Letters to the Editor

Parkin Hired Guns

This is nothing more than the entrenched candidates and city staff protecting their status quo. [Hired Guns, Page 1]

That they are targeting reform minded candidates is proof that they are feeling the tides turn against them – FINALLY.

As voters, we cannot delay voting for this change.

There are far too few people signing on to help these campaigns. It’s on every one of us to talk to our friends, family and neighbors and inform them to the extent they will listen.

I spent yesterday afternoon delivering yard signs across the 5th district and it’s really amazing how few people are willing to get involved and how little they know about what’s been going on in the city. Mind blowing really. Speak out. Accept a yard sign. Volunteer to walk for a reform candidate.

You CAN make a difference.

Glennis Dolce

The fix is in. The LBPost article on Cinco de Mayo dropped in the late afternoon. It took Stephen Downing to get to the core of that rotten apple. There’s a ton of fear at City Hall that the cabal could get broken up.

Let’s make sure that fear remains through the machine’s June 7th failures. They must NOT succeed in stopping honest, apolitical candidates from working for the people of this city, not the service unions, developers and self-proclaimed elites.

Thank you, Stephen Downing, and Beachcomber.

Ann Profit

The city is fighting to keep your money and keep transparency and honesty out of Long Beach. The law firm hired has vested interest in the current officials. Stay strong with the new candidates that will give us transparency and ethics.

Christine Dosland

More than a week after I filed my candidate designation “Architect, Community Advocate” the city clerk got back to me and said that it had been disallowed by their attorneys and I was given less than eight hours to contest their ruling. It turns out that by “the attorneys” the city clerk meant Best Best & Krieger. I asked for a face to face meeting at City Hall, followed by a series of emails. During our meeting I asked for and was promised a copy of BBK’s ruling in order to properly contest it.

Later via email they retracted the promise of the BBK letter. I was left to argue my case without knowing exactly what I was arguing against. All they would tell me is that I needed to comply with a requirement that does not exist anywhere in the California Election Code, a city ordinance, or in the candidate information guide, that says that I need to prove I work 30 hours or more as a community advocate by providing a time sheet from the non-profits I work for.

When the city clerk mentioned that one candidate had filed “homemaker.” I asked if that candidate was required to prove they’re a homemaker by providing a time sheet. “No,” the city clerk said, “it was substantiated by a narrative describing their life as a homemaker.” Then I will do that, I told them. I followed with a 4-1/2 page detailed breakdown of the advocacy work that I do, which was promptly rejected.

My candidate designation now reads “Architect” without the “Community Advocate” work which has been the primary focus of my efforts these last few years. Clearly this was an attempt to remove an advantage I have over the incumbent.

Carlos Ovalle

Elected Auditor

I worked for the US General Accounting Office in the 1960s. Laura Doud’s office performs the same functions as the GAO, which is to serve at the pleasure of the US Congress as in the case of the GAO.

My issue is what the heck is behind the stupid idea the auditor is an elected official? She should be just an appointed officer and her workers just employees also. By making her elected she has to become political, which means raising money to campaign.

I say let’s have a referendum to change the city’s constitution to eliminate the election requirement for her position.

Ernie Brandt

Price Gouge

Winston Churchill said, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” It seems as though the big oil companies are taking Churchill’s advice. This time the crises is inflation. I have noticed for years that whenever there is a “crises” such as a refinery shut down due to a fire etc. or the price of oil goes up for various reasons, the big oil companies, a lot of times report record profits in their quarterly earnings report. This was the case last week when some of the earnings were reported. Oil companies have been accused of price gouging for years.

But other companies have reported better than normal earnings during this “crises” period of inflation. I believe it’s obvious that a lot of companies are using inflation as a cover to price gouge. Been grocery shopping lately?

Leo Mitchell

Ukraine Conflict

It was a pleasant surprise to find a piece in the Beachcomber citing Noam Chomsky’s view on the potential, even likelihood, of the Ukraine conflict spiraling toward an all-out nuclear war. Whether I agree with him or not, an intellect such as Chomsky’s is always a worthwhile contribution to the debate. I agree with Mr. Chomsky that the NATO expansion and our weapons conduit to Ukraine may be pushing Putin into a corner, meaning that Russia must defend itself from an existential threat from the west.

However, I have one question. If this narrative is so plausible, why not use it as the justification for the war? It seems it would rally the Russian people much better than the pack of lies (e.g. the Ukrainian leadership are a bunch of fascists) they are currently being fed.

Bill Ives

Wow that article about Chomsby is awful. Hated it. Ill thought out and rather idiotic.

Robert Fox

Cell Towers

Thanks to Long Beach City Councilman and mayoral candidate Rex Richardson’s lobbying for the telecoms and the Long Beach City Council’s unanimous 2019 vote to add a telecommunications chapter to the city code that appears to have been written by and for the telecommunications industry, I have to move out of my home of the past 21 years.

I’m a 65-year-old artist and retired college professor with partial deafness, a family history of brain cancer, medically diagnosed electromagnetic sensitivity (EHS) and chronic migraine disease. When my husband and I found out that a public right of way in our front yard had been targeted for a 4G/5G cell tower, 25 feet from a bedroom of our home, we filed an appeal of the city-approved AT&T application.

Within our appeal, my doctor had written a letter to inform the city of my illnesses, especially proven EHS, constitute a valid ADA condition it is required to accommodate. He said the accommodation should be that the cell tower must be no closer than 1,000 feet from our home. The city refused and did not suggest or offer us any alternative accommodations. It railroaded a hearing through with an employee/attorney it had hired specifically to arbitrate in favor of the city. Not surprisingly, we lost.

So now, at this age, with two bad shoulders and five local realtors telling us we’ll lose 20 to 35% off our home’s value due to the cell tower (city code clearly states the loss is exclusively on us), we must leave our “forever home” that we sank all our money into maintaining and improving, and move to a much smaller house far inland. This will make my migraines worse and force me to discard a third of my belongings. At least we won’t have to be Guinea pigs for short range, untested, microwave radiation, in combination with a 4G radio transmitter 25 feet from our house.

Due to well-documented brain injuries from close range exposure in the early 2000s, California firefighters have state-mandated protection from cell towers any closer than 200’ to a station. Regular citizens without powerful lobbies have no protection whatsoever.

The hearing officer admitted in his findings that this tower’s operation in such close proximity is likely to damage my health; there are no currently accepted federal standards for safe operation of a 4G/5G cell tower; and that the city abruptly cut off any discussion of potential accommodations. The city said at the hearing “wheelchair access” is the only ADA issue it considers valid. There are many ADA-qualified health impairments – that an adjacent cell tower is likely to worsen – that don’t require/encompass wheelchair access.

When the city refused to help, I wrote to the president of AT&T, who responded to my inquiry by telling me point blank that AT&T would not accommodate my disability.

We also objected, in our appeal, to the fact that the city plans to permit and is well into permit approvals (100s issued) for the installation of at least 1,000 5G towers throughout all areas of Long Beach, including residential, without conducting a CEQA or NEPA review of the environmental and health impacts. A CEQA aspect to our case will be heard before the City Council, the date of that hearing is not known yet.

Moira Hahn