A few hours later, city management issued a release confirming that City Hall and LBPOA negotiating teams had reached what officials call a "tentative agreement" (a new labor contract) but with no details for taxpayers.

[Scroll down for further.]

Under LB's current system, LB taxpayers will be the last to learn what City Hall negotiators offered to pay and the union's negotiators agreed to accept. The terms of the tentative POA contract are almost certainly known to LB Councilmembers who, with the Mayor present, presumably approved the offer in a recent closed session. LBPOA's rank and file officers will learn the details before LB taxpayers do when they vote in January on whether to accept or reject the proposed new contract. If the union members accept it, only then will taxpayers be told a few days before a Council public vote to approve the deal.

In Feb. 2014, then-Mayoral candidate Gerrie Schipske proposed examining the feasibility of an ordinance that would change this closed-door process by requiring City Hall transparency in labor negotiations, similar to an ordinance enacted by the Costa Mesa City Council. The effort narrowly failed, with then-Mayoral candidate/now-Mayor Robert Garcia twice voting against the transparency measure. (For details on what happened, see LBREPORT.com's Amnesia File details at the conclusion of this article or jump here.)

Advertisement

Advertisement Computer Repair Long Beach For FREE Computer Tip, click here.

In City Hall's press release on the tentative LBPOA-City Hall pact, Mayor Garcia describes the agreement is "fair, values their hard work...and allows us to retain and attract the best recruits to Long Beach." LBPOA President James says the agreement was reached "with the intention of making sure we maintain the high quality Police Department the citizens of Long Beach expect and deserve."

What this will actually mean for LB taxpayers hasn't been disclosed.

From September 2009 (FY10) to the present, there is no record of the LBPOA's leadership testifying in opposition to Council budget actions that erased roughly 200 police police officers that LB taxpayers previously had. During this period, Councilmembers eliminated the largest number of officers available for citywide deployment within a five year period in the more than 100 year history of the City of Long Beach. (Other area cities weathered the so-called "Great Recession" without eliminating roughly 20% of their deployable police officers.) Despite this record, the LBPOA PAC's leadership has supported the re-election and advancement of Councilmembers who voted to erase these police officers for taxpayers. They include then-1st dist. Council representative Garcia (took office May 2009, elected Mayor in 2014) and Council incumbents Al Austin (8th dist.) and Dee Andrews (6th dist.) (re-elected in April 2016.)

[Ed note: In each election cycle, LBREPORT.com routinely asks LBPOA Pres. James to publicly release the recordings its PAC makes of its candidate endorsement interviews so the public can hear what LBPOA's PAC asked and how its endorsees answered. Lt. James has routinely declined to do so, saying he will never release the recordings.]

Word of the new LBPOA contract comes just days before LB consumers begin paying LB's Measure A ("blank check") sales tax increase starting on Jan. 1, 2017. With the new year, LB consumers will be paying 9.75% sales tax while Signal Hill consumers will pay 8.75% until July 1, 2017 when all L.A. County cities sales tax rates will increase by 0.5% more to 10.25% for Long Beach and 9.25% for Signal Hill...while most OC consumers will pay roughly 8.0%.

Advertisement

Advertisement

The Long Beach Police Officers Association PAC was the largest single contributor in support of the Measure A ("blank check") sales tax hike ballot measure campaign. It contributed $200,000 in cash, plus $13,300 in "in-kind" contributions, prior to the election...and gave the committee another $25,000 after the election. (Mayor Garcia is the named officeholder for the Measure A sales tax campaign committee.)

City Hall wrote Measure A in a way that lets Councilmembers spend the new tax revenue for any general fund items they wish -- including new union contracts -- but it sent LB voters mailers that on several occasions focused on public safety, including the one below:

Measure A campaign mailer

Measure A'a ballot title and text was approved by Council voted action (Austin was absent that day; Pearce had not yet been elected). Voters saw the following title and text on their ballots:

[All caps in original] "CITY OF LONG BEACH PUBLIC SAFETY, INFRASTRUCTURE REPAIR AND NEIGHBORHOOD SERVICES MEASURE. To maintain 911 emergency response services; increase police, firefighter/paramedic staffing; repair potholes/streets; improve water supplies; and maintain general services..."

