Wrigley Association

Wrigley Association (9/8/08) Mayor & City Mgr. (Check the press)

Special Guests

Date: Monday, September 8, 2008
Time: 6:45PM to 9:00PM
Event: Wrigley Association Meeting
Place: Veterans Park Community Center
101 E. 28th Street
(at Pine Ave.)
Long Beach, CA 90806

Key-Note Speakers:
Mayor Bob Foster and
City Manager, Patrick West

All are invited to attend a special evening with our distinguished guests. The Wrigley Association will be hosting refreshments and a mixer on September 8, 2008 at 6:45 PM followed by a short general meeting from 7 to 7:30 PM. Directly following the meeting, we will feature the Honorable Mayor Bob Foster and City Manager, Pat West in an informal Q & A.

Please come prepared with your questions regarding all issues including the new Budget and the Infrastructure Tax Bond as well as items concerning the Wrigley District of Long Beach and citywide issues. All viewpoints are welcomed and will have an opportunity to speak.

At our October 6, 2008 meeting, the Wrigley Association will be featuring Tom Stout and Kathy Ryan from the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. They will be discussing the new taxes that will appear on the November ballot and will answer any questions the public may have regarding these issues.

The Wrigley Association prides itself with conducting meetings that are informational and deal with timely and pertinent quality of life issues. Meetings are held the first Monday of the month. (With the exception of holidays, when they will take place on the second Monday.)

For further information or details please contact Annie Greenfeld-Wisner, President at (562) 225-9462 or email at wrigleyvillage@att.net or shorti2448@msn.com.

We look forward to seeing you at this rare opportunity to speak first-hand with our dignitaries.
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Press Telegram 9/10/08
Mayor touts Measure I
By Paul Eakins, Staff Writer
Article Launched: 09/09/2008 10:02:58 PM PDT

LONG BEACH - With about two months to sell voters on a $571 million infrastructure investment measure, Mayor Bob Foster has been making the rounds at community organizations.

On Monday night, Foster and City Manager Pat West made a plea for support to the Wrigley Association at the Veterans Park community center in west-central Long Beach.

The infrastructure plan, which is called Measure I, would levy a parcel tax on residential and commercial properties, amounting to $120 per year for single-family homes, or $120 per unit for apartments and other multi-unit buildings. Commercial property owners would pay based on a different formula using the size of their properties.

The tax would continue until 2044 and would finance $571 million in bonds. Over

10 years, the bonds would fund repairs to streets, sidewalks, storm drains, park facilities and other public structures, as well as building new fire stations, police facilities and a new Main Library, among other projects.

Foster said the projects would be prioritized based on need, not necessarily equally divided among the city's nine districts.

Two-thirds of Long Beach voters must approve the measure on Nov. 4 for it to take effect, and Foster said work could begin as soon as January.

The mayor has argued that much of this work has been long deferred by the city and that the longer the city waits, the more the repairs will eventually cost. On Monday, he compared residents' approval of the plan to the work done by previous generations.

"Many of the things that we enjoy every day came from the generation after World War II that built things," Foster said. "They built the infrastructure you're using, the bridges, the roads, the public buildings, the water projects. We're not doing that today."

He asked the crowd of almost 100 at Veterans Park to be willing to make sacrifices for the future, a notion that drew some applause, but also many questions and a bit of skepticism.

"They thought beyond just their immediate circumstance of themselves, and I ask you to do the same thing," Foster said. "I ask you to look beyond yourself and your immediate needs and what might hurt you a little bit for a much greater good."

One woman in the audience asked why residents should give the city more money when it hasn't had much success with other investments such along the Pine Avenue business corridor, which has many empty storefronts.

"Tell us a little bit about why we should put our trust in you, when we look at Pine and I'm disappointed," she said.

West said Pine hasn't had the growth city officials had hoped for, but that the single business corridor doesn't reflect the whole of Long Beach's successes and failures.

Foster said that if the city improves its infrastructure, businesses will want to come to Long Beach.

Some speakers also criticized the high cost of city employee pay raises and pensions that have given the city a $16.9 million budget deficit in the upcoming fiscal year.

Foster said it was a "cheap shot" to pick on city employees, and said the city is just trying to keep up with competing municipalities to attract quality workers.

"You can't run a city without people," Foster said. "These people deserve to be compensated fairly."

But opponents of the infrastructure measure, including the Long Beach Taxpayers Association, say cuts must be made before officials ask for any more taxes.

Kathy Ryan, a founder of the organization, didn't speak at the meeting because opponents of the measure are scheduled to present their side to the Wrigley Association Oct. 6.

However, after Monday's meeting, she said the mayor's plan can wait.

"I think we need to do first things first," Ryan said. "We need to be doing pension reform," Ryan said. "I don't want to see anything until there's some agreement on reform first."

Some others in attendance said they were swayed by Foster's argument.

"It's necessary, so we all have to pay our part," said Sammy Portillo, 50, a Long Beach resident who works for the city of Los Angeles. "So long as it's based on need and it's equitable."

paul.eakins@presstelegram.com, 562-499-1278
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LB mayor, city manager continue push for approval of bond measure
September 11th, 2008 ?·
BY NICK DIAMANTIDES
Staff Writer

On Monday night, Long Beach Mayor Bob Foster and City Manager Pat West continued their efforts to persuade the voters of the city to approve a bond measure to raise money for infrastructure repairs. The two spoke at the Wrigley Association??™s monthly meeting at the community center of Veterans Park. About 80 people- including several city council members, candidates for state office, other city officials and community activists, were in the audience.

