LBReport.com

Editorial

Check/Balance Civics Lesson From Stymied Mayoral Attempt To Usurp Council Power


(June 26, 2014) -- Yes, we believe that after eight years as Mayor, Bob Foster knew or should have known that he couldn't just stick a proposed ordinance on a City Council agenda and ask the Council to cast its first of two enacting votes. We think he tried to get away with this last minute maneuver on the July 1 Council meeting agenda as he prepares to leave office by July 15.

We noticed it, reported it and within a few hours, the City Attorney's office acknowledged that LB's Municipal Code requires that "No ordinance shall be presented to the Council or considered by it unless such ordinance has been previously ordered prepared by a motion duly and regularly adopted..." The Mayor's office will now have to change what it wants done to first ensure it's what the Council wants done. (Among other things, they may want to do something a bit different or change what he wants done.)

The lesson here is that on important things like changing the City's laws, Long Beach's Mayor has to request and receive publicly voted Council majority permission to proceed with what he wants done. It reflects the fact that under the Long Beach City Charter (the city's constitution), the Mayor has no vote. The Mayor can propose, suggest, urge, advise and voice his opinions on city issues and recommend budget actions but he can't just do what he wants done. The Mayor can propose city budgeted spending and city policies, but only a Council majority can enact them. The Mayor can veto what a Council majority enacts, but the Council can override his veto with six votes.

Voters in five Council districts just elected a new Council majority. They will join four remaining Council incumbents. Long Beach voters have a right to expect that their Councilmembers won't give their votes away to a Mayor who has ceremonial, presiding and advisory power but no voting power. There's major unfinished business for the policysetting City Council to do.

It includes restoring LBPD officers that taxpayers had, providing fire stations with fire engines that taxpayers had, funding a paramedic response system that every other L.A. County and OC County city has, reversing the effects of unbudgeted raises for management by thinning management levels, halting the unbusinesslike rush to rebuild LB's Civic Center, inviting businesslike bids to seismically retrofit City Hall, stopping secret maneuvers that could allow potentially damaging international flights at LB Airport that would risk LB's Airport ordinance, harm families' home investments, leave much of the city less livable than it is now and undercut the city's property tax base.

It's understandable that Mayor-elect Robert Garcia's supporters want others to "unify" behind him. (Nearly 48% of LB voters didn't vote for him.) In our opinion, what Long Beach needs -- and legally deserves -- is a City Council willing to exercise its check and balance and policysetting functions and restore basic services that the exiting Council majority (including Garcia) let the exiting Mayor make second to other things.

Taxpayers are weary of watching some inside City Hall scramble to please corporate and special interests and pursue diversionary headlines for themselves. (A glaring example: pretending a "wall of mulch" will do anything serious to protect WLB residents from current rail pollution...at the same time as Mayor-elect Garcia's friend, L.A. Mayor Garcetti and his Port and City Hall, want to put a corporate sought-railyard on Long Beach's border with what they call "mitigation." We believe that railyard can't be mitigated where proposed and belongs in the Port, not next to neighborhoods. Mayor-elect Garcia has never said that and has taken campaign contributions from the RR. It would be a relatively easy matter for him to spin how LB and LA now "cooperate" by basically allowing what LA wants.)

This isn't a matter of the Council "standing up" to the Mayor. It's a matter of the Council standing up for themselves and for their right to do what they were elected to do.

We believe there should be citywide unity in expecting an incoming Council to perform its check and balance and policysetting functions, restore basic services for Long Beach taxpayers and prioritize protecting residents' health, safety and neighborhood quality of life.

Go Long Beach.


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