In their November 7 release, Ms. Kajer and Ms. Lee said "their goal is to turn their grassroots campaigns into a referendum on upcoming planning and environmental issues facing their neighborhoods and the City, at large" and they consider themselves "reform ticket" candidates.

Both women have outspoken grassroots records in urging policies different from those of City Hall and the current Council incumbents. When that happened in 2004, neighborhood quality of life advocate/LBHUSH2 founder Rae Gabelich stunned conventional observers by defeating a supposedly unbeatable Council incumbent backed by then-Mayor Beverly O'Neill, and 4th dist. resident Patrick O'Donnell unseated another establishment-backed Council incumbent.

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[Kajer-Lee release text]

• Cleaning our ocean waters and protecting our local wetlands

• Challenging the location of the proposed $103M Belmont Pier aquatics center

• Proactively safe-guarding our Long Beach Airport noise ordinance

• Challenging SEASP and the City's proposed Land Use Element (LUE) designations for higher density in our neighborhoods

Ms. Lee, a 24 year ELB resident and retired aerospace manager, opposed a city-staff backed attempt to turn LB Airport into an international facility by allowing a customs facility while 5th district incumbent Mungo made public statements and cast votes that disparaged residents' concerns and advanced the proposal without explicitly supporting it. (At the decisonal Jan. 2017 Council meeting, Councilwoman Mungo moved to "receive and file" the proposal [take no action on it], ending its forward progression without directly voting it down.)

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In April 2017, when the Land Use Element wasn't recognized by many and Councilwoman Mungo was silent and the issue, Ms. Lee sought to alert 5th district residents to city staff's proposed building height and density increases in the Plaza area (Palo Verde/Spring St.) Councilwoman Mungo's response was to publicly disparage Ms. Lee's accurate information at an April 2017 meeting of 5th district residents [LBREPORT.com coverage here.] That encounter led Ms. Lee to contact LB's grassroots Council of Neighborhood Organizations which quickly grasped the significance of the issue and spread the word (and the rest is history.) Ms. Lee separately founded and now leads an ELB grassroots group, The Eastside Voice, actively challenging the Land Use Element and its proposed density increases. She is also a board member of Citizens About Responsible Planning (CARP), that challenged a City Hall-backed developer-sought project along the L.A. River that it (and nearby residents) considered overly dense, and won reductions in building heights.

Ms. Lee opposes allowing three story commercial building heights at all four of the Plaza area's commercial quadrants, a position Councilwoman Mungo hasn't taken. After public opposition rose to subsequently released maps proposing more intense "mixed use" densities and building heights at other ELB locations, Councilwoman Mungo joined Ms. Lee and others in opposing it.

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Former LB Harbor Commissioner Rich Dines surfaced as a 5th district candidate in October, publicly opposing increased ELB density and "mixed uses" at an Oct. 4 Land Use Element meeting at Whaley Park. Mr. Dines, long active in ILWU maritime issues, was a 2011 appointee of then-Mayor Foster to LB's Harbor Commission and made an April 2017 campaign contribution to incumbent Mayor Robert Garcia. Garcia's decision not to reappoint Dines to the Harbor Commission triggered speculation that backed by organized labor, Dines would enter the Council race against Mungo.

Ms. Kajer, a 30 year Long Beach resident, is a small business owner and property manager with a lengthy record of defending LB's coastline, advocating environmental issues and supporting neighborhood concerns, undeterred by City Hall or establishment opposition. Ms. Kajer is a founding member of the Long Beach Chapter of Surfrider Foundation, a past board member of the Los Cerritos Wetlands Land Trust and served as the 3rd District council representative on the City's Sustainable City Commission under former 3rd district Councilmember Gary DeLong.

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Ms. Kajer has been outspoken in opposing a $100+ million Belmont Plaza pool rebuild ("Aquatic Center") and opposed allowing increased commercial building heights beyond current Coastal zone levels (five to in some cases seven stories) in part of City Hall's SEASP rezoning of PCH in and around 2nd St. Ms. Kajer's positions on those issues (and others) contrast with the voted actions of 3rd district Council incumbent Price.

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"Both campaigns will take a grassroots approach, talking and meeting with neighborhood leaders, business owners and residents to learn more about what is important to them," the Lee-Kajer release said.

Developing.