Apparently so...and sadly it's not alone. For the record, Rose Park's Council representative, Dr. Suja Lowenthal, and the Mayor-chosen chair of the Council's "Public Safety Committee" Dr. Robert Garcia -- both of whom want voters to make them Long Beach's next Mayor -- both voted to approve the worst cuts to LB police levels for taxpayers in the 100+ year history of the City of Long Beach.

Last night, directly north of Rose Park (north of Anaheim St. near Orizaba Park) residents reporting hearing more gunfire (no one was hit this time.) It was in the 4th Council district where Councilman Patrick O'Donnell is now running for the state Assembly (with the support of the Long Beach Police Officers Ass'n. PAC).

For some idea of how thin our thin blue line is, Long Beach taxpayers today receive a budgeted police level for routine citywide deployment (not fattened by counting officers paid by and restricted to the Port, Airport, LBCC, LBUSD, and LB Transit) roughly equivalent per capita to Los Angeles cutting LAPD's officer level by over 25%. Both Los Angeles, the County's biggest city, and Signal Hill, one of the County's smallest cities, provide their taxpayers with a much stronger per capita police level than Long Beach. In four years, Long Beach has fallen backward to a police level roughly equivalent to when Ernie Kell exited and Beverly O'Neill arrived nearly twenty years ago.

And as the final how do you do, a Council majority voted last year (Sept. 2012) to cut LBPD's budget to the point where Long Beach taxpayers today have only half the number of field gang officers as we previously had.

Incredibly, there are no plans to fix this. Two replenishment Police Academies (one budgeted this year, the other next) will barely keep pace with annual retirements/exits; they'll only maintain the decimated status quo (and there's no guarantee City Hall will continue them after the 2014 elections.)

In addition, if a Council majority doesn't say "no" in the next few weeks, Long Beach residents will effectively become test subjects for a new paramedic response system in which Long Beach will become the only city in L.A. or Orange County to no longer provide two paramedics arriving on a single vehicle. (Long Beach city management notes it will save money, and LB Fire Chief Mike DuRee insists it will provide better service than presently by ensuring a paramedic on every fire engine with two paramedics arriving on separate vehicles. Unless you want to become a test subject, we advise you, your family and any visiting friends not to have any medical emergencies in Long Beach.

In our opinion, Rose Park isn't alone in getting ripped off. The public citywide is being shortchanged on public safety. Residents on the east side now endure increased burglaries. Residents westward suffer the worst impacts of violent crimes.

We believe Long Beach will be a better city, with better neighborhoods and better property values and a better place to locate new businesses if voters reject those who brought us bicycle ballyhoo, plastic bag bans and taxpayer-scornful pursuit of a Taj Majal Civic Center. They had their chance and voted to cut, not provide, levels of core services that other cities provide and Long Beach taxpayers deserve.