At 3 p.m., Council's Public Safety Committee (Price, Supernaw, Austin) Will Discuss "Homicide Stats and Trends" And "Overview of Measure A [Sales Tax Hike] Spending Plan For Public Safety Projects 2017-19"; LBREPORT.com Will Carry Meeting VIDEO Live

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At 3 p.m., Council's Public Safety Committee (Price, Supernaw, Austin) Will Discuss "Homicide Stats and Trends" And "Overview of Measure A [Sales Tax Hike] Spending Plan For Public Safety Projects 2017-19"

LBREPORT.com Will Carry Meeting VIDEO Live

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(Dec. 6, 2016. 11:45 a.m.) -- At 3:00 p.m. today (Dec. 6), the LB City Council's Public Safety Committee (chair Price, vice-chair Supernaw, member Austin) is scheduled to receive a report on homicide stats and trends and discuss [agendized text] "an overview of Measure A [LB voter approved sales tax hike] for public safety projects 2017-19, including public safety resources already committed using Measure A."

Measure A'a ballot title and text -- approved by all incumbent Councilmembers (prior to Pearce) and shown to voters as they marked their ballots -- stated in pertinent part:

[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..."

[Scroll down for further.]

Measure A, placed on the ballot by Council without dissent, was a "blank check" general tax increase, enabling a Council majority to decide on what general fund items it will or won't be spent. Following a roughly $700,000 campaign by a committee whose named officeholder was Mayor Garcia [and whose largest contributors were LB's Police and Firefighter Unions], Measure A passed (with no similarly funded opposition) in June 2016 by a roughly 60%-40% margin (citywide tally.)

In September 2016, three months after LB voters approved Measure A's sales tax increase, LB Councilmembers adopted a FY17 budget recommended by Mayor Garcia that failed to restore LBPD's former field anti-gang unit (20 officers + 2 sergeants.) Instead it restored 10 officers (Garcia recommended 8 out of roughly 200 officers that Long Beach residents no longer receive as a result of Council budget actions since FY10.

The Council's September 2016 budget vote leaves LB taxpayers with a budgeted police level for citywide deployment roughly equivalent per capita to what Los Angeles would have if L.A. Mayor Garcetti and the L.A. City Council cut roughly 30% of LAPD's officers.

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On Nov. 22, 2016, the Council approved (8-0, Andrews absent) an item agendized by Vice Mayor Rex Richardson (joined by co-agendizers Councilmembers Gonzalez, Mungo and Andrews) that asks the City Manager "to evaluate new and ongoing revenue sources" and make "necessry preparations to restore paramedic Rescue 12 in Jan. 2017" and within 90 days provide the Council with a report on the feasibility of a short and long term plan for additional public safety restorations. In presenting his item at the Council meeting, Vice Mayor Richardson also indicated that he wants management's forthcoming report to discuss restoring police.

Councilman Daryl Supernaw (who took office May 2015) made multiple attempts to persuade Vice Mayor Richardson to accept a friendly amendment that would explicitly support restoring Engine 17 (after Rescue 12.) Councilwoman Pearce (took office mid-July 2016) cited a need to restore Engine 101 (after restoring Engine 17) and added that she wants management's report on restoring police to go beyond numbers and address "equity" and "type of policing."

At one point, Supernaw (whose father retired as an honored LBFD firefighter after 28 years of service) signaled that if Richardson didn't accept Supernaw's friendly amendment re restoring Engine 17, he (Supernaw) would have to take a different course (that Supernaw didn't detail publicly.

Vice Mayor Richardson stuck with his originally agendized verbiage, but said that his motion intends to have have management "evaluate that if we have the ability restore [Engines] 17 as well as 101, then put us in the position to do that immediately...[and] if we have the ability to do further [public safety] restorations, put us in the position for the Council to do so." Richardson asked Supernaw and Pearce if that satisifed them; neither of them publicly objected...and Richardson's item carried.

Measure A approved raising LB's sales tax to 10% (when it's 9% in Signal Hill and Lakewood and 8% in most OC cities). It takes effect in Long Beach on Jan. 1, 2017.

In addition, in November 2016, L.A. County voters voted to raise L.A. County's sales tax by a half cent (to pay for Metro transportation projects), meaning LB's sales tax -- which was 9% as 2016 began -- will be 10.5% as 2017 begins.