Because His Twitter "Tweet" May Have Breached Brown Act, Councilman Richardson Agendizes Re-Vote On His Proposal To Name NLB Library For Michelle Obama; Item Will Now Collide With Jan. 19 Agenda Items On Minimum Wage And "Feasibility Study" Contract Re Airport Customs Facility/Int'l Flights

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(Jan. 12, 2016, updated 10:22 a.m. from 7:40 a.m.) -- In an unusual item -- the second to reach the City Council within its past two meetings although under different circumstances -- the City Council is being asked to rescind its voted action and re-vote an item because its initial vote may have taken place in circumstances that violated CA's Brown (Open Meetings) Act.

Councilman Rex Richardson has agendized an item for the Jan. 19 Council meeting to rescind and re-vote the Council's recommendation to consider naming the new north branch library the "Michelle Obama Neighborhood Library" on grounds that [Richardson agendizing memo text]

"It has come to my attention that a tweet from my twitter account seeking support of this agenda item was mistakenly sent to four of my colleagues on the City Council immediately prior to the December 22, 2015 Council meeting. In order to comply fully with the Brown Act, I am requesting Council take the following action to cure any possible violation of the Brown Act by rescinding the previous action and properly scheduling this matter for reconsideration by the City Council."

[Scroll down for further.]

The item has been placed on the Council's "consent calendar" -- which allows public comment but can only be "pulled" for separate discussion and possible separate action (and thus a separate recorded vote) by a Councilmember, the Mayor or management. On Dec. 22, the Council voted with a minimum quorum present -- 5-0 (details below) -- to approve an item (agendized by Richardson, joined by Lowenthal, Austin and Price) that requested "the City Council to consider naming the new north branch library, the "Michelle Obama Neighborhood Library," in honor of her contributions to youth, education, literacy, and the United States and refer this item to the Housing and Neighborhoods Committee for consideration; request the Library Services Department and Department of Parks/Rec "to conduct further outreach to engage youth and library patrons around the naming of the library"; and direct the City Manager to work with the White House to invite the First Lady to the City of Long Beach for a naming dedication ceremony if approved.."

On December 22, the item carried 5-0 (Yes: Gonzalez, Lowenthal, Uranga, Austin, Richardson) with Councilmembers Supernaw, Mungo, Andrews and Price absent for the entire meeting. Price was a co-agendizer, meaning three Councilmembers -- Supernaw, Mungo and Andrews -- haven't taken a public position on the matter. Any of them -- or any Councilmember -- has a right to "pull" the item for separate discussion on Jan. 19 or offer substitute motions at that time.

On Dec. 22, multiple public speakers (including school children) spoke in unified support; a number of members of the public spoke in opposition (several urging the library be named for local figures.)

Councilman Richardson has scheduled a Jan. 21 event (6:30-8:30 p.m.) at Houghton Park for what an email by him calls "a community discussion on the proposal." In a recent mass emailing, Councilman Richardson states: "While we had an overwhelming number of residents attend the meeting to voice their support for the concept, we will be conducting further outreach to gather more input and build consensus."

As previously reported by LBREPORT.com, on December 22, the City Council also voted to rescind and re-vote its approval of a new 66 year lease / land development agreement for a new Queen Mary operator after retired Deputy City Attorney Jim McCabe hired a law firm which raised a Brown Act issue. The law firm by letter alleged the initial Council action violated the Brown Act by failing to state that the agendized item pertained to the Queen Mary [the agenda listed only assessor's parcel number.] The City Attorney's office didn't concede the argument on the merits but recommended rescinding and re-voting the item.

Three days before Christmas, Mr. McCabe was the only public speaker to come to speak; he again raised issues about the lease on the merits; no Councilmember(s) asked questions of him or staff on the issues he raised or pulled the item for separate discussion (and thus a separate recorded vote for them) and voted to approve the consent calendar as a whole with the item. [LBREPORT.com coverage, including on-demand audio of Mr. McCabe's testimony click here.]

The NLB library name re-vote is scheduled to collide with Council consideration of two hot button items: (1) whether to set Long Beach minimum wage and if so at what level -- an issue that on Jan. 6 led to hours of public testimony and discussion in a Council committee -- and (2) a $300,000+ contract to hire a firm for a Council majority directed (July 7, 2015, 6-3, Austin, Uranga, Supernaw dissenting) "feasibility study" on whether to allow a federal customs facility at LB Airport enabling international flights -- passenger and cargo -- and couldn't be restricted to one operator. The action would effectively change LB's domestic municipal airport to an facility for international passenger and/or cargo operations.

JetBlue publicly requested that the City seek federal approval for a federal customs facility in early 2015, but a Public Records Act request by LBREPORT.com in 2014 showed that now-previous LB Airport management worked quietly throughout much of 2013 on the issue with JetBlue...and LB Airport's actions were without publicly voted Council approval [or any Municipal Code authority that we can find.] The internal documents obtained by LBREPORT.com disclosed memos sent to the Mayor and Council in the latter half of 2013 summarizing Airport management's actions...which no Councilmember publicly disclosed entering the 2014 election cycle. [LBREPORT.com coverage here.]

A Council majority could vote to hold the minimum wage item or the Airport contract item over to a subsequent Council meeting. A special meeting has been scheduled for Jan. 26 to make up for the Jan. 12 Council meeting quietly cancelled without previous notice as the Council ended its Jan. 5 meeting. At that time, Mayor Garcia indicated there might be "quorum" issues [not enough Councilmembers present] on Jan. 12. Garcia had already re-scheduled his "State of the City" message for Jan. 13 so as not to collide with President Obama's "State of the Union" message.