City Mgm't Told Mayor & Councilmembers (Dec. 31) Setting A LB Minimum Wage Will Cost City (LB Taxpayers) These Sums, Reiterates Estimated Fiscal Impacts In Memo For Jan. 19 Council Meeting...And We Link To It

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Fact Check / Perspective / Opinion

Mayor Garcia's 2016 "State of the City" Event

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(Jan. 14, 2016) -- As carried LIVE on LBREPORT.com, Mayor Robert Garcia delivered his second "State of the City" message on Jan. 13, 2016. [Update] To view the event on-demand, click here. [end update]

LBREPORT.com provides a fact check and our perspective/opinions below on some salient items.

[Scroll down for further.]

Mayor Garcia	Fact Check / Perspective
Asks Council to work with him to restore LBPD South Division	As part of the FY13 budget -- for which then Vice Mayor/Councilman Garcia voted -- LBPD consolidated South and West Divisions, effectively saving a Commander's salary plus separate office staff. LBPD management told the public at the time that this wouldn't affect sworn officer staffing. If that was true then, then it follows that it won't restore officer staffing for taxpayers now. "The officers previously assigned to the South Division will deploy out of the West Division Substation at 1835 Santa Fe Avenue instead of Police Headquarters in downtown Long Beach," said an October 2012 LBPD release. In his State of the City message, Mayor Garcia didn't specify how he proposes to pay for restoring the Commander salary and other Division administrative staff.
Cites increases in crime but says other cities have seen increases too.	Mayors and Councilmembers in other cities didn't eliminate roughly 20% of their sworn deployable citywide officers, as Long Beach's Mayors and Councilmembers did. Mayor Garcia did NOT propose restoring LBPD's field anti-gang unit, eliminated in budgets he approved as a voting Councilmember and recommended as Mayor. The actions amplified the damaging effects of Sac'to's "realignment" of its incarceration practices and Prop 47's reduction of multiple felonies to misdemeanors.
Asks Council to restore full staffing (Engine) in Fire Station 8 (Belmont Shore)	As a voting Councilmember/Vice Mayor, Garcia voted for former Mayor Foster's so-called "proportional reductions" that caused LBFD management to eliminate Engine 8 in Station 8 (and Engines at two other stations.) Mayor Garcia recommended continuing this in his own August-September 2015 proposed FY16 budget...and he doesn't explain now how proposes to pay to restore the sums.
Indicated he supports Economic Development Commission's recommended minimum wage of $13/hr by 2019.	$13/hr in 2019 effectively invites $15/hr by 2020. Garcia publicly acknowledged the $13/hr minimum wage results will be re-examined in 2019, at which time advocates will obviously press for $15/hr in 2020...and by which time the Council's current incumbents may have gotten through the 2018 election cycle (Council districts 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9 + Mayor.)
Says his "top priority" and that of Council is protecting LB Airport noise ordinance	Apparent reference to "feasibility study" re allowing a federal customs facility enabling int'l passenger and cargo operations that couldn't be limited to a single operator. The record is: (1) Garcia, Andrews, Lowenthal and Austin were among Councilmembers who received Airport mgm't memos in the latter half of 2013 advising them of actions it was taking to explore customs facility/int'l flights. They failed to disclose the memos to the public, effectively helping keep the issue out of the 2014 election cycle [when Garcia was running for Mayor and five other Council candidates (now incumbents) were seeking office.] (2) Airport management initially tried to portray its actions as preliminary but LBREPORT.com discovered the memos and more showing the true extent of Airport management's actions through a 2014 Public Records request. LBREPORT.com coverage here.; (3) City Attorney's office allowed Airport management's 2013 actions despite lack of Council voted approval [and no authority for the actions in Municipal Code we can find]; (4) the Council and Mayor have to date failed to hold any publicly agendized discussion specifically on risks to the City's protective Airport ordinance that allowing a customs facility and int'l passenger and cargo operators would arguably create; (5) a 2015 Council "study session" on the Airport ordinance failed to discuss risks to the ordinance from allowing international operators. (6) the Council and Mayor have failed to invite testimony from former Airport Advisory Commissioner (current City Prosecutor) Doug Haubert who described the risks in detail in Feb. 2015 testimony to the Airport Advisory Comm'n. LBREPORT.com coverage here. (7) the "feasibility study" won't discuss risks to the Airport ordinance leaving that to the City Attorney's office; (8) City Attorney's office [to our knowledge] hasn't retained special aviation counsel on this issue [which it did in 2001 when its previous advice about a Council voted Airport action proved wrong and put LB's Airport ordinance at risk]; (9) City management has now scheduled a Jan. 19, 2016 agenda item proposing a $300,000+ contract for the "feasibility study," on the same night as the Council will take up the hot-button minimum wage issue. At that time, a Councilmember(s) could move to withhold proceeding with the contract until the City Attorney fully discusses risks to the City's protective Airport ordinance that arguably would result if the Council were to allow a customs facility enabling an entirely new class of int'l passenger and cargo carriers to seek flight slots that might not be available under the Ordinance.

[Publisher's Opinion] LBREPORT.com notes that when the President and Governor deliver their respective "state of the union" and "state of the state" messages, lawmakers (in Congress and the state legislature) on both sides of the political spectrum routinely perform "check and balance" functions. They raise issues in response to policies advocated by the President or Governor.

The President and Governor present their messages in the legislative chamber, a sign of respect to elected lawmakers who will ultimately decide on whether to approve or change the proposed policies.

Over the years, Mayor O'Neill and (in a different manner) under Mayor Foster turned the events into social occasions, now taken to its most extreme form under Mayor Garcia (complete with food trucks, music and a "reception.")

Mayor Garcia led his State of the City address this year by discussing something over which he has no legal authority: a "college promise" program begun by LBCC and LBUSD leadership without him. On taking office, Garcia added his signature (without prior Council approval) to a non-binding document that drew press attention, useful politically since voters routinely ask city elected officials to deal with educational issues over which they have no legal control. Mayor Garcia (along with politicians in some other cities) has since tried to portray creating "internships" as related to education (a stretch) although it clearly has nothing to do with operation of the City of Long Beach for its taxpayers who pay his salary.

Mayor Garcia was introduced this year (as last year) by his political ally, soon-to-exit Vice Mayor Suja Lowenthal. This year, she gave him what we considered a near cult-of-personality level introduction, preceded by a slick advertorial-style marketing video on Long Beach. We are quite sure that a President or Governor would be ridiculed if they preceded their views on policy matters to lawmakers with some marketing video showing tourist sites and photogenic venues.

In our opinion, the lack of serious check and balance in these annual spectacles has become visibly embarrassing. No serious person would pretend that a President or a Governor's views should decide the policy course for the nation or state or is somehow the only true path forward.

It's not up to Mayor Garcia to change this. Taxpaying residents and businesses can -- and should -- insist that Councilmembers they elect take positions reflective of what they as taxpayers want, not simply what this or an other Mayor tells them to do. That is the essence of the check and balance system elsewhere in this country and in our opinion is overdue for return here.

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