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Retired Councilwoman Gabelich Spots A Non-Factual Chico Campaign Claim: FACT IS Long Beach HAD A Female Council Majority Years Ago...Alongside A Female Mayor


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(April 13, 2015) -- Councilwoman Rae Gabelich, who represented LB's 8th Council district from 2004-2012, points out on Facebook that a claim contained in a letter sent to female voters by Herlinda Chico's campaign -- "Herlinda's election would create the FIRST FEMALE MAJORITY on the City Council in the history of Long Beach" -- is simply untrue.

Ms. Gabelich notes that Long Beach HAD a female Council majority during roughly half of 2006: Bonnie Lowenthal (elected early 2001, succeeded Jenny Oropeza), Suja Lowenthal (elected June 2006), Gerrie Schipske (elected June 2006), Laura Richardson (elected 2002, served until Assembly election late 2006), Tonia Reyes Uranga (elected 2002 served to 2010), Rae Gabelich (elected June 2004) And for a time that female Council majority's meetings were run by a woman: Mayor Beverly O'Neill (in the final weeks of her 12 year term of office.)

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[Comment: Gabelich and Schipske didn't defer to male authority in the figure of Mayor Bob Foster. Gabelich publicly questioned and voted against management-proposed contracts giving raises -- WITHOUT PENSION REFORMS -- to two major public employee unions (firefighters and non-public safety employees, whose PACs had endorsed Foster's 2006 Mayor run.) In 2001, Schipske and Gabelich joined with then-Councilman Steve Neal in 2011 to propose an alternative to Foster-recommended "proportionate budget reductions" that seriously impacted police and fire services for taxpayers.

Schipske defied Foster in urging a City Hall seismic retrofit and criticizing a Civic Center rebuild (providing the only dissenting vote) after enraging Foster a few years earlier by refusing to join her Council colleagues in declaring a "state of fiscal emergency" that would have allowed a parcel property tax hike ballot measure to pass with less than 2/3's voter approval required under Prop 13.

The latter issue has come up in tomorrow's (April 14) fourth Council district election. Candidate Herlinda Chico has indicated that she doesn't rule out supporting a utility tax increase ballot measure...while candidate Daryl Supernaw has indicated that he opposes such a tax increase.

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