"No further public reports are planned as of now," said John Pope, LBCC's Director, Office of Communications & Community Engagement, in a June 29, 2017 email to LBREPORT.com...following brief March 2017 discussion of joint uses (as a non-agendized item) at an LBCC Board of Trustees meeting sparked by testimony from LB taxpayters Gordana Kajer and Ann Cantrell. The two women are outspoken opponents of City Hall plans to build a $103+ million Aquatic Center on the seismically problematic site that doomed the now-demolished Belmont Plaza Olympic Pool, now also deemed subject to future sea level rise along the sand in Belmont Shore.

LBCC also provided LBREPORT.com with a letter dated November 7, 2016 from LBCC's then-Superintendent-President, Eloy Ortiz Oakley, to Mayor Robert Garcia, stating that LBCC's current pool (which the new LBCC Aquatics Center would replace) is heavily used by LBCC students, faculty, staff and community and currently scheduled from 7 a.m.-10 p.m. each weekday, with various events on weekends. On that basis and related grounds, LBCC Superintendent-President Oakley's letter rejected City Hall's proposed "partnership" in which, it appears from his letter text, LBCC students would have used the City-planned Belmont Aquatics Center in lieu of the LBCC campus Aquatics Center.

And although Mr. Oakley's letter didn't mention financial aspects of City Hall's proposed "partnership" in rejecting it, interim Superintendent-President Ann-Marie Gabel did a few months later in extemporaneous remarks at the March 28, 2017 LBCC Board of Trustees meeting. Ms. Gabel revealed that the City had proposed that LBCC shift $28 million that voters approved for a new aquatics center at LBCC's ELB campus to help fund City Hall's controversial [and still not yet fully funded] Belmont Pool project.

While this was taking place behind closed doors, the Belmont Pool hadn't yet come to legally-required public hearings and voted actions by LB's Planning Commission and City Council.

[Scroll down for further.]

[Initial plan shows east at the top, with Carson St. vertically on left half of page. Source: Enlarged portion of LBCC Facilities Master Plan, May 2016]

However LBCC's May 2016 Facilities Master Plan (released a month before voters would vote on Measure LB) indicates the planning phase for the LBCC Aquatics Center is anticipated to begin in the summer of 2017 with the project's design phase to follow in 2018 (in other words, basically now.) Based on this timeline, LBCC could presumably consider changes to its current plan that would accommodate joint uses, handle larger spectator audiences, provide higher diving platforms and include other amenities...and how much this would cost and who would pay for it.

It's currently unclear to what extent, if at all, this is being examined by LBCC's new Superintendent-President Dr. Reagan Romali, who inherited all of this on her recent arrival. However it is clear (as indicated by LBCC's spokesman above) that "no further public reports are planned as of now."

LBCC's planned Aquatics Center is described in LBCC's Feb. 28, 2017 publication of its "2016 Citizens' Oversight Committee Annual Report" which included the following:

Upcoming Construction Projects

2017 will have several large-scale projects [including] continuing the design phase for the Outdoor Kinesiology Labs including the new Aquatic Center. Our Facilities Department and Bond Management Team will lead the projects. The projects and their status are reported to the Facilities Advisory Committee and the Citizens' Oversight Committee during the year.

The Annual Report further states:

[Oversight Committee Annual Report text and graphic] This project is the construction of a new 50 meter x 25 yard pool as well as a 12,000 sq. ft. (approx.) shower/locker facility in a location near the existing pool. The existing pool has extensive maintenance and repair problems that cannot be cost effectively addressed, thereby requiring this project...

[Graphic accompanying report text, right]

Immediately prior to the June 2016 election, LBCC released what it called its "2041 Facilities Master Plan" listing and describing projects that LBCC (not coincidentally) said it could fund using the Measure LB bond revenue.

[Text in LBCC Facilities Master Plan]...BUILDING W- AQUATIC CENTER

Due to its age, the existing swimming pool has significant and extensive repair issues that cannot be cost effectively addressed. The Aquatic Center project involves construction of a new 50 meter x 25 yd. pool. Scope of work also includes construction of a support building of approximately 12,000 square feet to provide showers, locker rooms, storage, pool equipment and office space. The new pool will be constructed along Carson Street to better accommodate its increased space needs.

