Two months later, the flaws and omissions identified by residents haven't been corrected and their Council representative, Jeannine Pearce, has given no public indication that she agrees with what her parking-impacted constituents have been saying.

On December 8, Pearce's office sent a mass emailed newsletter ("This Week in Council District 2") reciting/summarizing some of the consultant's recommendations with no acknowledgment of the flaws specifically cited by her parking impacted residents: "We are looking forward to discussing the parking study of Downtown Long Beach and the Alamitos Beach Neighborhood," she wrote. "There are short, medium and long term recommendations for each individual area studied and they range from restriping and utilizing available off street parking to improving transit options to alternative parking infrastructure. It is a dense study and your input is highly important. Please come and tell us what you think of the study, found [at this link] and what solutions you would like to see implemented in your neighborhood."

On Dec. 9, Pearce mass emailed a "District 2 Council Update" that didn't even mention the upcoming Dec. 11 parking item.

It's unclear what adjoining downtown Councilwoman Lena Gonzalez (a frequent political ally of Pearce) plans to do. (We continue to speculate she may be preoccupied with pursuing a state Senate seat.)

Someone also scheduled the parking issue to collide with a report on multiple taxpayer-costly, neighborhood-impacting recommendations on homelessness and low income housing generated by a Mayor-chosen group that the Mayor could take first, pushing the parking issue late into the Council meeting.

Originally scheduled for Oct. 23, the item was withdrawn without public explanation after residents blasted it online and sought a postponement. The "parking study" resulted after Alamitos Beach and downtown area residents formed a non-profit group (TAPS [Transportation And Parking Solutions]), hired a law firm, sued the City and won a settlement requiring City Hall to fund a professional parking study of impacts in their neighborhoods. In a November 30 response on its Facebook page, TAPS says:

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One way or another, this parking study will be over soon along with the good that it could have done for us. While the parking study only covers downtown and Alamitos Beach, our work could help parking in other areas, too. All of Long Beach will soon be affected by the City's parking policies...

Will the parking study help make parking easier for us?

That's the question we hear most often. The answer is probably not. We've always known that the City could just toss this study aside and choose not to do anything. This is worse than that...

This is not just our opinion but also that of our parking consultant Mike Kodama [whose] summary memo on the parking study...points out how some of their key conclusions are not backed by analysis and that key things are missing to make their recommendations work...

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City staff proposes that the Council "receieve and file" (take no additional action beyond the minimal steps the City-hired consultant's report recommends.) However, any Councilmember could make a motion, and with a second, the Council could direct city staff to take responsive to recommendations by residents and their professional parking consultant to address issues that Alamitos Beach and downtown residents say they experience daily.

Developing.

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