Female Planning Commissioner Quits; Says Council Does Not Listen to Recommendations

As the current Mayor and City Council consider stripping Long Beach committees, commissions and boards of their authority to take up issues, (just right after appointment of more women than ever) readers might enjoy another moment of deja vu:

Popular Long Beach resident, S. Marie C. Brehm, told the local press that she quit the City Planning Commission after a series of recommendations were ignored by the City Council.

Brehm said she saw no need for a Planning Commission because of the council’s actions. Brehm was the second female to quit the commission. Two weeks earlier, Miss Mary Foster, also resigned.

Brehm and Foster were particularly concerned that high-rise buildings be prohibited on Ocean Boulevard so as not to block the ocean view for the rest of the city, especially for those who lived on Broadway.

Brehm also took on the City Council for refusing to give a building permit to establish a Presbyterian Japanese mission on the west side of Locust Avenue between 14th and Anaheim Streets. Three petitions had been before the Planning Commission and were approved each time and then denied by the City Council because of neighborhood opposition.

Brehm said: “These objectors say they are taxpayers. So are we who favor the church. Long Beach has the reputation of being a God-fearing and clean city and our churches help to make and keep it so. Japan was a closed nation until the United States opened it up. These Japanese in Long Beach have the right to receive Christian instruction in their mission and we are responsible for their becoming Christians. It is un-American to deny them.”

Opponents were quick to comment: “We simply do not want these Japs in our district, that’s all there is to it, and we as taxpayers expect to protect our property. You can’t Americanize the Japanese in their language and in their churches. Let them come to the churches already established. Why, it’s too awful to think of. Would you have your children maybe marrying into a Jap family? We’re a white community and it’s no place for yellow or other colored people and our property owners there are 100 per cent against it.”

Finally, the City Council did grant the permit to build the church.

S. Marie C. Brehm, changed her first name to “suffragist” and was a noted prohibitionist. She ran unsuccessfully for State Senate. In 1924, she was the first woman to run on national ticket when she was nominated for vice president of the U.S. for the Prohibition Party ticket. Brehm also raised funds for Community Hospital and when she died of injuries from a collapse of bleachers at the Rose Parade, a “temperance room” was named in her honor at Community Hospital.

Today, Long Beach only has one woman serving on the Planning Commission – which is considered to be the most powerful commission in local government.

gerrie@beachcomber.news