SIGNIFICANCE: The Aquatic Center project addresses the major and costly repair problems associated with the existing pool and shall provide a modern, state-of-the-art complex to meet the needs of the instructional Kinesiology program as well as intercollegiate athletics. This project also provides much needed shower and locker room facilities when the existing gyms are closed for renovation at a later phase of the 2041 Master Plan Schedule.

PROJECT TYPE : New Construction.

ESTIMATED COST (includes escalation): $28,137,500

The graphic above includes the line-item text immediately below:

Source: LBCC Facilities Master Plan

On February 23, 2016, the Long Beach City College Board of Trustees voted to approve making representations to the public in seeking $850,000,000 from property-owning taxpayers, an estimated $25 year per $100,000 of their property's assessor-assessed valuation in every year over the next roughly 25 years.

The Trustees approved seductive ballot verbiage ("to prepare students/veterans for jobs/universities by: building/upgrading classrooms/laboratories, for health services, small businesses, police, firefighting, technology/other careers; improving deteriorating gas/electrical/sewer lines/leaky roofs, earthquake safety, security and repairing/constructing/acquiring facilities, fields and equipment") and also approved the following legally binding text in proposing that voters approve the property tax increase:

Section 7. School Facilities Projects. A list of the specific capital projects (the "Projects") to be funded from the proceeds of the Bonds is set forth in Exhibit A (the "Project List"). As required by Article XIIIA, the Board hereby certifies that it has evaluated safety, class size reduction and information technology needs of the District in developing the list of capital projects set forth in Exhibit A...

And further:

In approving this Project List, the Board of Trustees determines that the District should:

(ix) Repair, improve and construct additional athletic laboratories, including an aquatic center, to serve District students, members of the general public and qualified athletic organizations...

...(xv) Seek opportunities for joint use of facilities with Long Beach Unified School District, the City of Long Beach and other public agencies

And still further:

Some projects may be undertaken as joint use projects in cooperation with other local public or non-profit agencies. Possible joint-use projects could include, but may not be limited to, any of the following: athletic facilities, daycare centers, classrooms, facilities for business development and career technology centers.

In June 2016, 64.48% of voters in Long Beach, Signal Hill, Avalon and part of Lakewood approved LBCC's "Measure LB" ballot measure.

Sponsor

Sponsor

It's unclear to what extent LBCC management or staff have thus far seriously discussed joint uses by the City of Long Beach or other entities of LBCC's now planned new aquatics center. However. the March 28, 2017 statement by interim Superintendent-President Gabel (below) indicates that "the City" [she didn't name names] appears to have sought a "partnership" with LBCC in which LBCC would shift voter-approved money from funding a new LBCC aquatics center to instead help fund the Belmont Pool facility...and LBCC rejected this.

In his Nov. 7, 2016 letter to Mayor Garcia, then-Superintendent/President Oakley wrote that "both our staffs have met and discussed the opportunities and challenges with this potential endeavor." His letter continued:

After getting an overview from Tom Modica [Ass't City Mgr], Marie Knight [Parks/Rec Dir.] and Mark Taylor [Garcia's Chief of Staff], my staff shared the partnership concept and plans for the Belmont Pool with our faculty leadership and management responsible for scheduling our pool. They advised me that our pool is one of the most used facilities by our students, faculty, staff and the community. It is currently scheduled from 7 am-10 pm each weekday, with various events on weekends throughout the year. We also have a longstanding tradition of holding a summer recreation program whereby we provide swimming classes to the local community.

This group seriously discussed the options available to Long Beach City College if we were to partner with the City on the Belmont Pool, and while excited about the facility and everything it will bring, they brought up concerns about how this would negatively impact our students. Specifically, they felt it would be very difficult for our students to move between our campuses and the Belmont Pool efficiently. We would be asking our students to add travel time in their schedule between classes to get from our campus to the Belmont Pool with no dedicated transportation options available to them. More importantly is the fact that the Belmont Pool will not be certified by the Division of State Architects (DSA). As you may recall, we are only allowed to teach our students in DSA certified facilities so we would not be able to teach any course in the Belmont Pool.

Therefore, after much thoughtful consideration by the faculty and management at Long Beach City College, we have decided that it's not in the best interests of our students to partner with the City on the Belmont Pool project and instead to continue moving forward with building our own aquatics center.

