On October 27, LB's Harbor Commission will likewise hear presentations by the two competing developer/operator teams.

Mr. Conway said a decisional vote by the City Council (on whether to proceed with the long-term, complex transaction) and the Harbor Commission (on whether the Port should be part of it) may be scheduled in late November or early December (i.e. during the holiday period.)

Management's announcement somewhat delays, but doesn't substantively change, key aspects of the controversial proposal that has drawn opposition (on various grounds) from members of the public but has advanced nearly entirely without Council dissent (the sole exception being exited Councilwoman Schipske.)

City management has called LB's current City Hall (built in the late 1970s) "functionally obsolete" and, supported by LB's downtown Council reps, has argued that LB's current Civic Center complex is a poor and uninviting use of available public space that could be more effectively utilized. LB's two downtown Council reps, newly elected Councilwoman Lena Gonzalez has called the proposal "transformational" and veteran Councilmember/Vice Mayor Suja Lowenthal called the project a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Despite learning in 2005 and then in 2007 of City Hall's seismic issues, subsequently augmented by additional seismic studies, city management has (for the entire length of the Foster administration and now continuing under the Garcia administration) refused to issue a Request for Proposals seeking bids from firms experienced in seismic retrofits that would show the actual marketplace cost of a City Hall seismic retrofit. Instead, city management has offered the Council and the public Point Point presentations and memoranda listing city staff's own in-house estimated cost of a retrofit as its fiscal justification for proceeding with an entire Civic Center rebuild.

Earlier this year, city management set a June 2, 2014 deadline to receive proposals from three developer/operator teams in response to a City issued Request for Proposals (RFP), saying it planned to bring the Council a management-recommended proposer for a Council decisional vote by July 1 (under former Mayor Bob Foster and a now-exited Council.) That didn't happen. On viewing the City-issued RFP, one of the three pre-selected developer/operator teams dropped out of the running, leaving only two competitors remaining.

When the Civic Center item didn't appear on the July 1 Council agenda, Mr. Conway sent the Council a July 3 memo (obtained and reported by LBREPORT.com) indicating that staff had been reviewing "and clarifying certain assumptions in, and conditions to" the proposals, which he called [Conway memo text] "of an incredibly complex nature." Mr. Conway's July 3 memo said staff "needs additional time to conduct a thorough and exhaustive review in order to make an informed recommendation. The results of these efforts will contribute toward a determination of responsiveness to the RFP, thereby qualifying the proposer for payment of a stipend [by the prevailing proposer] and, if appropriate, enable staff to make a recommendation regarding a preferred proposer...Staff is optimistic that a presentation and recommendation can be brought to City Council in the next 60 days."

That would have put a Council decision on a Civic Center transaction sometime in September. That didn't happen.

In his Sept. 22, 2014 presentation to the Harbor Commission, Mr. Conway didn't indicate whether the now-scheduled October 14 Council presentations by the two competing developer/operators would include a staff recommended preferred proposer or indicate the "scoring" that Mr. Conway said city and Port staff has been doing on the two proposals.

As for what the public will be shown, the City has previously refused a request by LBREPORT.com under the CA Public Records Act to release the developer/operator responses to the taxpayer-paid RFP until after a contract is signed with a Council chosen developer/operator.

Mr. Conway's Sept. 22 statements to LB's Harbor Commission leave unclear whether the public, or Councilmembers and Harbor Commissioners, will be shown the competing proposals in full or in some abridged form. As for the contract that would bind taxpayers, in contrast to a number of other cities, Long Beach (with Council approval) routinely declines to show decisionmaking Councilmembers or taxpayers the actual text of proposed contracts in seeking Council authority to enter into them; instead, city staff attaches a memo summarizing what it says are the proposed contract's pertinent terms.

Under a "public private partnership" transaction, the City of Long Beach, and possibly the Port, would for some period of time (up to 40 years has been mentioned) pay a Council-chosen developer/operator an annual sum city staff says amounts to the City's current Civic Center costs plus an annual CPI escalator. The chosen developer/operator would also receive the prime-located Ocean Blvd. land under the former LB courthouse at Magnolia Ave. for its private development as part of the transaction.

A "public private partnership" was used by state judicial authorities to build the new L.A. County courthouse in Long Beach, a transaction whose costs were later cited as a reason for budget reductions/delays in other courthouse projects. The state legislative analyst's office also subsequently concluded that the new courthouse might end up costing as much as $160 million more than using traditional procurement, a conclusion strongly disputed by advocates of the courthouse who said the LAO's reasoning is flawed and the project is performing as planned.

A LB Council majority will make the decision for the City. LB's Harbor Commission (Mayor chosen/Council approved) will separately decide if the Port should make itself part of the deal by locating its new Port HQ within a now-proposed new Civic Center complex. City staffer Conway said the two October presentations would show the proposed transaction with and without the Port as a participant.

The location of a new permanent Port HQ became a polarizing issue under now-exited Mayor Foster, who vetoed a Port-staff proposed HQ in the Port, then replaced Harbor Commission President Tom Fields (who supported buying the World Trade Center as a Port HQ, which Foster opposed) and appointed new two new Harbor Commissioners whose views on a new Port HQ were consistent with Foster's.

Mayor Garcia recently chose a Harbor Commissioner whom Councilmembers didn't ask publicly for her views on a new Port HQ before voting without dissent to approve her appointment.