As he did at the first hearing, Mayor Garcia had the City Clerk announce all five items together and limited public testimony to three minutes on all five proposed measures combined (amounting to 36 seconds per item if taxpayers sought to speak to all five.) No Councilmember(s) objected to this or made a motion to allow the public additional time.

Former 5th district Council candidate Rich Dines, who finished second to incumbent Stacy Mungo in a June 2018 runoff, pointed out the time restriction and testified in opposition to letting incumbents avoid term limits for three terms and in opposition to a Mayor-chosen/Council approved ethics commission.

Mr. Dines told the Mayor and Council: "Asking the voters to extend your stay so you can wait for the next Assembly, State Senate or Congressional seat to open will not strengthen term limits. It will weaken them." He also pointed out that LB voters explicitly rejected a 12 year term limit change in 2007 [by an over 2/3 margin when bundled with other items; LBREPORT.com 2007 coverage here.)

Mr. Dines also argued that [paraphrase] that a Mayor-chosen/Council approved "ethics commission" was unlikely to challenge the actions of incumbents who'd appointed them (full testimony below.)

[Scroll down for further]

Mr. Dines: I have several issues with your proposed charter amendments but due to the 3 minute limit for comment, I will talk about 2 of them

First, your proposed Ethics Commission Measure. How can we have an independent Ethics commission when, like every other commission, its members will be appointed by the Mayor and confirmed by the City Council?

Is it ethical to appoint someone to a commission after their employer contributed a large sum of money to an independent expenditure supporting you?

Is it ethical to appoint your former boss or a former political opponent who endorsed you to help win a campaign? Is it ethical to return political favors with influential commission seats?

The obvious answer is no.

If we are to have a truly independent Ethics Commission, then Sections 508, 509 and 510 of the City Charter must be amended so the appointment and removal of Ethics Commissioners are not decided by the Mayor and City Council.

To provide transparency to the public, all Ethics Commission appointments should be equally divided amongst the City Attorney, The City Prosecutor and the City Auditor by creating Section 512 in the City Charter.

As for your Term Limits Measure Your proposed change in term limits is completely self serving and adds no value to voters. Under the current City Charter, the Mayor and City Council can serve 2 full terms and run as a write-in thereafter. No one has served more than 3 terms. Dee Andrews, Patrick O’Donnell and former Mayor Bev O'Neil have won election as write-ins.

Asking the voters to extend your stay so you can wait for the next Assembly, State Senate or Congressional seat to open will not strengthen term limits. It will weaken them.

In 2007, voters soundly rejected Proposition C. This was settled a long time ago. Selling this under a different name, label and description will not make it a better product..

I urge you to not move forward with your 3 term limit proposal.

As always, I am available to discuss my comments with you or your staff.

Testimony by others indicated that Mayor Garcia and his staff had held non-public meetings/communications with members of the Cambodian community (including attorney Marc Coleman) regarding a proposed Redistricting Commission (that drew criticism from that community in the initial June hearing.)

The meetings/communications with the Mayor's office resulted in significantly revised draft Redistricting Commission text, visible at this link, which became public only days before the Charter Amendment Committee hearing. The text no longer proposes to let the Mayor/Council choose Redistricting Commission members or draw district lines. It now proposes procedures separated from direct Mayor/Council control to choose Redistricting Commission members and empowers the Commission, not the Council, to draw/re-draw Council district lines. The net result of the process could significantly impact LB City Council elections and potentially change the balance of the power in some Council districts and ultimately citywide.

Sponsor

Sponsor

Members of the Cambodian community, who'd criticized the original text, praised the revised text saying it would open the doors to their civic participation and thanked Mayor Garcia, his staff and Councilmembers Supernaw and Austin for their assistance. Attorney Coleman, who'd criticized the original text, said the revised text would ensure independence and create what he called a "gold standard." He thanked likewise Mayor Garcia for facilitating the changes...and went beyond, offering his support for the entire package of Garcia's-desired Charter Amendments, including the controversial incumbent-strengthening "term limits" measure and the incumbent-chosen "ethics commission."

Sponsor

Long Beach Taxpayers Association co-founder Tom Stout and LBTA supporter Carolyn Byrnes both testified in opposition to the Garcia proposed measures. Mr. Stout also called the measures self-serving and not public serving, and ridiculed Councilmembers for seemingly not having "no" buttons for their votes.

Following public testimony, Councilman Al Austin called the proposed measures public serving, saying they invite increased public participation and greater government efficiency. Councilman Austin revealed that Common Cause had sent a letter -- not visible online as of 9:30 a.m. July 18 the morning after the hearing -- urging certain changes in the redistricting measure (one of which Austin declined to incorporate in his motion to advance the item.)

Sponsor

Sponsor

Although the Common Cause correspondence wasn't visible for the public online, a letter dated June 12 was visible from the Long Beach Firefighters Association, signed by its President Rex Pritchard, supporting all five Mayor-proposed Charter Amendments (including the initial, now discarded text of the Redistricting Commission.)

Councilman Austin made a motion to include certain revisions to the measure clarifying City Auditor powers to perform certain audits, and set August 7 as the date for a final Council hearing that could put one or some or all or none of the measures on a special November 2018 citywide election ballot. His motion carried without dissent.

Sponsor

As previously reported by LBREPORT.com, the City Clerk has estimated the cost of a special citywide November 2018 election would be roughly $470,000 for one measure with 45,000 for each additional measure ($650,000 for all five.)

The Mayor-proposed Charter Amendments were never referred to the Charter Amendment Committee by prior voted Council action. Omitting that step effectively eliminated an opportunity for the public to have spoken, pro or con, on whether to pursue the items before Garcia revealed them only after the Mayor and a Council majority had been re-elected in the April-June election cycle and voters had approved the Measure M utility revenue transfer/diversion.

The proposed "ethics commission" and a "redistricting commission," were the subject of a November 7, 2017 Council voted action that asked the Mayor to convene the Charter Amendment Committee within 60-90 days and asked the City Clerk and City Attorney "to develop framework options for the Committee to consider" (carried 7-0, Uranga, Andrews absent.) That also didn't happen, which would have given the public an opportunity to speak pro or con on the measures, and the 60-90 day deadline was allowed to pass until after incumbents were re-elected and voters approved Measure M.