Mayor Garcia's "Officeholder Account" Received $1,000 Contrib From Union PAC Whose Union Leadership Includes Official Who Moved Into LB In May And Garcia Appointed In July To Fill Sudden-Announced Vacancy On LB Planning Comm'n; Garcia Used His "Officeholder Account" To Give Funds To Pro-Rent Control "Housing Long Beach" And To L.A. Dem Congressional Candidate

' Mayor Garcia's "Officeholder Account" Received $1,000 Contrib From Union PAC Whose Union Leadership Includes Official Who Moved Into LB In May And Garcia Appointed In July To Fill Sudden-Announced Vacancy On LB Planning Comm'n; Garcia Used His "Officeholder Account" To Give Funds To Pro-Rent Control "Housing Long Beach" And To L.A. Dem Congressional Candidate

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(Aug. 1, 2017) -- A form timely-filed on July 31 with the LB City Clerk's office shows Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia's "Officeholder Account" received a maximum $1,000 contribution on May 26 from the political action committee for the "Laborers Plaster and Tenders" Union ("LiUNA!") Local 1309. The union's leadership includes Josh LaFarga, a former L.A. resident and L.A. City Hall Commission appointee, who bought a North Long Beach home in late May and Mayor Garcia appointed to LB's Planning Commission in mid-July.

Mayor Garcia's action filled the abrupt resignation (effective in October) of a Planning Commission incumbent, whose exit effective Oct. 1 Mayor Garcia announced on the same day he announced his appointment of Mr. LaFarga. On July 18, the Council voted to approve the appointment (among several other Mayoral choices) 8-0 (Councilwoman Gonzalez recused herself as the Mayor appointed her significant other to the LB Transit governing board.)

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The LiUNA! union PAC previously gave:

$1,000 to Mayor Garcia's officeholder account in May 2016
$750 to Councilman Roberto Uranga's officeholder account in Sept. 2016.
$400 to the re-election campaign (2016 write-in) of Councilmember Dee Andrews
$800 ($400 primary + $400 runoff) to the 2016 election campaign of Council candidate Jeannine Pearce
$40,000 (May 2016) to the "Mayor Garcia, Foster & O'Neill Committee to Support Measures A & B..." sales tax increase on the June 2016 ballot)

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Also visible in the July 31 filing: Mayor Garcia used his officeholder account to give $1,000 to "Housing Long Beach", an advocacy group that supports Council enactment of a "just cause" renter-eviction ordinance; on its Facebook page, the group stated in a July 27 dispatch: "Long Beach needs just-cause eviction and rent control now!" [In a noteworthy irony, the Apartment Association, CA Southern Cities, gave Garcia's officeholder account $1,000 in the latter half of 2016.]

Garcia also used a controversial Council-majority approved change in LB law to spend his officeholder account sums in the first half of 2017 to give a $1,000 to the campaign to elect Jimmy Gomez, a Los Angeles Dem Assemblyman, to Congress.

On April 18, 2017, the Council voted 5-3 (Supernaw, Price, Mungo dissenting, Richardson absent) on April 18 to let Councilmembers, the Mayor and other citywide electeds to use "officeholder" accounts, whose allowable totals a Council majority voted to triple in 2015, to support candidates flavored by the incumbents running for other LB, state or federal offices.

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The Council's April 18 vote followed Council majority action in early 2015 that tripled amounts Councilmembers, the Mayor and other citywide electeds can collect in their officeholder accounts. The change that tripled collectable officeholder sums in 2015 was led by Councilwoman Lena Gonzalez, who was an aide to then 1st Council Councilman/Vice Mayor Garcia, elected to the Council in mid-2014. Mayor Garcia then chose her to chair the Elections Oversight Committee, where she led efforts to triple officeholder collectable sums.

Mayor Garcia and five Council incumbents -- Gonzalez, Price, Mungo, Uranga and Richardson -- are seeking currently re-election in the April/June 2018 city election cycle.

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