Council Can And Should Tie Public/Press Transparency String to Aquarium Reuest For $5 Mil Loan

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Council Can And Should Tie Public/Press Transparency String to Aquarium Operator's Request For $5 Mil Loan

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(March 9, 2021, 11:45 a.m.) -- At tonight's (March 9) City Council meeting, at least one openness/transparency minded incumbent (if there are any) should make a motion, hopefully seconded by another, to require the Aquarium operator to allow public and press access to its governing board meetings and minutes of its past meetings as a condition of approving the Aquarium operator's request for a $5 million loan to meet what it says are its ongoing expenses, The public deserves to see a publicly recorded vote on this.

The last straw should be the Aquarium operator's 990 tax form (visible on the Aquarium operator's website, reported by LBREPORT.com here) indicating the nominally non-profit Aquarium operator paid its then-President/CEO (Schubel) roughly $540,000 in pay and benefits in 2019. That's a sum larger than paid the Governor of the state of California." Other top Aquarium execs also consume six figure pay and benefits. (Board members themselves are uncompensated.)

In our opinion, those salaries for the Aquarium operator's execs are gluttonous. We'd like to see who among the Aquarium operator's governing board voted to approve them. We're also curious to learn who among a previous board voted about 10 years after the Aquarium's inception to remove the name "Long Beach" from the Aquarium's official name. That info is presumably in the Aquarium board's minutes.

A previous Council under Mayor Beverly O'Neill enabled a privately run non-profit to operate the city-owned Aquarium. That's not a defense for the curent board's continued concealment. Other LB non profits that accept taxpayer benefits -- including the LB Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB) and Downtown Long Beach Alliance (DLBA) -- commendably allow public and press access to their board meetings.

City management's agendizing memo also fails to mention that the Aquarium operator, now pleading hardship, apparently requested and received a generous "paycheck protection program" forgivable loan. Did some of that go to some of the Aquarium operator's executive six figure salaries? .