In management's own words, that $4 million cost could be just the start: "Issues may arise in the development of the RFP or analysis of submittals that require additional financial or other consulting assistance. If so, staff will come back to City Council with an additional funding request," city management says in its agendizing memo (see LBREPORT.com coverage here.)

By our reckoning, part of that $4+ million could pay for a lot of streets, sidewalks, park and infrastructure needs citywide, not just a project suiting the downtown interests of some Council incumbents.

In our view, the responsible Council motion is to withhold approval for the multi-million-dollar-upfront-consultant contract until city management issues and receives responses to a Request for Proposals to retrofit Long Beach City Hall. Our taxpayer-build building is less than forty years old. Los Angeles successfully retrofitted its City Hall which was built in the 1920s. Other cities have done likewise.

For the record, an October 22, 2013 memo by city management staffer Mike Conway told the COuncil that the latest Seismic Report concludes that action must be taken immediately "to either retrofit or construct a new facility." [emphasis added.] Incredibly, what city management has brought to the Council on December 3 is a proposal that would do neither.

We are very disturbed that some inside City Hall appear to be trying very hard to prevent the public and the Council from learning how economical a City Hall retrofit might be by trying to prevent that option from reaching he Council.

This is an entirely separate issue from whether to use a "public-private-partnership" to build a new Civic Center. That's a big deal because the "P3" process which recently delivered a beautiful courthouse was criticized by the State Legislative Analyst's office and also apparently derailed other court projects and services. It's bad enough that the Council hasn't seriously examined these issues either, but they are separate from the one we believe has to come first.

To us, the threshold question hasn't been asked or credibly answered: what is the actual cost of a seismic retrofit for City Hall?

The responsible, businesslike way to know what a seismic retrofit would cost is to request proposals from entities that actually do such work. That is precisely what Long Beach City Hall has NOT done. City management's persistence in trying to evade the facts that would be shown in market offered figures indicates to us that management's self-brewed figures likely can't withstand serious scrutiny.

Since 2005-2007, Long Beach city officials have had reports in their possession detailing City Hall's seismic issues, but through this entire period city officials never issued a Request for Proposals for an economical retrofit. If that had been prioritized, the work might have been finished by now. For the record, management's most recent seismic report explicitly advises a retrofit among the alternatives.

Instead, with an election cycle approaching, on Oct. 22, 2013 eight Councilmembers (Schipske dissenting) approved preparing an RFP (without being told the full upfront costs). This has predictably attracted developers, consultants, lawyers and trade unions (offering the latter a "project labor agreement") lusting to feed at the public trough on a Taj Mahal project to be decided by Council incumbents, several of whom just happen to be seeking higher offices and campaign contrbitions.

Knowledgable sources tell us the Taj Mahal Civic Center doesn't "pencil out" financially unless the LB Harbor Commission includes the Port's new HQ as some part of the deal. Do you suppose that's one factor that might explain the recent Mayor-prompted, Council-enabled purge of one Harbor Commissioner (in whom Mayor Foster said he had "lost confidence") which begat the resignation of another citing political pressures?

We believe the public is fed up with public officials who consider multi-million-dollar taxpayer costs as an "opportunity." We can think of better opportunities for those sums...like fixing streets, roads, parks and other city infrastructure.

In our opinion, the proper Council motion on Dec. 3 is to direct city management to issue a fast track Request for Proposals to retrofit Long Beach City Hall and when those bids and proposals are received and compared, the Council can make an informed, businesslike choice on whether to fix City Hall or tear it down.

The Council has an opportunity to do the right thing on Dec. 3 and revisit its improvidently granted Oct. 22 approval (8-1, Schipske dissenting) before it has the facts it has now. In our view, to commit Long Beach taxpayers to a costly future before requesting marketplace facts on a less costly alternative would show government at its worst, another self-inflicted wound in a great city that deserves better and can ill afford worse.

Either way, Long Beach taxpayers will see that Council action and vote on December 3. LBREPORT.com plans (as always) to carry it live on our front page: www.LBREPORT.com.

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