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Long Beach Mayor Garcia Chosen By Area Officials For Metropolitan Transportation Authority Board...As I-710 Expansion With Long Term Impacts For Residents And Cargo/Port Industry Interests Approaches Key Decisional Votes


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(Jan. 6, 2017) -- After successfully trying last year to change state law to gain a seat on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority Board, Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia has been appointed to the decision making board of the regional transit board using its current appointment process (which includes a procedure weighted to favor Long Beach due to the city's large population compared to other SE L.A. County area cities.)

The MTA Board position is significant beyond buses and trains. Metro is preparing to finalize plans to expand the cargo-truck clogged I-710 freeway, advancing in partnership with officials from the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles along with CalTrans, Gateway Cities Council of Governments and So Cal Ass'n of Governments. Long Beach and other SE L.A. County residents along the freeway's "diesel death zone" have insisted that the I-710 project actually produce air quality improvements, not merely recite them as project "goals." Cargo industry interests and their political allies have expressed varying levels of resistance to some of the emission reduction proposals.

A previously advanced draft EIR/EIS for the I710 expansion that showed a 14-lane expansion drew opposition from freeway-impacted LB residents who, among other things, insisted that the freeway expansion incorporate zero or near-zero emission technologies. Other LB residents voiced concern plans appeared to impact L.A. River levees and flood channel capacity, potentially triggering federal bureaucratic designation as "flood hazard zone" that could impose building/development restrictions and annual "flood insurance" requirements on many home and commercial property owners.

The initial proposed configuration for I710 expansion EIR/EIS was withdrawn and for additional work...and key decisions on the I710 project are now coming up.

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Metro's latest website-stated I710 project schedule indicates plans to recirculate a draft EIR/EIS for public review in Spring 2017 and deciding on a "preferred alternative" for the freeway expansion in mid-2017...in other words, deciding which version (number of lanes, configuration, routes, etc.) of the I710 project will actually advance.

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Garcia's appointment to the Metro Board comes after he endorsed a Metro-board sought half-cent sales tax increase ballot measure (approved by voters Nov. 2016, takes effect July 1, 2017), which now-exited L.A. County Supervisor Don Knabe opposed on grounds its contemplated projects shortchanged SE L.A. County cities, including Long Beach. Garcia's support for the Metro sales tax increase ballot measure came after the LB Council-sought and won voter approval for a LB 1% sales tax increase ballot measure (took effect Jan. 1, 2017.)
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Long Beach previously had a seat on the MTA Board with then-1st district Councilmember/Vice Mayor Bonnie Lowenthal, whose 2008 election to the Sacramento Assembly created the Council vacancy. Garcia was a leader in LB's Young Republicans and an aide to a 3rd district Councilmember who finished second to better-funded 2006 Mayoral candidate Bob Foster. Garcia then moved into the 1st district, changed his declared party preference in the Dem-majority district and gained Council office with less than a majority vote in a 2009 no-runoff special election. Since then, Garcia has been a party-loyal Dem, including serving as a delegate to the 2016 Dem Nat'l Convention and voted to nominate Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders.

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In June 2014, Garcia was elected LB's non-voting mayor with a little over 52% of the runoff vote after he waged a campaign, separately amplified by an independent expenditure campaign supported by exiting Mayor Foster, that together spent more money per vote received than any other campaign in the city's history.

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