DeLong's Self-Damaging Can't Do Response...While Other Cities Can

(Mar. 14, 2012) -- In the LB-OC Congressional race, Steve Kuykendall's well-reasoned but less-than-well-written challenge to Councilman Gary DeLong on public safety (click here) begat a well-written but self-damaging response from Councilman DeLong (coverage, click here). In our opinion, Councilman DeLong's reply should give voters real pause.

Exactly why is the second largest city in Los Angeles County unable to provide its taxpayers with police and core services while other cities -- facing the same bad economy and Sacramento problems -- are able to provide their taxpayers with healthier police levels without, in DeLong's formulation, closing libraries, cancelling Parks & Recreation programs and stopping street and sidewalk repairs and more?

That's a fair question and the public deserves a thoughtful answer from any LB incumbents seeking reelection or higher office. Long Beach-OC voters shouldn't be treated like North Korean serfs, told to be happy and grateful for a Politburo that fails to provide basic services...while just across the city's borders, one can see the alternatives.

L.A. County's largest city, Los Angeles, and one of its smallest, Signal Hill, both manage to deliver significantly higher per capita police levels and still provide basic core services. So do most OC cities.

They didn't do what Long Beach City Hall did: leave residents and businesses with a per capita police level for citywide deployment roughly equivalent to cutting Los Angeles' police level by over 25% of its officers.

And that's still not enough. Just last week on March 6, Councilman DeLong voted to have city management present "revenue raising options" (from Council colloquy by others: a tax-increase ballot measure). We're not surprised that LB's versions of Pravda and Izvestia would tell their readers to be happy, work harder and complete City Hall's next "Five Year Plan," but we urge intelligent voters to stop and think about this.

After six years of budget decisions by Councilman DeLong that are basically congruent with views of Mayor Bob Foster, why is Long Beach City Hall unable to deliver police levels that other cities do without collapsing their core services?

With all due respect, if Councilman DeLong wants LB and OC voters to elect him to federal office, we think he needs to explain why the City Hall he's run for the past six years can't deliver what other City Halls can and why he hasn't changed this despite over half a decade in office.

Holding public safety hostage to higher taxes lets government maintain its current spending ways. It isn't the answer when change is needed...in Long Beach, in Sacramento and in Washington.