Facts Mayor Foster Fears & Didn't Face In His 2012 State of City Message

(Jan. 10, 2012, 2:05 p.m.) -- It's apparent to us, and we believe it's quietly apparent to more than a few others, that Mayor Bob Foster fears certain facts about the current state of the City of Long Beach.

Now in his second half decade in office, Mayor Foster's 2012 State of the City message [text as prepared for delivery, click here] criticized others for problems LB faces, in our opinion sometimes of his own making. Meanwhile, he commended himself and his Council allies (several liked the speech) for actions that in our view tried to camouflage troubling realities.

• Feared Fact #1: Mayor Foster blamed Sacramento for "balancing" the state's budget by sending state prisoners to cities and counties without providing adequate resources [accurate]. However he has applied similar political values in Long Beach, for the past three budget years "balancing" LB City Hall's budget in part by cutting police levels to a point that LB City Hall itself acknowledged was too thin over 15 years ago. Today, Long Beach residents and businesses experience a per capita police level for citywide deployment roughly equivalent to what it would be like if L.A. City Hall "balanced" its budget by cutting over 25% of LAPD's officers. In our view, Mayor Foster has applied the same budget principles to Long Beach for which he justifiably sandpapers Sacramento: inviting increased crime while treating victims as unavoidable casualties.

• Feared Fact #2: Mayor Foster shrugged Feared Fact #1 by telling the public that crime is down. This omits pesky details, such as the facts shown on the maps below compiled as of Jan. 9, 2012 (Brown X's= 2010 murders (central LB map); Red X's = 2011 + 2012 murders (two killings in first week of 2012); Blue Xs = Shootings since Aug. 2 when Mayor proposed FY12 budget containing more police cuts, including gang and homeland security officers). The Central LB map (left) shows a number of Blue X's (shootings). Within that area (roughly one mile due north of Long Beach City Hall) is a Habitat for Humanity built house (corporate donations raised by Mayor Foster) for a family with the requirement that they live in the crime-impacted area in order to keep it.

• Feared Fact #3: Mayor Foster blamed Sacramento for ending the state's former Redevelopment system, which Governor Brown said would have imposed nearly $2 billion in state taxpayer costs in FY12 that could be better used to fund local schools and higher education. Mayor Foster (who's formed a committee to raise money for a run at statewide office in 2014) didn't even acknowledge Redevelopment's potential school funding impacts for parents and their children, while lecturing others on the need to focus on the future.

• Feared Fact #4: Redevelopment's stated purpose is to remedy blight, but Mayor Foster and to some extent his predecessor, used (in our opinion misused) Redevelopment monies to fund for some basic capital projects and infrastructure items (including those which don't generate property tax increment increases). Spending Redevelopment blight-fighting funds in this way lets the Mayor and some Redevelopment-area politicians pretend they've brilliantly balanced their General Fund budget when in reality they're depleting Redevelopment blight-fighting sums for short term fixes...while letting long-term blighting conditions persist in their districts.

• Feared Fact #5: Mayor Foster (who spoke of the need to hold elected officials accountable) told voters who elected him 2006 that he'd put 100 more police officers on the street within four years. Today, Long Beach taxpayers have barely the same and approaching fewer police officers budgeted for citywide deployment than LB did in 1994 when Mayor Beverly O'Neill took office. At that time, LB City Hall admitted its police level then was too thin, and sought and consumed millions in federal taxpayer dollars (COPS grants), telling Washington that LB was committed to providing increased police levels. Today under Mayor Foster, City Hall acknowledges no such thing...and Foster has as much as denied it (see Feared Fact #6, below). Virtually all of the budgeted police positions added during the O'Neill administration have been eliminated...including those using federal taxpayer paid funds.

• Feared Fact #6: Mayor Foster has publicly asserted that despite what he told voters in seeking election in 2006, he now believes that increased police don't "necessarily" mean decreased crime. (For details on this remarkable assertion, see Straight Talk TV October 2010 telecast, LBReport.com coverage, click here.) When asked about a RAND Corporation study that concludes it's more cost effective to fund police than to incur the multiple costs of crime, the Mayor told the interviewer that he hadn't read it.

• Feared Fact #7: Conspicuous by its absence in a State of the City message was the Mayor's failure to offer any plan -- or even the acknowledgement the need for any plan -- to replenish some or all of the more than 140 sworn police officers that the Mayor and Council cut in Sept. 2009, 2010 and Sept. 2011 budget votes (the latter 6-3, Schipske, Gabelich, Neal dissenting). The September 2011 budget cuts even included some gang and homeland security assigned officers. Under Mayor Foster, for the past three fiscal years the City of Long Beach has failed top conduct any replenishment police academy classes (to replace retiring/exiting officers), instead spending the sums to pay current officers, some of whom are destined to retire or exit, depleting LB's police level further.

• Feared Fact #8: Mayor Foster took credit for advocating pension changes to contracts with LB's three major public employee unions, a formulation that avoids mentioning that he advocated contracts with each of those unions despite what he subsequently called unsustainable costs. In 2007, Mayor Foster urged voluntarily reopening of the police union contract (2007, ostensibly to prevent losing officers). In 2008, he urged a five year (not usual three year) contract with the firefighters' union (May 2008, Councilwoman Gabelich dissenting). Regarding one major City Hall union (IAM, representing non-public safety employees) hasn't (yet) agreed to changing its contract (which it has no legal obligation to do)...and Mayor Foster now blames the union for not agreeing to changes in its contract that he also supported (2008 Council approved 7-2, Gabelich and DeLong dissenting).