Editorial: Ending Mayor/Mgm't Mushroom Treatment Leading Up To Homeless "Study Session"

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Editorial

Ending Mayor/Mgm't Manipulative Mushroom Treatment Leading Up To Homeless "Study Session"

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(Oct 5, 2016 -- UPDATE): Following-up on our editorial below, the City Clerk's office indicates it didn't receive materials from city staff prior to the Oct. 4 study session described below; it received Power Point materials during the study session and uploaded them online in the 11 p.m. hour on Oct. 4, after the Council meeting.

(October 4, 2016, 8:55 a.m.) -- Of course we believe Long Beach city management and staff have prepared Power Point slides, perhaps a narrative memo, and maybe even a "to-from-for" memo for Councilmembers and the Mayor regarding the subject of today's (Oct. 4) "study session."

It's publicly agendized to "conduct a study session to receive and file a report on the current state of homelessness and review progress of last 10-year plan."

Yet here's what Long Beach's supposedly transparent, innovative City Hall has available for its taxpayers to review as of 7:30 a.m. on Oct. 4:

"Recommendation to conduct a study session to receive and file a report on the current state of homelessness and review progress of last 10-year plan.
THERE IS NO STAFF REPORT FOR THIS AGENDA ITEM" [emphasis in original]

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We object. In our opinion, what's taking place amounts to the intentional concealment of material on a major citywide policy matter that a transparent City Hall should show the public and the press prior to a study session to discuss it. Instead, City Hall is trying to create what PR spinners call an "echo chamber" in which (after pre-event hype) officials present their narrative and reporters regurgitate and amplify it.

In our view, this is little different than the old fashioned "mushroom treatment" in which the public is kept in the dark and fed manure.

Sorry, but taxpaying residents expect transparency from city officials who proclaim it. We urge city management and the Mayor to upload tonight's materials online on the City Clerk's website immediately (better late beforehand than after-the-fact.)

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