LBReport.com

Editorial

A Potential Ray Of Hope On Public Safety


(Aug. 14, 2014) -- At the Aug. 12 City Council meeting as reported by LBREPORT.com here, Third District Councilwoman and Public Safety Committee chair Suzie Price made what we consider a very significant statement about public safety priorities at the Aug. 12 City Council session on police and fire budgets.

We frequently remind readers to watch what elected officials do, not just what they say, but what Councilwoman Price said (below) needed to be said and if she takes budget actions consistent with her words, we have some hope that something substantive may be done.

[Scroll down for further]



Below are her salient words from the Aug. 12 City Council meeting:

[Councilwoman Price]...I understand that these are tough financial times. They've been more difficult in the past. They're going to continue to be difficult in the future, but I firmly believe that if a city can't provide a safe place for its residents then the city has failed. And in that regard, anyone who says that 'you can have the safest city in the world but if you don't have all the other amenities that go with a great city then what do you have?' hasn't talked to a victim of crime. They haven't talked to someone whose home has been burglarized, or someone who's been assaulted in the street...

Councilwoman Price then directly addressed property crimes. She acknowledged that as a large city, Long Beach has multiple needs for police service, including violent crimes that take priority when it comes to investigation and focus, but she significantly added:

[Councilwoman Price] ...I will say that in some communities within the city of Long Beach, specifically my community which is where I have some expertise, the issue of property crimes and residential burglaries is one that continues to trouble the residents in my community and me included. And I would like us to think long term and strategically about how we are going to address the issue of property crimes. I fully support and our office has actually engaged in a community watch program challenge that we have undertaken as a result of Commander LeBaron's leadership. I firmly believe that it's a partnership but it's important for me to know that we as a city have a police department that has a strategic plan and is vested in determining what our long term options are going to be in resource allocation to the issue of property crimes. We will be having a Public Safety [Committee] meeting on Sept. 5 and one of the items on the agenda will be looking at public safety in terms of property crimes and a strategic plan for the future.

If Councilwoman Price does nothing more, she will have already done more than the Public Safety Committee's previous chair, then-Vice Mayor/now Mayor Robert Garcia did. He held NO meetings of his Public Safety Committee on the FY13 and FY14 budgets proposed by Mayor Bob Foster who named him to chair that Committee.

Committee Chair Price, appointed as chair by Garcia, has indicated she is at least willing to discuss some as yet unclear public safety matters regarding the manager/Mayor proposed FY15 budget in her Public Safety Committee. In our view, that's a change in the right direction, although exactly what she plans to discuss and what she will vote to recommend to the full Council in Committee remains to be seen. (As of Aug. 14, the Public Safety Committee's Sept. 5 agenda isn't up yet.)

But there's much that her Committee and the entire new Council majority can do...and should do based on the merits and -- to be blunt -- it's also in their political self-interests.

The Council's new majority faces a stark choice: Councilmembers Gonzalez, Price, Mungo, Uranga and Richardson can either tattoo themselves with the ugly proposed police and fire cuts that will permanently stain their records -- OR they can recommend that the Council take modest, reasonable budget actions in September that will begin to gradually restore at least some police and fire services for taxpayers.

5th district Councilwoman Stacy Mungo also deserves credit for publicly drawing the connection between business competitiveness and public safety. At the August 12 Council meeting, she thanked LBPD for a shoplifting task force, hoped it can be expanded not only to small businesses but to bigger businesses "that are also being hit with some major shrinkage in our city right now. We've been talking to some regional directors of major box companies that are in the district and we know that for businesses to be here, they need to feel safe." (Chief McDonnell said its a County program and only periodic.) The link between being business friendly and being safe has been nearly entirely lost on the leadership of the LB Area Chamber of Commerce. In our view, armed robberies to businesses are very business unfriendly...and unfriendly to customers and to neighbors.

Expecting taxpayers to accept some future "plan" is a non-starter In 1994 (heading into an election cycle when Long Beach had roughly the same number of budgeted police as it has now), City Hall issued an LBPD "strategic plan" that included a "preliminary staffing strategy" [non-binding of course] listing 1,023 budgeted police by FY2000. Of course Long Beach taxpayers didn't receive the 1,023 officers.

