Bixby Park area resident Claudia Schou, who spent months collecting information from at least 22 neighborhood groups all over town, testified at the Public Safety Committee, itemizing gang activity, drug sales and use and other repulsive conditions in parks citywide. LBREPORT.com reported what took place in detail, with audio, at this link.

[LBREPORT.com coverage] After roughly 50 minutes of discussion (in which chair Price allowed Ms. Schou beyond the minimum three podium minutes to speak and respond to staff and Committee statements), the Committee voted 3-0 to "receive and file" -- take no action on -- Ms. Schou's request that the Council budget two additional Park Rangers to address "hot spots" in parks citywide.

To hear on-demand exactly what was said [summarized in text below], click here.

...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.

But two days earlier, on Sept. 3 -- a day AFTER the Council had cast its first of two FY15 budget adopting votes -- city management quietly sent the Budget Oversight Committee and cc'd to ALL Councilmembers -- a memo purporting to respond to questions asked by the Budget Oversight Committee on Aug. 19. The management memo's existence wasn't disclosed publicly until some city employees materialized at the Sept. 5 Public Safety Committee and began handing it to the Committee members. (LBREPORT.com subsequently requested it from the City Clerk's office.)

The management memo included something we've not seen before: crime stats purporting to show conditions in some of Long Beach's larger parks. The management memo's "crime stats" neatly omit the real world problems that Ms. Schou and 22 other LB neighborhood groups have experienced. Just compare what the 22 neighborhood groups reported (above) with what city management and LBPD brass told Councilmembers (below) had taken place in LB's 15 busiest parks from Jan. 1-Aug. 15, 2014: [Note: DCC = District Car Check (increased presence) and Code 6 = out for investigation.]

[Text from Sept 3 McDonnell-Chapjian memo]

What happened next was even worse. Afer Ms. Schou testified -- accurately -- that crime stats for parks alone aren't routinely available to the public, Committee member/Councilwoman Mungo claimed -- inaccurately -- that such crime stats are available (which they aren't.) Councilwoman Mungo relied on the visibly incomplete park "crime stats" that management had handed her and her Council colleagues but didn't show Ms. Schou (who could have demolished them.)

Councilwoman Mungo needlessly looked bad in that exchange: accepting what officials told her (which wasn't complete) while adversarial toward information from taxpayers (who'd provided her and the Council with information that management hadn't acknowledged but didn't deny.)

We believe LBPD crime stats are accurately reported numerically, but we have always doubted that crime stats alone convey the whole picture of real world neighborhood crimes.

LBREPORT.com invites LB residents who are aware of neighborhood conditions that are inconsistent with official claims that "crime is down" to email us directly at any time: mail@LBReport.com. Let us know what's taking place and (very important) how to contact you.

Important: Emailing us is s NOT a substitute for reporting crimes to the police. Always do that first.

Of course LBREPORT.com checks things out before reporting them...but we are not afraid to report what we can confirm no matter whose toes it steps on...and in terms of public safety, we believe the public has a right to know what's really taking place.

And thank you, Ms. Schou, and to the 22 LB neighborhood groups for what you did. LBREPORT.com heard you and the public heard you...even if a few elected officials didn't...for now.