In responses to questions posed by Vice Mayor Lowenthal [Mayor Garcia's choice to chair the Council's Budget Oversight Committee]. Fire Chief Duree said that in the month preceding implementation of the RMD [Rapid Medic Deployment/pilot test of new paramedic system]. L.A. County Fire responded under its "automatic aid system" to 24 calls for service for emergency medical calls and the OC Fire Authority responded to 32 calls for service. Following implementation of RMD, the L.A. County Fire Dept. has responded to zero calls for such automatic aid and the OC Fire Authority has responded to six, three of which were for 605 freeway accidents (meaning they would have been dispatched anyway.)

Lowenthal also asked for a comparison of the RMD cost now (ambulance + EMT)) vs. the pre-RMD cost (ambulance with two paramedics.) Chief DuRee says the RMD cost for a paramedic + EMT is $723,305 annually vs. while an ambulance with two paramedics (previous system) was $1,049,248 [a differential of $325,943.] Later in the Council meeting, in response to a question from Councilman Rex Richardson, Chief DuRee said the target budget savings in from the RMD system is $1.4 million per year.

Chief DuRee said restoring Fire Engine 8 to Belmont Shore would cost $2.2 million [a figure that seems higher than what had been mentioned previously; we're checking this.] Chief DuRee said that if funds were to somehow become available, his order for restoring Fire Engines would be Engine 8 [Belmont Shore], Engine 101 [downtown alongside currently funded Engine 1], Engine 17 [Los Altos] and made no mention of Engine 18 [Palo Verde/Wardlow.] 4th district Councilman Patrick O'Donnell was absent for the full meeting, thus unable to raise the issue of restoring downtown Engine 101 (to a station that already has Engine 1 operating) before restoring Engine 17. 4th dist. resident Herlinda Chico [a likely candidate to enter a winner-take-all special election to fill the remainder of O'Donnell's term if he's elected to the Assembly in November] spoke from the public speakers podium and said she supports the PD/FD budgets proposed.

7th district Councilman Roberto Uranga said that regarding paramedics/RMD, he doesn't "really think there's an issue with the level of patient care" with RMD, as LBFD is allowed to make adjustments and tweak the system to ensure it's effective. Chief DuRee said the County Emergency Medical Services Agency is closely monitoring LBFD's data on a monthly basis.

"Our Gang enforcement section strategies have been successful, We've used non-recurring funding to extent shifts to investigate and solve crimes and made arrests that prevented additional crimes...These efforts have paid off in reducing gang related murders and shootings," Chief McDonnell said.

After hearing the Chief's presentation of the crime stats, 6th district Councilman Dee Andrews remarked, "[From] the stats we've heard this evening, who wouldn't want to live in Long Beach? It's probably one of the safest cities in the world."

Regarding Sacramento's budget-driven "realignment" of prison responsibilities (sending a number of former state inmates back to L.A. County and thus LB), Chief McDonnell said LBPD had created a "Public Safety Realignment Team" which conducted "582 compliance checks and made 172 arrests."

Chief McDonnell said LBPD is restructuring some positions in the FY15 budget to "allow sworn personnel to focus more proactively impacting crime." The FY15 budget includes transferring juvenile booking and detention activities to the jail division, so that detectives from juvenile investigations can assist with pressing cases in burglary, computer crimes, homicide and vice. "We'll continue to dedicate detectives and school resource officers to work juvenile specific cases. We're adding 11 new positions and reorganizing support staff in the business desk, Civic Center security and case filing duties to reduce overtime..."

Following up later in the Council meeting, Chief McDonnell said

[Chief McDonnell] We're moving individuals around within that function to be able to focus on where we get the most success from the people we have. We're increasing the career criminal investigation detail; we're increasing burglary investigation; we're increasing computer crime investigation, as well as vice investigation...What we're tried to do as best we can is to be able, as we have with gangs, to be able to make more of our officers generalists, if you will, and detectives. When we talk about gangs we focus on gang members but as we know that they do all sorts of crimes so they're involved in homicides, shootings, burglaries, robberies, and so as best we can we try and boost the expertise of all of our detectives and officers to be able to deal more effectively in this realm. The issue I guess the cost to us is that we don't have as many people who are over many years experts in a particular gang so that's something that we try and remediate but we want to be able to increase the level of expertise across the board of all of our folks." He added, "It's to be able to make all of our officers and detectives more able to be able to handle whatever comes their way." "And we're going to see more officers on the street?" "We're constantly in a state where we're using the flexibility we have to be able to address the problems as they come before us. We use crime analysis to be able to identify trends, patters, clusters of crime, and to be able then to use the resources we have in a way that we're as nimble as we can be to be able to have the maximum impact.

Asked by Councilman Austin about specific budgeted staff positions, Chief McDonnell indicated that the total number of Council sworn officers funded in the proposed management/Mayor FY15 budget is 736 officers, while the total budgeted sworn officers is 806 which includes 70 contracted officers. [Contracted officers are paid by and tasked to handle matters at the Port/Airport/LBTransit/LBUSD/LBCC/Carmelitos, not available for routine citywide deployment.]

