(April 22, 2015) -- LBREPORT.com has learned that an event at a Belmont Shore area dance center/banquet hall in the 5100 block of E. Ocean Blvd. -- in the 3rd Council district represented by City Council Public Safety Committee Chair Suzie Price -- became the victim of an armed robbery on Sunday night (April 19) during a fundraiser to benefit survivors of a Bluff Park house fire (1st St./Redondo Ave. area.)

LBPD Public Information Officer Nancy Pratt tells LBREPORT.com that on April 19, LBPD responded to a robbery (at what she described as a banquet hall) in the 5100 block of E. Ocean Blvd. where a private fundraiser was taking place, when when a male suspect entered the location.

"The suspect produced a handgun, grabbed the cash box from the table, and fled the location," PIO Pratt says. He's described as a male Hispanic with brown hair, approx. 5'10" to 5'11" tall, 20-30 years-old, and wore a black jacket and black pants. LBPD's investigation is ongoing (anyone with information is asked to contact LBPD Robbery Detective Jackie Parkhill at (562) 570-7464. Anonymous tips may be submitted by calling 1-800-222-TIPS (8477), texting TIPLA plus your tip to CRIMES (274637), or visiting www.lacrimestoppers.org.

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The person most responsible for the robbery is, of course, the armed robber. We hope LBPD is able to identify and apprehend him so that he can be brought to justice.

However, the armed robbery didn't occur in a vaccum. Long Beach City Hall currently provides its taxpayers with a too-thin police level roughly equivalent per capita to what Los Angeles would have if its Mayor and Council cut over 1/3 of LAPD's officers. If Mayor Garcetti tried that, he and his Councilmembers would have been recalled long ago...and their city's major newspaper wouldn't be making endless excuses for them.

In our opinion, LB's Mayor and Council incumbents deserve accountability for their voted actions -- and inactions -- on basic public safety services for taxpayers. We're prompted to focus on Councilwoman Price since the outrageous robbery victimized a charity event in her district but her voting record is in our opinion no better or worse than her Council colleagues. We felt the same way after the horrific murder of a 15 year old walking home from High School on busy Santa Fe Ave. in WLB. And the murder of the nephew of the former chair of LB's violence and anti-gang task force, shot to death on PCH in Central LB. We believe it's fair and accurate to hold the entire Council jointly and severally responsible for the voted actions we cite below because none of them dissented from those actions.

However, we also note that Price sought Council office citing her background as an OC County Deputy DA. As a candidate seeking votes, she stressed her public safety credentials. Once in power, she did what her predecessor politician Robert Garcia did...and we refuse to apply a double-standard for her. Just as Garcia failed to hold Committee hearings on the public safety impacts of budgets proposed by Mayor Bob Foster who appointed him, Price failed to hold Committee hearings on the public safety impact of the FY15 (current) budget proposed by Mayor Garcia who appointed her (calling it "unprecedented"...but not calling it impossible or illegal which it wasn't.)

In July 2014, a new Council majority took office and saw exactly what Mayor Foster and his former Council majority had left LB taxpayers [despite Foster exiting with the fatuous claim that he'd left LB better than he found it.] Roughly 200 fewer officers for citywide deployment. A vanished LBPD field anti-gang unit. Three eastside fire stations (including Belmont Shore) without fire engines capable of putting out fires. (In Jan. 2014, a house burned across the street from a Los Altos Fire Station 17 until a further engine arrived.)

What did the new Council do? After linking hands in a vainglorious "inauguration" spectacle, the Council voted without dissent in September 2014 to approve all of the foregoing elements in the current FY15 budget. [Price did seek and obtain Council allocation of an additional $300,000 for LBPD to deal with residential burglaries.]

They did nothing to correct the taxpayer-scornful action of Mayor Foster and his Council majority (which included now Mayor Garcia) in approving double-digit unbudgeted raises for city management (Nov. 2012.) At the time, city management indicated the raises would carry a LB General Fund cost of roughly $1.5+ million (increasing every year.) That sum alone would erase management's projected "deficit" (spending esceeding revenue) projected for FY16.

In December 2014, the Council voted without dissent to enter into a Civic Center transaction that evaded a vote of the people who'd pay the costs. The Council did this after failing to direct city management to seek bids for a City Hall seismic retrofit...even when evidence surfaced from independent sources that a retrofit was feasible and likely less costly than management claimed. The Council failed to have an appraisal done on prime located property under LB's former courthouse that it will give to a chosen developer as part of a "public-private-partnership" transaction. The Council credulously accepted city management figures that former Redevelopment Agency Boardmember Terry Jensen has deconstructed in itemizing reasons why he believes the Civic Center transaction will ultimately cost taxpayers millions more than city management claimed.

In February 2015, the Council spent $1 million (a sum initially concealed from the press and public by Mayor Garcia, first reported by LBREPORT.com) for "innovations" to promote unspecified "economic development" with no serious Council or taxpayer oversight in the process and no guarantee the "innovations" will deliver $1 million in new taxpayer revenue or savings.

In April 2015, the Council approved entering into a citywide Project Labor Agreement, without seeing the document's text or letting taxpayers see it before its approval (and to date, management has refused to release its text to us.) Critics point to multiple studies that indicate such a transaction could cost taxpayers millions of dollars on city public works projects. Supporters (mainly politically active trade unions who stand to get the taxpayer paid jobs) say the agreement will ensure quality, timely projects and management memo purports to summarize the agreement's main points.)

And to show the public their real priorities, the Council voted in early 2015 to triple the size of their allowable officeholder slushfunds (Price and Mungo dissented on tripling, proposed to double them), a barely concealed attempt to amass sums from friendly contributors that can handed to political groups, special interests and others that can help the incumbents in future races.

Against this backdrop, (and three days after the 4th Council district special election), Councilwoman Price scheduled a meeting of her Public Safety Committee to discuss "alternate funding sources" for public safety and city efforts to "come up with innovative ways to address public safety needs." Those weasel words are euphemisms to target taxpayers for tax and fee increases to pay for public safety levels their tax dollars should be providing now. LBFD Fire Chief Mike DuRee indicated he will propose a "First Responder Fee" (no details.) The LB Firefighters Ass'n indicated (by letter) that it favors creating a "Fire District" [no details, but residents and businesses could be charged fees for service.]

A threshhold question deserves an answer. How do other cities provide their taxpayers with higher levels of police and firefighter/paramedic services than Long Beach? Los Angeles and Signal Hill both experienced the "great Recession" and endured Sacramento shenanigans...yet both provide their taxpayers with more police per capita than Long Beach. Why are we letting our City Hall do this? Every other city in LA and Orange County can provide higher paramedic staffer than LB. Why are we letting our City Hall do this?

Long Beach taxpayers can see that just across their border, neighboring cities have better infrastructure and safer neighborhoods. Voters -- most recently high propensity ELB voters in the 4th Council district -- showed that they don't believe the incumbents' cliches about the state of our city. We sense a gathering storm in which LB voters will insist that their Councilmembers provide taxpayers with basic city services at levels that other cities provide without endless excuses, oppressive taxes and higher inflated "fees."

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 and moderate length letters and longer-form op-ed pieces submitted to us at mail@LBReport.com.

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