Mayor Foster Says There'll Be Upcoming Service Reductions, Says "Proportional Reductions" Need To Be More Carefully Made With Some Programs Possibly Consolidated Or Collapsed Completely...And Some Gov't Functions May Be Better Performed by Private Sector And Give City Hall A Revenue Stream

Reiterates he's not prepared to advocate tax increase until he's satisifed City has done all it can to avoid one and says City hasn't reached that point...yet

(Mar. 17, 2012, 7:00 a.m.) -- Speaking at Councilman Gary DeLong's monthly meeting of 3rd district neighborhood associations (Mar. 15), Long Beach Mayor Bob Foster said there will be upcoming service reductions ("no doubt about it") and said the time has come to more closely consider budget cuts made under "proportional reductions" that he's advocated for the past three budget years.

For extended audio of salient portions of Mayor Foster's remarks, click here or photo above. (Event had ambient, non-amplified sound; we were close but still several feet from the Mayor).

Speaking without notes and fielding Q & A before about 80 people during a noon-hour public meeting at the LB Yacht Club, Mayor Foster said the City is getting to the point where "we're going to have to be much more careful this year about where we make cuts, because if we're making cuts to a program that isn't going to function well at all, you might as well collapse that program."

I don't know what those are yet but in principle I think we do have to make sure that the things we can do well and we have to do well we continue to do well...[W]e're going to look for revenue from every place we can. I think it's going to spark some additional reform efforts in the city. We're going to look at consolidations of some departments to save money. I think we're going to look at some of the functions that government performs to maybe better performed by the private sector and can we get a revenue stream from that. We're going to have to look at that this year. There's no choice any longer...Now we have to look at maximizing revenue.

Regarding police levels, Mayor Foster said "we don't want to go much lower" but (citing a Mar. 6 city management budget presentation) said if the city didn't use proportional share budget reductions and just funded public safety, "you wouldn't be able to fill potholes...[or] remove graffiti" and would have close libraries.

The Mayor said he's "confident we're going to be able to manage this, but there will be controversy here because we're going to have to look at new ways of doing things. We're going to have to break this paradigm that it all has to be done by us and we have to look at can we get revenue from some of the things that we're doing that would now preserve the kinds of critical services that you all need."

Mayor Foster said he's not prepared at this point to advocate a tax increase, but said he doesn't rule out advocating one in the future if he's confident the City has done everything possible to avoid it...and said doesn't feel the City is there...yet.

Later in responding to Q & A, the Mayor reiterated a statement he's made previously that he used to believe that the number of officers is key [he ran in 2006 on a promise to increase police on the street by 100 officers in four years] but since then "I've learned a lot" [under proportional reductions he advocated starting in Sept. 2009, LBPD's officer level has fallen to roughly where it was when Mayor Beverly O'Neill took office in July 1994].

Mayor Foster (who has no vote and relies on a Council majority to implement his proposals) raised the issues of contracting out / privatizing city services (without using those terms) while Long Beach is in the midst of an election cycle in which 8th dist. Council candidate Al Austin and 4th district incumbent Councilman Patrick O'Donnell (seeking a third term via write-in) are both backed by organized labor / public employee unions.

April elections (with vote by mail ballots circulating now) in Council districts 2, 4 and 8 will change at least one and could change as many as three incumbent Council members. The newly configured Council will decide in August whether to place measures on the November ballot and will vote in September on City Hall's FY13 budget