Letters to the Editor
Spending Problem
Diana Lejins’ brilliant, itemized documentation of this city’s spending insanity [Letters Sept. 11] reveals her spot-on analysis of their “corrupt spending habits” that are “never enough.”
Really, mayor, you need all 14 staff members? Can’t cut back on even one body? And, of course, the new glittering City Hall, after the last one didn’t even make it for five decades. Just got to have a state-of-the-art, $1 million+ media wall?
And keep adding those bike lanes and bollards all over town when I never see anyone riding in them and I bike every day. So, when I drive through the road diets, I have to have my passenger gauge whether or not our car will sideswipe the parked cars jutting out into the driving lane because the cyclists now have street transportation priority.
I’d go through every [item] on her list – similarly pointing out their abusive, absurd spending – but what’s the point? Her delineation of them says everything you need to know. [Lejins] should be the city budget director.
Her call to “quit voting for them” shall only fall on the deaf ears of the idiots/morons who keep voting for them [that] tells us everything we have to know about our fellow citizens who don’t have a clue.
The “City Budget Hides Electeds’ Salary Data” article on the front page details City Auditor Laura Doud’s “not publicly visible raise of $6,897,” for a total salary/benefits package of $351,940.62. I’m confident all the “legal” immigrants in this city believe she deserves, and is, well worth it. What a crock “municipal” government truly is!
James D. Ulrich
Kudos to Diana Lejins for listing the numerous, outrageous wastes of taxpayer’s money in her Sept. 11 letter. I agree that everything from the million-dollar TV at City Hall to the $300,000 dollar a year compensation for 82 of our “public servants” is contributing to loss of quality of life in Long Beach.
Last week, Beachcomber Reporter Bill Pearl revealed in LBReport.com, that there is another egregious item to add to Diana’s list: $2.35 million for a plastic soccer field in El Dorado Park! In spite of artificial turf being more costly than natural grass; causing more injuries for players; adding to urban heat island effect; needing potable water to clean and cool; shredding toxic plastic into the environmental and ocean; needing to be replaced every 5-8 years; and having to be disposed in a toxic landfill, the City Council approved $1.5 million for this project in March 2020.
My question as to whether the current reclaimed water sprinkling system for the field will be replaced with potable water has never been answered. The 50% increase was hidden in the 2021 budget and never discussed by the Budget Oversight Committee or mentioned in the Parks and Recreation discussion.
I repeat Diana’s warning: quit voting for these greedy, uninformed politicians or just keep paying and paying and paying.
Ann Cantrell
R.B.G.
Because of her, when I turned 18, I could apply for and receive a credit card without a male signatory. Because of her, when I bought my house, I could apply for a mortgage without being married and without having a male co-sign. Because of her, I could be called to do my civic duty and serve on a jury without being exempted on a count of being a woman. Because of her I grew up believing I had a claim to my personhood as an equally vested citizen of my country.
These changes happened in my own lifetime. And yet, my whole growing up, so deeply affected by her efforts, I never knew it was because of her and the countless clerks and lawyers she worked with arguing six of the most critical cases affecting women and families the Supreme Court had yet heard. She changed this country for women. For everyone. Because women’s rights are human rights.
Because of her, I realized my own potential as a professional, a homeowner, a person with credit, with assets, with independence. My thanks to this woman are inexpressible. No matter where you begin, where you land is still, potentially, unknown. This devotion of hers to equality, not just to “being equal” but to the concept of equality as a dynamic and not a fixed standard, made her one of the most consequential legal and cultural minds of the 20th and 21st centuries. She’s my hero.
Thank you, Justice Ginsburg, for everything.
Tootsie Cleveland
Challenge Coin
I find it interesting and monotonous that Stephen Downing is constantly trying to tear down the Long Beach Police Department (LBPD) while simultaneously trying to build up his former Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) employer.
The actions of one officer in making a challenge coin, that was offensive to some, is being used to again paint a broad picture of LBPD.
I might remind Downing of some of the failings of his LAPD: shooting of Eula Love; beating of Rodney King followed by riots and mass destruction of property; use of the phrase “gorillas in the mist” in reference to African-Americans on a dispatch; and the Rampart scandal with officers in uniform robbing drug dealers. Many of these occurred while Downing was working and in fact a supervisor at LAPD and now he wants to point out how LAPD does “challenge coins” properly.
I might remind everyone that Downing chose to live in Long Beach. Officers do not make a habit of living where they work or where they do not feel safe; that says a lot about the LBPD.
Marc Cobb
LBPD has disparaged themselves a lot more times than just this “Challenge Coin.” All the incidents that you mentioned on your [above] post has occurred in the LBPD and many more – just the names are different. The size of LAPD (10,000) compared to LBPD (800) is very different so that tells me LBPD is even more corrupt and more incompetent, which explains the loss of millions of taxpayer dollars.
Downing is “reporting” corruption, so maybe LBPD should stop giving him things to report. Seems to me that by your defensive nature and not seeing the obvious of this story, that you are probably a former cop of this criminal police department. You say the coin was “produced by an individual not the department.” You trying to tell us that the LBPD staff had no knowledge of this coin, if so then the LBPD administration is more incompetent than we all thought.
