Under the motion to approve and an accompanying amendment by Commission member (and Long Beach Vice Mayor/Councilman) Robert Garcia, the pedestrian path will be closer to the bluffs and on the landside throughout. .

The Commission vote was unanimous but came only after a motion -- supported by four Coastal Commissioners -- that sought to continue the item to enable public input at the LB City Council before the item returned to the Coastal Commission. Commissioner James Wickett, an alternate Commission member, made the motion after hearing opposition testimony objecting to the fact that the paved path was treated by city staff and the City Council as a budget item (listed amid multiple capital improvement projects) without Council or public discussion of its specifics. ("Capital improvement projects" are listed in the budget in text form without illustrations, graphics or other details.)

In making his motion to continue the item, Commissioner Wickett indicated he was uncomfortable with approving an item that had raised significant issues and produced the level of opposition the Commission had heard. He noted that the proposal eliminated some parking near the Belmont Pier and raised various environmental issues but was treated by the City basically as a budget item. Commissioner Wickett indicated he didn't oppose the proposal but saidh he would feel more comfortable if the City Council had considered the project and worked out the details first.

Commissioner Wickett said a Council hearing over the budget isn't one where businesses would normally be alerted to the loss of parking spaces) or where the environmental community would think about the alignment of the bike path. "I just think more public input would lead to an ultimately better bike path," Commissioner Wickett said...and moved to continue the hearing until the Commission gets answers on those issues; his motion was seconded by Commissioner Sanchez.

The Coastal Commission, which is supposed to focus on consistency with the state Coastal Act, heard the type of public discussion that would ordinarily occur at a decisional City Council meeting [where it didn't occur in Long Beach.]. Responding to concern by a Pier area business over 32 lost parking spaces, city staffer Lopez said there were 700+ parking spaces to the south of the Pier. But Melinda Cotton, who urged that the proposal be withdrawn and sent back to the Council for public input, noted that the city now plans to use par of the area south of Pier for a new Belmont Plaza poll.

Commissioner Garcia, who had already made a motion to approve the second path with its two paths further inland and closer together if possible, urged defeat of Commissioner Wickett's motion. Garcia, a Long Beach Councilmember, remained silent on the issue of what Councilmembers did and didn't do...and instead invited City Hall's Tidelands Capital Programs Manager, Eric Lopez, to describe neighborhood group meetings and city advisory commissions where staff had discussed the project; Lopez then cited over a dozen neighborhood and advisory group meetings where city staff presented its plans. Garcia suggested that the public would have opportunities to comment when the path returns to the Council for discussion of its proposed designs [i.e. after it had received Coastal Commission approval]. The motion to continue the item was defeated 4-8.

The item began with a city management presentation by city staffer Lopez, who said the second path would create more open sand area in some areas by moving parts of the current path inland and make the paved pathways safer.

His position was echoed by Long Beach Fire Chief Mike DuRee, who said the second separated path for pedestrians and bicyclists would be safer with likely fewer calls for service to handle accidents between walkers and bike riders (which he indicated are now at the rate of roughly 5-7 per month).

Second district Councilwoman Suja Lowenthal spoke in support of the two paths and told the Commission that the project promoted the city's goal of "encouraging active lifestyles, healthy living and our efforts to reduce obesity in our residents." She explicitly told the Commission that "this item has come to the City Council for deliberation."

But within minutes, Gordana Kajer came to the speakers' podium and stated bluntly, "The public was not allowed to comment or debate on this project" and continued:

There has been no public meeting about this pedestrian beach path. What we have received are a number of presentations...The City did povide presentations. They went out and made one-sided presentations, Power Point presentations to the public and essentially explaiend that this is what Tidelands Funds were going to be buying for our public here in Long Beach...

...The policy, the procedure here is demonstrating the fact that the City of Long Beach is shirking their responsibility with respect to this decision and moving it on to the Coastal Commission...

[displays slides] There has been no public input and comment. This is a one sided presentations that the City of Long Beach made over and over again. There were no comments noted. There was no debate. There were no stakeholders invited to specific meetings to talk about this project...

