Planting trees anywhere is admirable, but newsworthy things are happening in North Long Beach away from the photo op camera's lens, some of which have gone unreported or under-reported elsewhere.

The Red Xs are murders. The Blue Xs are shootings with a wounded victim. Purple Xs are shots at an occupied residence/vehicle. Green Xs are shots at an unoccupied vehicle/residence. All the Xs are since Jan. 1, 2014. There may be more shootings than those shown because LBPD doesn't routinely report shootings (although they do professionally provide information if we learn about a shooting and ask about it.)

And here's what's been happening a few miles south.

Long Beach had TEN shootings between late Thursday night (July 3) and the midnight hour Monday (July 7th). Not four or fewer as some others told their readers. SIX of the shootings were in North Long Beach and one of them was a murder. LBPD says all but two of the July 3-7 shootings citywide were gang related...and ALL of them in NLB are being investigated as gang related. (LBREPORT.com coverage here.)

Less than two years ago, then-Vice Mayor Robert Garcia (as chair of the Council's Public Safety Committee chosen by Mayor Foster) conveniently held no hearings on Mayor Foster's proposed budget in August 2012 which recklessly recommended the complete elimination of an LBPD field anti-gang unit. Even Foster's robotic Council couldn't stomach that. The Council's Budget Oversight Committee urged adding some PD funding, and Councilman Patrick O'Donnell ultimately made a floor motion to add a bit more, and Garcia ultimately voted "yes." In August 2013 under skillful questioning by Budget Oversight Committee chair Councilman Gary DeLong, taxpayers learned that Long Beach now only has barely a third of the thinned field anti-gang unit, kept afloat by raiding patrol officers and backfilling patrol with overtime (the latter friendly to the police officers union.) In September 2013, heading into the election cycle, the Council did nothing to change this, voting 9-0 for management's police budget as submitted.

That Council vote came after veteran North Long Beach community advocate Laurie Angel came to the public speakers podium and pleaded with Councilmembers to restore funding for the anti-gang unit which she noted directly impacts her neighborhood. Her pleas fell on deaf ears.

Roughly six weeks ago, LBPD acknowledged to the public in a Nixle dispatch that it was unable for several hours to respond in a timely fashion to the public's calls for service because of multiple violent crime incidents. LBPD has told the Council repeatedly that the majority of violent crimes are committed by gangs.

Tree plantings are very nice. They bring multiple benefits. We acknowledge that in some blighted areas, they can help counter the "broken windows" syndrome that invites crime.

But trees are no substitute for enough cops.

Los Angeles (the County's largest city) and Signal Hill (one of the County's smallest) both provide their taxpayers with police at considerably higher levels than does Long Beach. Today, Long Beach has a budgeted thin blue line in officers available for citywide deployment roughly equivalent per capita to what Los Angeles would have it cut about 30% of LAPD's officers.

Long Beach has three fire stations without fire engines. In late Jan. 2014, an ELB residence burned across the street from Fire Stn. 17 while a fire engine had to come from further away because the Fire Station across the street no longer has a fire engine, the only apparatus that can spray water to put out a fire. Every L.A. and OC city provides paramedic service at levels Long Beach no longer does.

That's what votes cast by Robert Garcia and some of his now exited Council colleagues did. Those actions need to be revisited by the new incoming Council.

For the record: Garcia received the Mayoral endosement of the leadership of the Long Beach Police Officers Association PAC. We believe taxpayers need to recall this, as well as that union's continuing refusal to make public the recording of what Garcia told them in its endorsement meeting, the next time it seeks taxpayer support for its priorities. (We believe the LB Firefighters Ass'n PAC, which didn't endorse Garcia, ought to release the recording to which we believe it has joint access. We have asked them to do so; they have likewise declined.)

As of July 15, Garcia will no longer have a Council vote. We urge incoming Councilmembers Richardson, Uranga, Gonzalez, Price and Mungo to show taxpayers with actions, not merely words, that the status quo is unacceptable. We hope they can find common ground but if not, they need to lead and not follow. They shouldn't flinch at moving to take voted budget actions that will begin restoring police and firefighter services that LB taxpayers had and still deserve.

As former LB Councilman Les Robbins once put it, there are very few serious problems in Long Beach that aren't in some way related to public safety.

Finally: it would behoove incoming Mayor Garcia to volunteer to remove the campaign signs that continue to litter parts of town, deliberately put high on private property light poles where they're not easily removed and may not have the property owner's consent, a middle-finger-raised campaign tactic from the Bob Foster-enabled "you don't see my name on it" independent committee that backed Garcia. Those signs telling voters he was Mayor Foster's choice are continuing to blight neighborhoods that the new trees are supposed to help clean up.

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, plus moderate length letters and longer-form opinion pieces (op-eds) submitted to us at mail@LBReport.com.