Three days earlier on Sept. 2 (despite an additional Council meeting available a week later), the Council voted to approve a FY15 budget that spurned a request by Ms. Schou -- made to the full City Council on August 5 -- to budget two additional Park Rangers to address "hot spots" in various parks.

The Public Safety Committee's Sept. 5 meeting was scheduled before the Council's Sept. 2 budget votes to approve a budget that provides no restored budgeted police, the complete elimination of LBPD's field anti-gang unit (previously 20 officers + 2 sergeants), no restored fire engines in three fire stations...and no additional park rangers. However on a floor motion by 3rd dist. Councilwoman Suzie Price, the Council allocated $350,000 to LBPD to address residential burglaries. Councilwoman Price pursued her floor motion and prevailed (with support from Councilman Patrick O'Donnell) against some initial push-back from Vice Mayor Suja Lowenthal.

At the Sept. 2 Council meeting, Mayor Garcia (presiding) gave the floor to Vice Mayor Lowenthal (his choice to chair the Council's Budget Oversight Committee) whom he invited to recite a series of agendized items to adopt the FY15 budget, including Budget Oversight Committee's voted recommendation (motion by O'Donnell, seconded by Mungo) that the Council adopt the Mayor's recommended budget. The Council had the ability to adopt the FY15 budget a week later (after additional discussion) at its Sept. 9 meeting...but chose act on Sept. 2.

Ms. Schou had previously presented the full Council with a letter signed by representatives of 22 neighborhood groups from 7 of LB's 9 Council districts describing conditions in their neighborhood parks. [LBREPORT.com coverage here.]

At the Sept. 5 Public Safety Committee meeting, Ms. Schou itemized in detail crimes and repulsive behavior in Long Beach Parks in multiple Council districts. The information, provided by the neighborhood groups, was undenied at the Public Safety Committee meeting by LBPD and Parks & Rec. Committee Chair Price allowed Ms. Schou to present the unsavory details for several LB parks before inviting Ms. Schou to proceed with other points. LBREPORT.com subsequently obtained the full list and publishes it below:

PUBLIC SAFETY CHALLENGES AT OUR LOCAL PARKS

Feedback summaries from neighborhood associations across Long Beach

Wilmore City Neighborhood Association, 1st District -- Drake Park, Chavez Park

• Smoking of marijuana
• Open alcohol containers
• Homeless hopping over fence in the amphitheater area -- no police access
• Human waste found in the areas where the homeless congregate
• No park staff on the weekends when the park is most busy

AOC7 Neighborhood Association, 2nd District, McArthur Park [6th dist.]

• Smoking of marijuana and evidence of other drug use (recovery of needles during park clean ups)
• Open consumption of alcohol
• Overnight camping
• Human waste
• Transients snapping at children/park goers
• Passed out or intoxicated people laying around park
• Recent shooting (possibly gang related) across the street from the park

Jane Adams Neighborhood Association, 8th District -- Grace Park and Scherer Park

• Smoking of marijuana in and around the playground
• Evidence of other drug use -- finding of syringes during clean up
• Evidence of public sex -- used condoms found at park clean ups, health hazard
• Calls to PD over pot smoking in areas near the playground have been unanswered despite the fact that Long Beach Police North Patrol is in the vicinity of the park

Houghton Park Neighborhood Association, 9th District -- Houghton Park

• Smoking of marijuana
• Open consumption of alcohol
• Finding of syringes in the park during clean up

Bluff Park Neighborhood Association/North Alamitos Beach/Rose Park/Bluff Heights/Belmont Heights, 2nd District and 3rd District -- Bixby Park

• Public pot smoking
• Open consumption of alcohol
• Frequent drunk in public and belligerence
• Finding of hypodermic needles, dime bags with residue, burnt aluminum foil for crack smoking and glass pipes at park clean ups in planters and sand box where kids play.
• Human waste
• Overnight camping
• People parked in their cars at the park sell drugs.
• People loitering and selling drugs.
• Park Patrol have called the LBPD and they sometimes do not respond
• Panhandling

Wrigley Neighborhood Association, 6th District -- Veterans Memorial Park

• Drug use
• Drug dealing around the perimeter of the park
• Park border is an alley; traffic in the alley is suspected appears to be linked to illegal activity (drug use and drug dealing)

Country Club Manor Neighborhood Association, 8th District -- Scherer Park

• Dead body
• Homeless frequent the park
• Open drug use in the park
• Overnight camping and camping in parked cars at the park
• Theft
• Assault and Mugging
• Littering