SMH
Anything that glorifies riots and violence should never fall in line with any police department’s “core values.”
Brad Kibbe
So called “good cops” don’t look the other way when bad cop misconduct occurs. That just makes them one of the bad cops.
Michael Ruehle
There is a serious problem with the LBPD and things like this underscore that it is absolutely cultural. I wish police chiefs were electable positions because Luna isn’t accountable to anyone but the cops below him to enable their sick, racist culture.
Why won’t Garcia call this out and demand the department do better? Oh, because they’ve got handshake deals left and right. He has to go too.
Heather Shannon
2nd District Race
I fully support Robert Fox for councilmember of the 2nd District. I was born and raised in the city of Long Beach. I have spent 30 years as a property manager and political consultant. I was a former city employee and more recently owned the 49rs Tavern until 2018.
I have had personal experience with Robert Fox since the 1990s and found him to be a great activist fighting for both the residents and the business owners. He has worked tirelessly over the years to make Long Beach a better place to live, to work and to own a business. I have found him to be diverse and fight for those being mistreated and/or displaced. He cares deeply for our community and I wish we had more like him that would run for office.
If you are concerned that our police are not being supported, if you are concerned that our businesses are being destroyed by the decisions of City Hall, if you are concerned that we are being overrun with a shortage of parking and outrageous fines, making it hard for people to come home late at night and find parking … you need to support Robert Fox in the Second District.
Tracy Johnston Kittinger
The Whole Truth
The Beachcomber and Bill Pearl from LB Report are news sources that do what a news source is supposed to do – provide us with important information not readily available to the average resident. Bill Pearl has hosted an online news source for the last 20 years (www.LBreport.com) and his work is a solid history of Long Beach. The Beachcomber is unafraid of printing “inconvenient truths” and has printed stories like “Tigertext” and the current expose on Cindy Allen, candidate for the 2nd District council seat.
It’s hard to put one past Bill Pearl at City Hall. This article, authored by Bill Pearl and published in the Beachcomber on the topic of the budget, provides insight into how our electeds are handling the budget shortfall by giving themselves and those in the $200K club raises and then failing to make it visible to the public. It is worth the read: https://beachcomber.news/content/city-budget-hides-electeds%E2%80%99-sal....
I encourage all Long Beach residents to support these independent news sources by subscribing to them. They are not in the pocket of City Hall and are providing us with an important public service – bringing the truth to our door.
Corliss Lee
Uncivilized Gen Y
Thanks for printing [former Milwaukee County Sheriff] David Clarke’s response and your comments in your [Sept. 11 Beachcombing] column. It isn’t often that a positive police side appears in the media.
John Halligan
I read your article on respect and could not have said it better. I’m an MD and we haven’t had much unrest, YET. I suspect the burbs will be targeted as the election gets closer. I have spread your article around so that others might get a breath of fresh air before doing something stupid.
Thanks for your candor and courage.
Robert Patrick
It is confirmed … you are an ignorant, redneck, moron ... probably a Trump supporter. You are pitied ... and here’s hoping that you wallow in your sorrow as Trump goes down. My country will survive and rise above your narrow-minded BS.
Kevin Reedy
[Editor’s Note: Thank you for so eloquently helping to make our point about “children who grow up with no boundaries or knowledge or concern for civil society and personal responsibility.”]
Racists Everywhere
It may not be an Olympic event yet, but it sure is a sport in this country. I’m talking about the liberals preoccupation with calling any group of people who dare to disagree with them “racist.” The extreme left in our county gets away with their repulsive behavior because no one challenges them or throws that same epithet back at them. After all, that empty word has been so overused and abused that it has become clichéd.
The game of ruining people with this slur has become a sport, therefore I have a good idea for a new game. Since anything and everything is racist,” let’s call the game ‘”Racists-Racists Everywhere.” Get a group of your friends who are fragile and easily offended together, gather them in a circle and each one will have ten chances to denounce anyone of their choosing as a “racist”; of course evidence is irrelevant. Since the word has lost all meaning they can freely scream their incoherent slogans and usual leftist gibberish.
For example, if you don’t like your next-door neighbor because he didn’t contribute to your “Save the Squirrels” fund, denounce him as an anti-squirrel racist and gleefully watch as he scrambles to rehabilitate his “pro-squirrel” reputation.
Another candidate for destruction would be anyone who doesn’t want swarms of vagrants setting up a pup tent city under a nearby freeway or down the block on a street corner. Let’s drag Santa Clause through the mud as well and call him a “racist.” He allowed Rudolph the Red Nosed reindeer to be mistreated by the other reindeer because they banned him from playing all the “reindeer games.” How is that racist, I don’t know. Give me a break; I’m trying to think like a liberal here.
After ten minutes of denouncing random people and screaming that hateful yet hollow word “racist,” the winner with the most despicable choices will emerge as the winner. The winner of what you ask? How about a black ANTIFA T-shirt that still reeks of tear gas and worn by an arsonist thug during the last riot.
Perhaps a game that allows the left to decimate the reputation of the innocent will distract them from filling Molotov cocktails and plotting the next U.S. city to set on fire.
Craig Miller
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