Nearly all speakers in the roughly 90 minutes of public speakers (allowed one minute each) supported going much further in a "Peoples Budget" advanced by Black Lives Matters LA. The BLM LA "Poeples Budget" advocates larger reductions in LAPD's budget for spending in other areas (including housing and healthcare) that it says reimagine" and could change handling of public safety-related issues in L.A..

L.A. Council Committee chair Councilman Paul Krekorian made an amended motion to seek a report back and "instruct LA's Chief Administrative Officer and Chief Legislative Analyst, with assistance from Mayor Garcetti, to identify between 100-$150 million in cuts from LAPD's budget and instruct the CAO and CLA to provide recommendations on an engagement process to seek input from disadvantaged community and communities of color that would provide recommendations for the Council on the uses of city's General Funds in improvements to our city's public safety delivery."

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Prior to the L.A. Council Committee meeting, the LA Councilmembers called a special meeting to allow Black Lives Matter LA to present its "Peoples Budget" at length (with Power Point slides and the like> Coverage by LAist.com (KPCC) is here.

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In Long Beach, four Council incumbents (Richardson, joined by Pearce, Austin and Andrews) brought a June 9 Council agenda item that included verbiage paralleling advocacy by BLM Long Beach and allied groups to defund (reduce_ LBPD funding but didn't include numerical details. The Richardson-Pearce-Austin-Anderws item (which sought various actions by city management) advanced on a 9-0 Council vote, without indicating any specific number of reductions, leaving the issue to future budget discussions.

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LA's police union (LA Police Protective League) has strongly criticized L.A. Mayor Garcetti's proposed $100-$150 million budget reductions, arguingo on its Facebook page that it will mean longer response times and more crime. n contrast, LB's police union (LB Police Officers Ass'n) didn't oppose Council actions under Mayor Foster (during the "Great Recession) that erased roughly 20% of LBPD's sworn staffing,

Following June 2016 LB voter approval of the Measure A General Fund ("blank check") sales tax increase (in a campaign whose largest single funding source was LBPOA's PAC), LB's current Council has restored 22 of 208 previously budgeted sworn positions (leaving LB without 186 officers that it previously had.)

Long Beach's Mayor/City Council currently budgets roughly 1.6 officers per thousand residents. By comparison, L.A.'s Mayor/Council budget roughly 2.5 officers per thousand residents (not including Airport/Port police.) Signal Hill, surrounded by Long Beach, budgets roughly 3.15 sworn officers per thousand residents for its taxpayers.

LB's currently budgeted police level (citywide deployable) is roughly equivalent per capita to cutting over a third of LA's currently budgeted police level.

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LBPOA's leadership hasn't advocated restoration of additional officers for LB taxpayers and the Council has approved raises for LBPOA's members in new contracts. .

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