Park Estates Neighborhood Association, 3rd District -- Los Altos Plaza

• Homeless activity in an around the park
• Camper/vans of homeless that park around the park’s perimeter
• Some drug activity suspected but not confirmed
• Some issues with Di Piazza patrons loitering in park, nothing dangerous to report, but suspected drug use

Washington Neighborhood Association, 1st District - Seaside Park and 14th Street Park

• Smoking cigarettes and marijuana
• Drinking beer and whiskey in soda bottles
• Thefts
• Teen and Adult fights and gang members also fighting at park (Seaside Park)
• Assault
• Belligerent homeless using foul language near children
• Overnight camping
• Littering
• Open drug use
• Drug dealing
• New staff at parks need to be aware of park signs posted and followed (Such as during summer lunch programs no one without a child should be around the children’s play area nor around little children).
• Officer called for service should walk around and check to calls for pot smoking and alcohol drinking that is taking place and remove them if they smell like they are drinking at the park.

A recent dispatch on NextDoor.com also indicated that a married couple and their baby were walking through Rose Park when the mother "kicked something with my foot. I looked down to see it was a needle..."

At the Public Safety Committee meeting, Parks & Rec Dir. George Chapjian said that until FY08. Long Beach provided taxpayers with a citywide Park Ranger program with 16 budgeted (full time equivalent) Rangers, but in FY09 the City (via Council action) cut the number to 12 and in FY10 [the first budget in which then-Councilman Garcia participated] cut the number to its current 3.5 rangers. Mr. Chapjian said the 3.5 are now assigned roughly 90% of the time to El Dorado regional park with occasional deployment to Heartwell Park and a few others. Asked by chair Price why El Dorado Park was selected, Mr. Chapjian said it was LB's largest park, drew the largest amount of users...and noted that it brings in over a million dollars in revenue annually.

Ms. Schou requested that the Council budget two additional park rangers (beyond the 3.5 now budgeted) to address "hot spots," a cost city manager Pat West estimated in August would be roughly $76,000-$95,000 per Ranger.

But in a memo secretly provided to the Budget Oversight Committee (and cc'd to all Councilmembers) on Sept. 3 and now obtained by LBREPORT.com, city management acknowledged hundreds of LBPD calls for service at a number of LB's higher-usage parks. The city management memo -- whose existence wasn't disclosed until the Sept. 5 Public Safety Committee meeting [when LBREPORT.com learned of it and requested it from the City Clerk's office] -- LBPD Chief Jim McDonnell and Parks and Rec Director Chapjian said most of the LBPD responses were "self-initiated" and recommended continuing a city management's recently created "Park Patrol" program in which Parks & Rec staff (wearing red shirts) observe conditions (currently in Bixby Park and Chittick Field), ask problem individuals to cease their behavior...and if the problems persist, the "Park Patrol" staffers use cell phones to call LBPD.

Ms. Schou has previously detailed 10 major reasons why she believes management's Park Patrol program won't work [Ms. Schou's op-ed visible here.]

Management's memo didn't list the types of repulsive park behavior described by the 22 neighborhood groups and itemized in Committee testimony by Ms. Schou. The management memo also contended that the cost of two additional park rangers would be $250,000 [despite an August memo from City Manager West citing a lesser cost figure.]

In her Sept. 5 Public Safety Committee testimony, Ms. Schou said multiple issues discouraged public usage of LB parks including a dead body in Scherer Park, syringes and (in multiple parks) drug sales plus marijuana use. She noted the recent shooting just outside MacArthur Park and said many visitors to a Shakespeare presentation at Bixby Park left after a gang fight.

In response, 8th dist. Councilman Al Austin said the dead body found in his district's Scherer Park was a homeless person and homeless are present in parks citywide.

5th district Committee member Councilwoman Tracy Mungo advised Ms. Schou to work with community groups and told Ms. Schou she needed to tell Councilmembers in detail exactly how money allocated for rangers would be spent. Ms. Schou replied that she has worked with other groups and that she is seeking ranger deployment not just at Bixby Park but to deal with park issues that neighborhood groups have reported citywide.

The Public Safety Committee ultimately made no voted recommendation to the full Council and instead voted (3-0) to "receive and file" [take no action on] the item.

To hear on demand exactly what was said in the Council's Public Safety Committee, click here.

This was the first meeting of the Council's Public Safety Committee under new chair Price, with vice chair Austin and member Mungo (selected by new Mayor Garcia in July.)

Update: On Sept. 6 at 8:35 p.m., we added additional details to our text above, noting that earlier on Sept. 2, the Budget Oversight Committee voted to recommend (a motion by O'Donnell, seconded by Mungo) that the Council adopt the Mayor's recommended budget.