and Gerrie Schipske) proposed creating a LB park named for a gay figure. This was a vast improvement over Garcia's previous attention-getting action in which he named part of WLB street for motorcycle maven Jesse James, then-spouse to Sandra Bullock.

Garcia chose martyred San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk, who had no specific ties to Long Beach. Schipske turned down Garcia's offer to join in his Council agenda item proposing to name the area "Harvey Milk Park" and explained why in a typically blunt blog dispatch:

[May 13, 2011 Schipske blog text] I would prefer that we name the area 'Unity Plaza' or 'Human Rights Plaza' so that it could be more inclusive of all those who have fought for civil and human rights. My suggestion was rebuffed...

Garcia responded by hastily issuing a revised media release that lifted Schipske's idea and revised his original Harvey Milk Park agenda item to "include a plaza to honor local Long Beach LGBT leaders," didn't credit Schipske for this and simply pretended it was his idea.. To ensure he'd have friendly hands in who received the places of honor, Garcia later issued a release announcing that a so-called "Harvey Milk Promenade Park" Committee (which included many of his allies) would decide whose names appeared on Equality Wall. Of course the Committee, like Garcia himself, had no legal authority to do any of this and Garcia was simply bypassing the public and its public body: LB's Parks & Recreation Commission. The Garcia-enabled Committee operated without visible transparency, didn't hold publicly agendized open meetings or enable visible public participation and (of course) didn't recommend Councilwoman Schipske for inclusion on Equality Wall.

The net result: Today, a city park created to honor CA's first open gay elected official doesn't recognize Long Beach's first openly gay elected official. What should have been a unifying, uplifting process has descended into a cynical usurpation of power.

A transparently run city that respects the public doesn't let any individual Councilmember, or his friends, unilaterally decide who's honored, or not, in a public park in the public's name without public participation in the process. Again: either Long Beach is run by laws and rules or it's not.

We urge City Attorney Charles Parkin, who's individually elected and not subordinate to the whims of any individual Councilmember or the Mayor, to take an overdue look at what's been going on and fashion some sensible remedy. We propose one below.

First priority: the six recently announced names for upcoming placement on Equality Wall should be treated as nominees, not final until approved in a public process by at minimum LB's Parks & Recreation Commission. That will, for the first time, make the decision making process transparent and public. In that process, the Garcia-enabled Committee is obviously allowed to participate and submit their suggested nominees, but not monopolize the process; their proposed names should NOT be the only ones on the table. The public, to whom that Harvey Milk Park and all city parks belong, should also be fully allowed to submit names for consideration.

The collective submitted names can be referred to LB's Parks & Rec Commission, which can address the issue as a publicly agendized item and (for the first time) enable public participation and testimony pro and con. The Commission can discuss the matter, make motions and take a publicly recorded vote. Whether the City Charter requires action by the full City Council is the City Attorney's call. At some point, his office may subsequently wish to consider drafting an ordinance amendment or formal rules governing the selection of honorees for display in city parks in the future.

Encouraging public participation in this process shouldn't be feared; it should be embraced. It will provide a teachable moment on gay rights history in this city and in basic civics. Again: what's ultimately at stake here is whether this city is governed by laws or it's not.

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