The O'Neill administration sought and obtained millions of dollars from the U.S. Justice Department in federal taxpayer police hiring grants and it told Washington that the City needed those officers and was committed to keeping them. Under Mayor Foster, every one of those federally enabled officers is gone.

In 2006, candidate Bob Foster told voters he was committed to putting 100 more officers on the street by 2010. By 2010, after initially adding officers as promised (reaching a high in 2008 of 961 [deployable citywide, not including contracted officers], Foster and his Council majority pushed Long Beach into a crash dive that has led to 200 fewer officers than LB taxpayers had.

In August 2012, Foster proposed a FY13 budget that would have entirely eliminated LBPD's field anti-gang unit. A Council majority approved one-time funds (motion by O'Donnell) to maintain up to half of the field anti-gang unit for a year. In September 2013, LBPD maintained a skeleton field anti-gang crew by raiding patrol officers and backfilling with overtime. Now, the new Council is being asked to kill off the field anti-gang unit entirely.

Is THAT what a new Council majority really wants to put on its recorded voting record?

Meanwhile, residential burglaries have increased by double-digit numbers. "Community Watches" can't fix this when there are simply too few officers to deal adequately with both violent crimes and property crimes? [In our opinion, property crimes ARE crimes against persons (because a person or persons owned the property that's was stolen or damaged.] Councilwoman Price's Aug. 12 questioning of Police Chief McDonnell brought the acknowledgement that the Chief could earmark additional funds to deal with residential burglaries. The next step is to provide LBPD with those resources now, not at some easily breakable future time.

Three LB fire stations that taxpayers paid to build no longer have fire engines capable of putting out fires. In early 2014, a house burned in Los Altos -- across the street from Fire Station 17 -- which no longer has a fire engine to put out fires. More recently ,a garage fire on Clark Ave. north of LBCC, began spreading to a house because Engine 17 and Engine 18 were no longer funded and Engine 19 was on a call as part of management's money-saving "rapid medic response." The nearest fire engine was east of Studebaker at El Dorado Park...several minutes away as fires double in size each minute.

Is THAT status quo what five new Councilmembers want to approve in their first Council budget votes?

We'll separately discuss ways we believe the Council can pay for this. The Public Safety Committee will ultimately be asked how to pay for what it wants, but that should actually be the city manager's job. The Public Safety Committee's job ought to be to recommend service levels for the city's most important priorities, and recommend those levels for Council approval. Then the City Manager should be instructed to deliver them. (In Long Beach, it's been done differently; the city manager delivers what he calls a balanced budget and if Councilmembers want to change anything, they've been asked to figure out how to pay for it.) That said, we don't think the Committee should be afraid to tackle overall budget issues and offer recommended budget solutions to ensure adequate public safety levels.

The most important step now is for Councilmembers to face the reality that the status quo for police and fire services for taxpayers isn't acceptable. Since the FY15 budget as proposed would perpetuate that status quo, it requires Council amendments. That's what Councilmembers were elected to do.

We wish the Public Safety Committee were meeting sooner than Sept. 5, but better late than never.

A Council Committee (with three Councilmembers) can only recommend...but three Council votes to approve a Committee recommendation mean only two more Council votes are needed to make that recommendation a reality or three more votes if the Mayor tries to veto it.)

Change isn't certain but is possible. Stay tuned.


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.



blog comments powered by Disqus

Follow LBReport.com w/

Twitter

RSS

Facebook

Return To Front Page

Contact us: mail@LBReport.com



Need A Plumber, NOW? DrainPros Does It All; Click This Text To See Their Many Services AND Click Below To See Their Current Specials





Click for VIDEO and see how Diversified Threat Management private security can help protect your neighborhood and your business. Affordable group rates available.





Adoptable Furry Family Member








Carter Wood Floors
Hardwood Floor Specialists
Call (562) 422-2800 or (714) 836-7050




Return To Front Page

Contact us: mail@LBReport.com


Copyright © 2014 LBReport.com, LLC. All rights reserved. Terms of Use/Legal policy, click here. Privacy Policy, click here