Foster began by explaining that the budget process was long and difficult, but city officials were required by law to produce a balanced budget. The city currently has an approximately $17 million deficit in its 2008-09 General Fund budget necessitating cutbacks in every city department supported by that fund.

The mayor told the audience that he wanted to give his perspectives on the proposed bond measure, referred to as Measure I and/or Proposition I, in order to explain why he and most city officials feel that it is necessary. He noted that former California Governor George Deukmejian and former Long Beach Mayor Beverly O??™Neill both support the measure.

Foster noted that Long Beach has a $3.1 billion budget, and all that money goes into specific funds as required by the city??™s charter. Those funds support the Port of Long Beach, the gas department, the water department and other operations that are vital to the city.

The General Fund contains approximately $404 million, and it is that fund that supports the police, fire, public works, library, park recreation and marine departments as well as all other offices and departments based in City Hall. ??œWhen you remove public safety- fire and police, which is a little more than two-thirds of the General Fund budget- you??™re left with $125 million to do everything else,??? Foster explained. ??œThere??™s $3 million in that budget for what you would call infrastructure- that??™s streets, sidewalks, sewers, storm water systems, park structures and public safety facilities.???

The mayor noted that the city gets additional funds from the state for road maintenance and repair and also uses other one-time revenue sources for infrastructure improvements.
??œIf you added up all the infrastructure work that we need in this city, it would come to nearly a billion dollars after you subtract federal and state money that we are getting for those items,??? Foster said. He stressed that the city only has a tiny fraction of the money necessary to meet its infrastructure needs and explained that studies conducted during the past decade have shown the continual deterioration of the city??™s streets, sidewalks, sewers and structures as well as the steadily increasing costs of the labor and materials necessary for the repairs.
??œThe time has come to fix our infrastructure,??? Foster insisted. ??œWe cannot attract business and have the safety, convenience and appearance that we all want without fixing it.???
Reiterating the fact that there was no way the General Fund could pay for the needed improvements, Foster said city officials had scaled back the upgrades to include only the most essential projects, which would cost $571 million to be spent over the course of the next 10 years. He added that proposals to pay for infrastructure improvements by drastically cutting back the salaries and benefits of all city employees would lead to a mass exodus of highly skilled personnel. That, in turn, according to Foster, would result in inefficiencies and delays in city operations that would harm the quality of life for all Long Beach residents.
??œI am asking you to help solve [this problem],??? Foster said. ??œI am asking you to tax yourselves.??? About two months ago, at Foster??™s request, the Long Beach City Council voted to put Measure I on the November ballot. The measure would authorize the issuance of $571 million in bonds to be paid back through the imposition of a $120 tax on all residences in the city for the next 30 years. Commercial and industrial property owners would pay a tax based on square footage. The mayor noted that, by law, the money raised could only be used for infrastructure improvements in the city.
??œThis is a good thing for the city, and I do not see any other way that this could be done,??? Foster added. ??œI urge you to support this and to carefully consider the kind of city you want us to be.???

After Foster??™s presentation, West took the microphone. He noted that the entire city manager??™s office and all city department heads were in total support of Measure I. ??œEverybody wants to fix stuff, to solve problems, to help our community,??? he said, offering an example of how infrastructure improvements can greatly improve an area. ??œRecently we repaved all of 7th Street from Redondo Avenue all the way to Pacific Coast Highway,??? he said, explaining that the public works department closed off that section of 7th Street two weekends in a row to expedite the repaving process. ??œI can??™t tell you how proud the residents and business folks were to have that done in just two weeks,??? West said. He also described street repairs in other sections of the city.

West told the audience that if the voters approve Measure I, dramatic infrastructure improvements will be seen throughout the city. ??œIf you give us this opportunity, we will respond, and we can do this work,??? he said. ??œIt??™s been a miserable thing to see our infrastructure just deteriorating and deteriorating and we [have not] had the ability to do anything about it because the dollars are so scarce.???

After West??™s initial comments, he and Foster took turns answering questions from the audience for about an hour. They explained that if the voters approve the bond measure, street and structure repairs could begin as early as January 2009.

Membership

If you haven't renewed your membership since our new year began on June 1st, please do so today, your $15 membership fee is hopefully not a lot to ask but goes a long way to help us in our many efforts to improve our neighborhood and our city.

Who we are:

The Wrigley Association is a neighborhood association dedicated to improving the lives in the Wrigley area of Long Beach. The general meetings are held on the first Monday of each month at 7:00 P.M. at the Veterans Park Social Hall, 101 East 28th Street. (If the first Monday is a holiday, meeting will be held on the second Monday of the month). Child care, refreshments and parking are free.

Email us
lbwrigley@yahoo.com

Links

Food swap is fresh start for Wrigley (P/T Article)
Veterans Park info
Wrigley Association Website
LBReport.com coverage
Press Telegram Article 9/10/08
Signal tribune newspaper 9/11/08
lbreport.com Coverage