Roughly 60 days after LB voters approved Measure A (passed roughly 60%-40% citywide, failed in 5th district), Mayor Garcia recommended a city management prepared budget (Aug. 2016) that proposed to restore only 8 out of roughly 200 officers eliminated by Council votes (including Garcia's) since Sept. 2009 (FY10). The Council added two more budgeted officers to the eight proposed by city management/Mayor Garcia, restoring a total of 10 officers to date for taxpayers. (As currently planned, most of Measure A's revenue will be spent in FYs 17, 18 and 19 mainly infrastructure items.)

Advertisement

Advertisement

As previously reported by LBREPORT.com, on Dec. 6, the Council's Public Safety Committee (chair Price, vice chair Supernaw, member Austin) was told by city budget staffer Lea Ericksen acknowledged that there is no plan currently in place for public safety restorations for taxpayers beyond what the Council approved in its Sept. 2016 budget vote (restored Engine 8, restored LBPD's south division (moved some officers from previously consolidated west+south division) and restored 10 budgeted officers.) City management indicated it plans to present the Council with options for additional public safety restorations in January. (A Nov. 23 Council voted action directed city management to begin preparations to restore NLB's paramedic Rescue 12 report to the Council within 90 days [i.e. by February.]).

The full text of City Hall's Dec. 24 press release follows below:

The City of Long Beach has reached a tentative agreement with the Police Officers Association (POA) over a successor labor agreement. The POA represents over 800 Long Beach Police Officers.

"I'm grateful that we have reached a tentative agreement with our Police Officers that is fair, values their hard work for the City, and allows us to retain and attract the best recruits to Long Beach," said Mayor Robert Garcia. "I want to thank the POA leadership and the City negotiating team for their months of hard work, leading right up to Christmas Eve."

The POA membership is set to vote on the tentative agreement in January. If approved, the agreement would go before the City Council for final approval in February.

"I want to thank the Mayor, City Council, and City Management for demonstrating their commitment to public safety," said Steve James, POA President. "The agreement was reached through a collaborative process, with the intention of making sure we maintain the high quality Police Department the citizens of Long Beach expect and deserve. During this holiday season, this agreement is one more reason to be thankful."

Advertisement

Costa Mesa's ordinance requires the City to use an independently hired negotiator; perform a fiscal impact analysis on each contract term and making the analysis public; requires each Councilmember to disclose if he/she had any communications about negotiations with representatives of the employee association; and publicly report after closed sessions any prior offers and counter offers and their fiscal impact on taxpayers. In addition, before voting on an employee contract, Councilmembers must discuss it publicly during at least two City Council meetings with the proposal posted on the city's website at least seven days before the first meeting. [For details on the COIN process from the City of Costa Mesa's website, click here.]

Long Beach City Hall doesn't provide -- and a Council majority in Feb. 2014 didn't even want to explore the feasibility or seek the pros/cons of providing -- this transparency for its taxpayers in labor negotiations because the following took place:

Councilwoman Schipske's motion was seconded by DeLong. Councilman [now Assemblyman] O'Donnell, seconded by Austin, made a substitute motion to "receive and file" (take no action on) Schipske's proposal. DeLong, seconded by Lowenthal, made a substitute-substitute motion to approve Schipske's recommendation and ask the City Manager to provide a Human Resources Dept. report on the pros/cons of the proposal.

The DeLong-Lowenthal substitute narrowly failed 4-4 (Yes: DeLong, Schipske, Andrews, Johnson; No: Garcia, Lowenthal, O'Donnell, Austin; Absent: Neal).

The O'Donnell/Austin substitute (to "receive/file" kill the transparency proposal) then passed 5-3 (Yes: Garcia, Lowenthal, O'Donnell, Johnson and Austin; No: DeLong, Schipske, Andrews; Absent: Neal.)

(Return to top, click here.)

Further on the tentative LBPOA contract as we learn it on LBREPORT.com.