• Mayor-elect Robert Garcia and/or his representatives have offered to provide at least some newly elected Long Beach City Councilmembers "recommendations" as to whom they may wish to hire for their office staffs. Under the City Charter, LB Councilmembers hire their own staffs independently of the Mayor. [A Council majority, comprised of district-elected Councilmembers, decides citywide policies and budget spending, not the Mayor (whose veto can be overridden by six Councilmembers.) Over two decades ago, LB voters enacted a measure that changed the LB City Charter to create Councilmembers elected from geographic districts instead of citywide (as previously) to serve as a "check-and-balance" to a citywide elected Mayor.]

• LBREPORT.com has learned that incoming Mayor Garcia and/or his supporters are planning what's being described as an "Inaugural Ball." an event to be portrayed as displaying unity behind Garcia (elected June 3 with just over 52% of the vote.) It's not yet clear how much the "Inaugural Ball" will cost or who will be paying for it.

• LBREPORT.com has learned that someone has hired a private event planner who is asking newly elected officials to provide the names, addresses and email addresses of individuals whom the new electeds are inviting to attend their ceremonial inauguration. (All elected officials are officially sworn in quietly the day before; the event is purely for public consumption.)

  [Additional perspective: The information collected could later be used for a variety of other purposes. Councilman/Vice Mayor Garcia routinely used non-.gov emails to communicate on public matters. The practice is legal but non-transparent because using non-.gov email addresses prevents public access to communications on public business that would otherwise be public under the Public Records Act. In 2013, Garcia was part of a Council majority that refused to discuss in committee making communications on public business via private email addresses accessible under the Public Records Act.].

Prior to publication, LBREPORT.com attempted without success to reach representatives of Mayor-elect Garcia and a representative of his "transition team" this morning. An inquiry last week directed to his Chief of Staff, Sharon Weissman, seeking to learn the reason for Garcia's absence at the June 10 Council meeting (which resulted in tie votes on the issue of paramedic staffing) has produced no response.

Further as we learn it on LBREPORT.com.