Advisory Group

It appears to be another “blue ribbon” task force [Inside LB, 4/24 issue] or a “red team” concept but does it have the expertise to move us back to the new reality safely? It doesn’t appear to have all credentials necessary to orchestrate these important safety moves for Long Beach.

Thanks for highlighting these deficits for us Gerrie.

Rae Gabelich

Thanks for this well researched article. Shows just how much the City Council including Suzie Price care about the residents. Her generic answers are BS and I feel angered that not one of those council people have met on the safety team to evaluate COVID-19 protection readiness since it broke out. This is really disgusting.

Vote them out!

Juli Jean

I’ve been asking the mayor about this ever since he formed the group. His claim has been to “seek the best medical and scientific advice,” yet of the 20 members there is only one (non-practicing) medical doctor. Where are the front-line doctors and nurses? The epidemiologists? The scientists?

“We’re in this together” say the politicians from the comfort of their single-family homes, with their good health insurance, a backyard for their children to play and their computers so they and their family can live in isolation. But what about the renters living two families per apartment because they can’t afford the rent in our gentrified city? Where are the representatives of the renter community?

“Safer at Home” rolls off the tongue nicely, but where is home for the homeless? So we bus the homeless people to westside Long Beach, of course, but not El Dorado Park or other locations on the eastside. We have far more vacant hotel rooms and apartments than we have homeless people. Could we have our own and better Project Turnkey? And can we have homeless representatives in the group?

For over a month we’ve been reading of the racial inequality of COVID-19 reports that the hardest hit communities are blacks, Asians, Hispanics and Pacific Islanders; especially the seniors among these groups, those living along the diesel death corridor and the LGBTQ among them. So where are the representatives of these communities?

And now, despite recent statistics for Los Angeles County that show the situation isn’t letting up, Long Beach is starting to open up because the virus won’t cross the imaginary boundary between LA County and the City of Long Beach? But our workers, those who don’t have the luxury to work from home, the luxury to buy an N95 mask or good health insurance or a private automobile – mostly work outside of the boundaries of the city. How will the virus know that they’re from the LBC therefore untouchable? Why are those workers, mostly POC and poor, not represented in the group?

Carlos Ovalle

Thanks for providing info and commentary on our latest advisory group. I agree that the choice of members is questionable, to say the least. You stated that if our current mayor set up the group, it would have to be approved by the City Council, and you also stated that meetings would have to be open to the public.

This got me thinking about a group (“Stakeholder Advisory Committee”) that was handpicked to represent the public regarding the design of the Belmont Beach and Aquatics Center (BBAC). I would like to know if this group (which is still operating) is subject to the municipal codes you cited or not. According to one member meetings were not open to the public or the press and no records were kept.

As you probably know, CARP has filed a lawsuit over CEQA violations and objections to the project have also been raised by the Long Beach Area Peace Network (LBAPN) over environmental justice issues under the Coastal Act. The California Coastal Commission has strict guidelines regarding public participation in coastal development projects so the points your brought up could be relevant when the BBAC comes before the Coastal Commission for approval.

Anna Christensen, LBAPN