Mungo Mum After She Agendizes, Supported By Zendejas, Price, Supernaw, Item To Give City Mgm't Authority To Use Part of City's Fed Recovery Act Funds Or Seek Other Funding To Ensure LB Police Levels Don't "Dangerous Lows" But Minutes Before Council Meeting Pulls It Off Agenda (Preventing July 20 Council Discussion and Vote)

LBReport.com

News
Mungo Mum After She Agendizes, Supported By Zendejas, Price, Supernaw, Item To Give City Mgm't Authority To Use Part of City's Fed Recovery Act Funds Or Seek Other Funding To Ensure LB Police Levels Don't "Dangerous Lows" But Minutes Before Council Meeting Pulls It Off Agenda (Preventing July 20 Council Discussion and Vote)

If LBREPORT.com didn't tell you,
who would?No one in LBREPORT.com's ownership, reporting or editorial decision-making has ties to development interests, advocacy groups or other special interests; or is seeking or receiving benefits of City development-related decisions; or holds a City Hall appointive position; or has contributed sums to political campaigns for Long Beach incumbents or challengers. LBREPORT.com isn't part of an out of town corporate cluster and no one its ownership, editorial or publishing decisionmaking has been part of the governing board of any City government body or other entity on whose policies we report.

LBREPORT.com is reader and advertiser supported. Support independent news in LB similar to the way people support NPR and PBS stations. We're not non-profit so it's not tax deductible but $49.95 (less than an annual dollar a week) helps keep us online.

(July 22, 2021, 10:30 a.m.) -- Using an urgent action/last minute procedure, Councilwoman Stacy Mungo agendized -- with the support of Councilmembers Mary Zendejas, Suzie Price and Daryl Supernaw -- a July 20 City Council item to enable city management to use part of the City's federal Recovery Act Funds or seek other funding to ensure that (with recent attrition and expected retirements) Long Beach police levels don't reach "dangerous lows"

However minutes before the start of the July 20 Council meeting, a Mungo office staffer informed the City Clerk's office that the item would be "pulled" (removed from July 20 Council discussion and a Council vote.) At the Council meeting, Mayor Garcia announced the item had been pulled but didn't say by whom or why. Lead agendizer Mungo said nothing about the item's removal at the July 20 Council meeting. Thus far, Councilwoman Mungo hasn't responded to two emailed requests (July 21 last night and this morning July 22) and a voice mail (this morning) by LBREPORT.com seeking an explanation.

With four votes (her own + three co-agendizers) to agendize the item, she needed only one more to approve the item. So why did she remove it? Who didn't want the item below heard and why?

)Recommendation to request City Manager and all relevant City departments to seek funding and/or bring back a version of the federal American Rescue Plan funding that would address the increase of violent crime and support the hiring and training of new officers, through two police academies, to replace the officers lost recently to attrition before the department reaches dangerous lows.
On March 16, 2020, this council approved a guiding document on allocation of federal American Rescue Plan recovery funds. .
Earlier this month, the mayor met with Police Chief Robert Luna and City Manager Tom Modica to discuss our current crime data and map out next steps for public safety. .
Since American Rescue Plan funds were last discussed, we have received updated allocation projections, direct feedback from those in need, and federal discussions that funding can be used to hire displaced police officers. Last year our police department had approximately 10% reduction in sworn personnel with attrition of 80 officers at various ranks. Our expected retirements for fiscal year 2021-2022 are an additional 30 officers .
Just this last week, President Biden gave a call to action to all cities across the country to follow the lead of other local City officials by using American Rescue Plan funding to launch and strengthen Community Violence Intervention programming.
In order to sustain our current violent crime intervention programming, we must move to do just that.
To this end, we move that the Long Beach City Council direct the City manager and all relevant City departments to have an option to adjust the recovery plan and/or seek other funding options to ensure that there is funding to hire police officers before the department reaches dangerous lows.
FISCAL IMPACT
No Financial Management review was able to be conducted due to the urgency and time sensitivity of this item.
STATEMENT OF URGENCY
Approval of this recommendation is urgent due to recent federal action by the Biden Administration surrounding national increases in violent crime and gun violence, and to ensure timeliness of discussion as it aligns with the beginning of our Long Beach budget hearings

Further as we learn it.

[Scroll down for further.]