And I'm going to say it again: There was no public debate or comment allowed in front of the Long Beach City Council which is where that debate should have happened...

Later in the proceedings, some Commissioners pressed for details of how the project was approved and city staffer Lopez indicated that the project went to Planning Commisson for a finding of "consistency with general plan" and was then included among capital improvement projects that were part of Council's decisionmaking in its budget approval process.

Speakers in support of the second paved path included current path users (runners and bicyclists), Evan Kelly of Bikable Communities (a bicycle advocacy group) and a man who praised city staff's actions [and whose email to LBREPORT.com indicates he enjoys flying kites.]

Opponents included representatives of the LB Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation and Gabrielle Weeks of the Long Beach area group of the Angeles Chapter of the Sierra Club [which endorsed Councilwoman Lowenthal's reelection in 2012].

Following the meeting, Gordana Kajer, who opposed the path and the city's process to advance it, commented to LBREPORT.com:

"City staff told the public long ago that the landward option for this path was much too expensive and now, with this vote, this project will cost at least 30% more. I don't how City Council can simply ignore the fact that this path ballooned at least a million dollars beyond the original budget approval. Ass't Manager Suzanne Frick explained some time ago that the storm drain culverts are owned and controlled by the County of Los Angeles and require the county's involvement, something the city wanted to avoid from the start. The construction around or over the storm drain culverts may also require environmental review and could trigger CEQA. In other words, this is not the project city staff wanted."

Vice Mayor Garcia became a member of the Coastal Commission after submitting his name late last year (along with other regional elected officials) to seek the unexpired roughly six month term of a Commissioner elected to state office. Garcia was among a Council minority who voted to approve a controversial proposed 2nd/PCH development which exceeded Long Beach coastal height limits...and he voted "yes" despite correspondence to the City from the Coastal Commission's Long Beach office staff, who indicated that City Hall's process for addressing the height limit issue ran afloul of the Coastal Act. Garcia was also previously captured on video texting/typing and filling out "thank you" notes during a sworn testimony in a Council hearing on a resident's appeal under the CA Environmenal Quality Act (before seconding the motion to deny the resident's appeal.)

An ad hoc committee of representatives of four area environmental groups informed the state Senate Rules Committee by letter that either Garcia or two other area elected officials would be worthy appointees to the Coastal Commission. In a non-agendized January 2013 closed door proceeding -- from which members of the public and the press were excluded -- the state Senate Rules Committee (currently 3 Dems, 2 Repubs) chose Garcia to fill the exited Commisioner's roughly six month unexpired term. Committee staff has told LBREPORT.com that no recordings or minutes of the meeting exist, and denied a request by LBREPORT.com under the Legislative Open Records Act to view written materials in connection with the appointment. The Committee is chaired by state Sen. President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D., Sacramento) and includes state Sen. Ricardo Lara (D., Long Beach-Huntington Park).

Garcia's Coastal Commission term expired in roughly mid-May but he is permitted to continue on the Coastal Commission for sixty days during which the Senate Rules Committee may appoint him (or choose someone else) for a full four year Coastal Commission term.

The Coastal Commission routinely meets in various coastal venues and is conducting its June 12-14 proceedings in the Long Beach City Council Chambers. The LIVE video stream from Cal-Span.org was interrupted seconds into start of opposition testimony by Gordana Kajer at roughly 4:11 p.m.; refreshing the page momentarily restored video which then stalled repeatedly. By 4:26 p.m. a solid video stream was restored. A CAL-SPAN.org technician told LBREPORT.com that his early assumption is that the technical issue originated with a bandwidth problem at Long Beach City Hall.

On a subsequent item (the proposed expansion of Rosie's Dog Beach), audio was entirely absent for an extended period during opposition testimony (and perhaps other testimony as well).

Previous LBREPORT.com coverage

RunRacing (Organizer of LB Marathon) Sends Mass Email Urging Recipients To Email Coastal Commission To "Expand the Bike Path"