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Management's response (text below) follows a March 17, 2014 Public Records request, pursued in the public interest by Mr. McCabe, seeking documents supporting management's basis for the $12.6 million figure, asserted by management in memos, Power Point presentations and on City Hall's website, as the city's current costs to operate the Civic Center complex. The asserted $12.6 million figure is thus crucial, since it is central to management's claim, and the Council's voted direction, that letting a private developer/operator build and operate a new Civic Center -- for the private developer's profit for the next 40 years -- won't cost more than the City currently pays (plus an annual CPI escalator.)

In a Public Records Act request dated March 17, 2014, Mr. McCabe sought the following:

[McCabe Public Records request text] 1. With regard to the Memorandum from Patrick West to the Mayor and Members of the City Council dated February 7, 2014 (Subject: Clarifying Information Regarding the Civic Center Project), all Documents reflecting, lending support to, or otherwise relevant to any belief or conclusion that the $12.6 million figure, mentioned in the last full paragraph of page 2 thereof, will be a sufficient, or nearly sufficient, dollar figure for such a public private partnership, in the first year of such a lease, discussed in that memo.

2. With regard to a potential lease as mentioned in the Memorandum described in paragraph 1. above, any Document that reflects, suggests, or is otherwise relevant to what the City Manager or any other employee of the City believed, or had reason to hope, might be the annual lease payment mentioned in that Memorandum and/or to any initial yearly lease payment or under such a public private partnership lease.

3. Any Documents that reflects or are otherwise relevant to what the City Manager, or any other employee of the City, believed or had reason to believe, might be a monetary or mathematical or other description of the "the annual escalator" under the potential lease mentioned in paragraph 1, above.

As management's deadline for a response approached, Mr. McCabe says he received a telephone call from Mike Conway, the City's Business and Property Development Director, and Mr. McCabe memorialized the substance of the conversation in a confirmatory note (text below):

This is to confirm Mr. Conway's call to me this morning [March 28] about 10:45. While his initial indication was that "I don't understand what you mean", he was able to refine that down, after some discussion, to the question was whether I meant in #1: would the $12.6 million figure mentioned in my PRAR be enough or nearly enough for the payment of the first year's lease payment. I said that yes, that is what I meant.

Mr. Conway indicated to me that he did not believe there were any documents of that nature. He did indicate that he believed that there were documents as to what the escalator might be.

On April 1, Mr. McCabe received the following unsigned response, apparently referencing the three paragraphs of his March 17 Public Records Act request:

[Response received from city April 1]

1. Assuming first that the question is intended to request documents that reflect the sufficiency of $12.6 million in the first year as a lease payment [emphasis in original] and, absent confidential communications between the short listed bidders, the City and its consultants, the Documents requested are the Request for Qualifications and the Request for Proposals, both of which are available on line at lbcivicenter.com.

2. Absent confidential communications between the short listed bidders, the City and its consultants, the Documents requested are the Request for Qualifications and the Request for Proposals, both of which are available on line at lbcivicenter.com.

3. Absent confidential communications between the short listed bidders, the City and its consultants, the Documents requested are the Request for Proposals, which is available on line at lbcivicenter.com.

After reviewing the city's response, Mr. McCabe had this comment for LBREPORT.com: "The city's email to me is completely unresponsive. At this point, this strongly suggests that the City doesn't in fact have evidence that this project can be done for anything like the $12,6 million figure."

Mr. McCabe pursued the Public Records Act request after none of the Councilmembers who voted to seek Requests for Proposals for a new Civic Center (entailing sizable upfront costs) asked management to provide the basis for its asserted $12.6 million cost figure. Councilwoman Gerrie Schipske, who cast the sole "no" vote in October and December 2013, questioned the figure in Council colloquy with city management.

Following Council meetings at which public testimony was almost entirely opposed or questioning why city management hadn't pursued a seismic retrofit of City Hall, a Council majority directed management to submit a Request for Proposals to three pre-selected firms (one of which has since bowed out) seeking proposals for a new Civic Center, which would include tearing down LB's current City Hall on grounds it has seismic issues. City management has acknowledged knowing about City Hall's seismic issues since 2005-2007 [Mayor Foster took office in mid-July 2006] but hasn't invited requests for proposals from firms that actually do seismic retrofits to learn their offered costs.

Los Angeles, Pasadena and San Francisco seismically retrofitted their City Halls, which are considerably older than Long Beach City Hall (completed less than 40 years ago.) Management says it relied on a seismic study by a hired consultant and then offered the Council basically a management estimate of retrofit and associated costs in recommending not pursuing a retrofit and urging a public-private partnership for an entirely new Civic Center.

Under a "public private partnership" (a transaction similar to the one used to built and operate the new Long Beach courthouse), the City would pay a private developer/operator an annual sum amounting to $12.6 million plus annual CPI escalator, and the private developer/operator would also receive the prime located land under the now-former Long Beach courthouse on the NE corner of Ocean Blvd./Spring St. for private development purposes. In response to a question from retired Long Beach Councilmember Rae Gabelich at a Feb. 1 2014 public meeting (attended by Mayoral candidates Lowenthal and Otto and Mr. McCabe), management acknowledged not knowing the current value of the courthouse parcel.

Under the proposed "public private partnership," other current public areas (City Hall, Main Library, Lincoln Park) could be returned to public operation after 40 years.

The current Council majority has fast-tracked the current process, with responses from the two competing developer/operators due in late May...and a management recommendation scheduled to come to the City Council just days before five of nine current Councilmembers (Garcia, DeLong, Schipske, Johnson, Neal) exit their current voting positions.

At number of Mayoral fora, candidates Schipske, Otto, Lowenthal and Dunn have criticized the process as either too fast or not allowing sufficient public input and/or expressed varying degrees of skepticism or opposition to the proposed Civic Center rebuild. (Schipske has been the most plainly opposed, Dunn has been the most equivocal.) Garcia, who during Council discussions was among the most enthusiastic proponent of the project, has at campaign events told audiences that the process to date is simply seeking information with no assurance that a public-private partnership for such a project is actually possible.