Several Councilmembers expressed concern about residential burglaries. Third district Councilwoman Suzie Price made an especially strong statement regarding budget and PD priorities: :

[Councilwoman Price] I understand that these are tough financial times. They've been more difficult in the past. They're going to continue to be difficult in the future, but I firmly believe that if a city can't provide a safe place for its residents then the city has failed. And in that regard, anyone who says that 'you can have the safest city in the world but if you don't have all the other amenities that go with a great city then what do you have?' hasn't talked to a victim of crime. They haven't talked to someone whose home has been burglarized, or someone who's been assaulted in the street. And I really believe that when looking at the budget in the coming month and in the years ahead, I'm going to be looking at it with an eye towards how we ensure the safety of our citizens both by Long Beach Police Department and the Long Beach Fire Department.

Councilwoman Price then raised the issue of property crime, acknowledged that as a large city , Long Beach has multiple needs for police service, including violent crimes that take priority when it comes to investigation and focus but added:

[Councilwoman Price] ...I will say that in some communities within the city of Long Beach, specifically my community which is where I have some expertise, the issue of property crimes and residential burglaries is one that continues to trouble the residents in my community and me included. And I would like us to think long term and strategically about how we are going to address the issue of property crimes. I fully support and our office has actually engaged in a community watch program challenge that we have undertaken as a result of Commander LeBaron's leadership. I firmly believe that it's a partnership but it's important for me to know that we as a city have a police department that has a strategic plan and is vested in determining what our long term options are going to be in resource allocation to the issue of property crimes. We will be having a Public Safety [Committee] meeting on Sept. 5 and one of the items on the agenda will be looking at public safety in terms of property crimes and a strategic plan for the future.

Councilwoman Price then asked Chief McDonnell directly: "If in fact additional monies were available, could you find a place to allocate them where there would be a focus on residential burglaries and property crime?" Chief McDonnell replied: "Absolutely. If we're able to find additional crime and we can earmark it, we can certainly focus on property crimes."

After discussing current efforts being undertaken regarding residential burglaries (including "community watch"), Chief McDonnell added, "We're doing what we can with the resources we have now. If we had more, we certainly could benefit from that but I think there's a lot of things that we can do in the short term that cost little or nothing, more strategies than anything else."

5th district Councilwoman Stacy Mungo was the only Councilmember to draw the connection between business competitiveness and public safety, thanking LBPD for its shoplifting task force, hoping it can be expanded not only to y small businesses but to bigger businesses "that are also being hit with some major shrinkage in our city right now. We've been talking to some regional directors of major box companies that are in the district and we know that for businesses to be here, they need to feel safe." [The Chief said the shoplifting task force is periodic and regional with an L.A. County commercial task force.]

9th district Councilman Rex Richardson pressed Chief McDonnell on elimination of LBPD's field anti-gang unit (budgeted until FY13 for 20 officers + 2 sergeants.) Chief McDonnell noted that LBPD still has detectives working gangs, but not a gang field team. Chief McDonnell said, "The gang field team would be on the field on a nightly basis interacting with people involved in gang activity. We have other detectives who do intelligence work and work behind the scenes on case filing and developing intelligence, and sharing that intelligence."

1st dist. Councilwoman Lena Gonzalez asked if some of the currently proposed FY15 budgeted overtime could be used for bike patrols; Chief McDonnell said basically no; the overtime proposed in the FY15 budget will be used to enable LBPD to be flexible on pressing matters as they occur (including violent crime, "payback" shootings and the like) and to focus on patterns of crime.

During public testimony, Claudia Schou, who at the Aug. 5 Council meeting described drug use and other conditions in Bixby Park (including open rug use, frightening off families in Bixby Park and other parks) again called for restoring/bolstering the Park Ranger program. Ms. Schou read a list of neighborhood groups that support this...and Councilwoman Price, who chairs the Council's Public Safety Committee, said she'll seek a report on this when her committee meets on Sept. 5...but made no commitment to support restoring any park rangers (nor did Schou's Council representative, Vice Mayor Suja Lowenthal, who didn't respond at all during the Council meeting.)

There was no testimony from either the police officers union (LBPOA) or the LB firefighters union (LBFFA).

The bottom line: after a Council budget discussion that began at roughly 7:00 p.m. and stretched into the 9:00 p.m. hour, no Long Beach Councilmembers publicly stated that they would move or vote to restore budgeted officers for taxpayers (roughly 200 cut since 2009), or restore LBPD's anti-gang field unit, or restore three LBFD fire engines (no longer staffed) or restore LB's paramedic system to what it was before its current ongoing test.

In the coming days, city management/staff will take part in budget meetings in several Council districts. The meetings will present city management's views; they have no enactment powers; and city management/staff aren't elected and can't make any changes to what's been proposed. Only Councilmembers can do that (a five member majority, subject to a Mayoral veto that six Councilmembers can override.)

Council budget enactment votes won't take place until early September...with the Council facing an enactment deadline on or before September 15. There are two regularly scheduled Council meetings before then on September 2 and September 9. The Council's Public Safety Committee (Price, Austin, Mungo) can offer recommendations to the full Council) and is scheduled to hold its first meeting on September 5.

And finally: the Council enacted budget can be revisited and changed in most cases "on any Tuesday" by a Council majority.

Further to follow on LBREPORT.com.