Sponsor

With no knowledge of what had taken place behind closed doors, on March 28, 2017, LB taxpayers Gordana Kajer and Ann Cantrell came to the LBCC Board of Trustees meeting and used the period for public comment on non-agendized items to advocate doing what LBCC's ballot measure said LBCC would do: to explore joint use with the City of Long Beach of LBCC's planned and bond-funded Aquatics Center. Ms. Kajer and Ms. Cantrell oppose (and have since filed appeals to stop) City Hall's plans to build a $103+ million Aquatics Center at Olympic Plaza in Belmont Shore using Tidelands Funds (currently roughly $40+ million short of the full anticipated project cost.)

The LBCC Aquatic Center's pool dimensions would be the same Olympic-size, competition-level pool (50 meters by 25 yards) proposed for Belmont Shore.

March 28: Ms. Cantrell (foreground) and Ms. Kajer await the opportunity to speak on non-agendized matters (the last item on the LBCC Trustees' open meeting agenda.)

Sponsor

Sponsor

After Mesdames Kajer and Cantrell spoke, LBCC Interim Superintendent-President Ann Marie Gabel provided an extemporaneous overview of the current status of the matter:

Interim Sup't-President Gabel: ...The City approached us in wanting us to go in partnership with the City, so basically take the $28 million that we had allocated [from the bond proceeds] to build an Aquatics Center here on our campus, they had asked us to take those funds and put it into the Belmont Plaza project. We denied that request for many reasons but primarily because it's not in the best interest of our students. Our swimming pool is used from probably 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. almost every single day which includes weekends and so in looking at trying to do a joint use with the City, we don't have a whole lot of free time that would be available for residents of the city to use. The other aspect is we are building one swimming pool and the Belmont Plaza I believe has five swimming pools which includes a diving platform, a complex that seats over 2,000 individuals, a warm-up pool, I mean it is a complex. What we are building will be one pool that will meet the needs of college and will be in accordance with the competition needed for a college and not necessarily the competition needed for the Olympics, which is what is proposed at the Belmont Plaza.

Sponsor

With no further public action by LBCC management or Trustees, on May 16, 2017, the City Council voted 6-2 (Uranga and Gonzalez dissenting, Pearce absent but indicated she'd vote "no") to certify an EIR and approve a Coastal Development Permit and other entitlements for the Belmont Pool. During Council colloquy, Councilman Uranga (a member of the Coastal Commission) indicated he doubted that the Coastal Commission would approve the Belmont Pool project as then-proposed.

The Council majority's action triggered a Superior Court challenge to the project EIR by CARP (Citizens About Responsible Planning, which includes member Ann Cantrell). CARP also appealed the Council's approval of the Coastal Development Permit to the Coastal Commission, as did the El Dorado Audubon Society; Long Beach Citizens for Fair Development, Inc.; Long Beach Area Peace Network; Melinda Cotton; Channel Law Group, LLP; James Hines; Gordana Kajer; Jeff Miller; and Susan K. Miller. And in a potentially significant action, the Coastal Commission's chair and vice-chair joined in the parties' appeals.

On March 24, 2017, advocates of building the Belmont Shore Aquatics Center posted the following on their Facebook page:

["Rebuild Belmont Plaza" Facebook page text] We were pleased to learn this week that Long Beach City College is planning to build a new 50-meter by 25-yard pool and locker room on its main campus, using an estimated $28,000,000 in bond funds from the June 2016 voter-approved Measure LB. Any new aquatic facility constructed in Long Beach is a very good thing for not only LBCC students, but also the general public.

However, LBReport.com seems to believe [at this link] this is a viable alternative to the Belmont pool replacement project. Hard to believe one new 50Mx25Y outdoor pool at LBCC, would be comparable to the 5 pools (2 of which are also planned to be of similar size) plus 2 small whirlpools at the proposed Belmont complex. Also, as pointed out in the article, the LBCC pool is expected to be primarily used by the college for its own students and aquatic programs, and may not have space and time available for use by outside groups, including city recreational programs and qualified athletic organizations.

Nonetheless, a new pool at LBCC will be a wonderful addition to the historically strong aquatic community of Long Beach.

Aquatics supporters have said the Belmont Shore Aquatics Center will enable major swim meets and competitive events that will draw visitors, produce revenue and build Long Beach's reputation as an Aquatics Capital.

Image via City of LB Power Point

Looking west from spectator seating. Image via City of LB Power Point

Looking south from 10 meter diving platform. Image via City of LB Power Point

View from the beach, looking east. Image via City of LB Power Point

View from Belmont Pier parking lot. Image via City of LB Power Point

Image via City of LB Power Point