LBREPORT.com has a First Amendment right to say that to endorse any candidate with this incumbent's record in our opinion makes a mockery of public safety as a factor in the group's endorsements.

As LBREPORT.com reported prior to the election cycle, and will continue to report regardless of the election outcome, Garcia has had among the worst records of any Councilmember in terms of providing police officers for taxpayers. His Council votes, and those of other incumbents who did what soon-to-be-former Mayor Foster wanted, erased more police officers for taxpayers within a four year period than in the 100+ year history of the City of Long Beach.

The City of Long Beach currently provides taxpayers with a too-thin-blue-line police level for routine citywide deployment (not artifically inflated by including contracted officers for PoLB, LGB, LBCC, LBUSD which haven't been cut) amounting to a sworn officer level roughly equivalent per capita to what L.A. would have if its Mayor and Council lost their brains and cut over 25% of L.A.'s police officers.

As Public Safety Committee chair, Garcia first proposed (we agreed), then moved to erase (we opposed) a ShotSpotter gunfire location system. If that system had been deployed, we believe it would likely have shown that Long Beach has a greater amount of gunfire than is currently acknowledged.

As Mayor Foster's chosen chair of the Council's Public Safety Committee, Garcia failed to hold Public Safety Committee meetings for the past two years in August to address the public safety impacts of Foster's recommended budgets. In August 2012, Foster irresponsibly recommended -- in a town infested with gangs -- to cut LBPD's budget to a point that would have eliminated LBPD's 22-member (20 officers + 2 sergeants) field anti-gang unit. In response, Councilmember O'Donnell (not Garcia) moved to fund up to half of the field unit for a year. By August 2013, another Committee (not Garcia's) chaired by Councilman DeLong discovered that only roughly 7 officers remained in that anti-gang unit at that time.

During this period, budgets supported by Garcia left three Long Beach Fire Stations without Fire Engines. Recently, residents across the street from ELB Fire Station 17 -- which no longer has a Fire Engine -- watched helplessly as their home burned until a water-spraying Fire Engine arrived from elsewhere. Garcia also voted for a Mayor/Management sought lower-cost paramedic response system not currently allowed in any L.A. County city. LB Fire Chief DuRee says it's better on the merits than the current system, but the LB Firefighters Ass'n says it will mean worsened patient care. The net result if the plan is implemented: LB residents will become guinea pigs with possible life and death results.

For the first time since 2010, the LB Firefighters Association PAC has broken with LBPOA's PAC and endorsed a different Mayoral candidate. This time it's Damon Dunn. LBFFA's PAC did so in time for the April 8 election (while LBPOA's PAC took no position.)

The 1st Council district Garcia has represented since May 2009 remains pock marked with Red X's (murders) and Blue X's (shootings) that its good and decent residents and businesses don't deserve. Garcia's response has been to say crime is down (citing "citywide" numbers) when LBPD's own statistics, reported by LBREPORT.com, show the results are mixed at best...with residential burglaries up citywide by a staggering 34% from 2010 to 2013.

As LBREPORT.com did in 2009, we asked LBPOA President Steve James to release the recording of what Garcia said in his 2014 candidate interview. President James politely declined in 2009 and has declined in 2014. In 2009, LBREPORT.com tried but failed to learn what was said. We will redouble our efforts to find out what happened this time. We urge rank and file LB police and firefighters to help us, and break the code of silence and tell us -- so we can tell the city -- what someone who wants to be Mayor told LBPOA's PAC to get its endorsement.

Our position in this is in no way a reflection on the rank and file LBPD officers and what they do daily. We think LBPOA PAC's leadership made a very bad, misguided call, simple as that.

LBREPORT.com doesn't endorse candidates. LBREPORT.com will continue to report in detail what the outgoing and incoming Mayor and Council do on public safety, including police and fire/paramedic services for taxpayers. We will do so in detail regardless of the mindless junk mailers and robo calls inevitably coming in the next few weeks, and we will continue to do so regardless of what results follow on June 3.