2nd district Council Race: City Hall Incumbents Suja Lowenthal, Rex Richardson And Roberto Uranga Endorse Jeannine Pearce; Former Mayor Bob Foster & LB Police Officers Ass'n PAC Endorse Eric Gray

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(Jan. 22, 2016) -- In LB's 2nd dist. Council race -- in which the winner will have a vote on spending priorities, development issues and taxpayer impacting policies citywide -- City Council incumbents Suja Lowenthal, Rex Richardson and Roberto Uranga today (Jan. 22) announced that they endorse Jeannine Pearce. Lowenthal, who has represented the 2nd Council district since late June 2006, is exiting in mid-July under term limits.

In a release yesterday (Jan. 21) Eric Gray's campaign that he is endorsed by the LB Police Officers Association Political Action Committee (PAC) and today (Jan. 22) the Gray campaign announced the endorsement of former Mayor Bob Foster.

As previously reported by LBREPORT.com, Ms. Pearce was one of two candidates at a Jan. 20 candidate forum who didn't name any votes by ten-year incumbent Lowenthal with which she disagreed. She told the audience at a forum organized by the LB area group of the Sierra Club that Councilmembers "have information that we the public don't always have" and have "stakeholders sitting with them, trying to educate them" so to say one doesn't agree with their voted action "is a difficult statement to make" and she added that "our leadership in the city has done a great job." (Candidate Joen Garnica said she was "stumped" by the question.)

Mr. Gray told the audience that although he agreed with incumbent Lowenthal on many things, off the top of his head he could name two votes with which he disagreed: a parking meter rate hike in downtown Long Beach to $1.50/hr and Lowenthal's support for a 2013 proposed County parcel tax [to fund stormwater runoff clean-up] that would have cost the LB Unified School District an estimated $700,000+ annually. (Mr. Gray said he respected the measure's intent but disagreed with how it went about it; the City Council voted 6-2 [Schipske & Austin dissenting, DeLong absent] to support the measure; the County Board of Supervisors ultimately declined to put it on the ballot.)

As also previously reported by LBREPORT.com, on Jan. 21 Vice Mayor Lowenthal's office sent an email communication from the City's longbeach.gov email domain indicating she'd be making an endorsement of a then-unnamed candidate in the 2nd district race and the City Attorney's office told LBREPORT.com that it sees no legal violation in connection with the email communication.

Vote by mail ballots begin flying in March; "election day" is April 12. If no candidate receives 50%+1 votes in April, the top two finishers will compete in a June runoff.