Letters to the Editor

Fireworks Travesty

The 4th of July neighborhood fireworks have created a domestic war zone. And, setting them off in Long Beach could literally cost you body parts and/or $20,000.

It is truly incredibly selfish of those who set off fireworks knowing the devastating effect it has on animals, veterans, and other vulnerable beings. The fire danger to homes is always present. Seldom mentioned is the monopolizing of 911 services, rendering them unavailable for more serious needs. Shame on parents who break the law and set the example that it is acceptable.

Criminalizing this travesty is worthless unless we back it up. A special LB Police Department, LAC Sheriff, and/or National Guard task force should be dispatched for at least a week before New Year’s Eve and July 4th.

Rather than waste money on frivolous aqua parks and rainbow crosswalks, this would be a responsible expenditure truly serving the vast majority of citizens. Substantial fines and even jail time should be levied for heavier artillery. And, the fines should serve to fund this endeavor.

The whole state of California needs to declare all private fireworks illegal and act accordingly.

Diana Lejins

Streets of Shame

Beachcomber reader Janis Opie has called it accurately. In my 70 years in Long Beach the streets city-wide have never been worse.

To cite just three examples: Repairs or reconstruction on Studebaker Road from Second Street (Westminster Blvd.) to Los Coyotes was funded months ago yet no work has begun. Drive Carson Street from Woodruff to Atlantic or Orange Avenue from 33rd to Carson Street and you will experience challenges to your suspension systems, mechanical and personal. Thousands of potholes across the city are repaired daily with band-aid patches but no long-lasting fixes. In California Heights, streets laid in 1928 and 1929 remain in better shape than those laid across the city decades later and allowed to disintegrate.

Yet no one in local government seems sufficiently interested or motivated to take action. New projects are funded and put in place yet this basic issue goes ignored – a shameful reality.

Gordon Cohn

Construction is scheduled to begin at the end of this summer to reconfigure Studebaker Road to one traffic lane in each direction over the SR-22 Bridge. I see lots of media stories about this project, the Studebaker Corridor Complete Streets Project, but no mention of the reduction in traffic lanes and the probability of creating a traffic bottleneck.

Also of note, there are areas of large, new construction improvements being planned close to the I-405 Freeway, particularly south of Los Santos, which is larger than the other bus stop construction being done along the project. I don’t know if that may be connected to the future I-405 Comprehensive Multimodal Corridor Plan that covers all of L.A. County.

Link to the Studebaker Plan (Page 5 shows the SR-22 Bridge and Pages 9 and 10 show the area close to I-405): https://www.longbeach.gov/globalassets/pw/media-library/documents/projec...

Thank you to Councilmember Supernaw for helping me get the city to publish the plan for the public to view.

Janet West

Illegal Use of Polling

At the June 11, 2024 City Council meeting, Agenda Item 30 was a discussion of possible ballot measures to increase taxes significantly on Long Beach residents, including options to:

Increase the city transfer tax (usually paid by home sellers) as much as nine-fold

Double the business license fee

Triple the electric franchise fee paid by SCE and directly passed on to ratepayers.

As part of that discussion, the city manager revealed that he has already begun corrupting the process of crafting the wording on the ballot of these potential measures.

The title and 75-word summary which appear on the ballot, by state law, are supposed to be written in neutral fashion by the city attorney. They cannot be subject to poll testing or any other form of political manipulation intended to tilt the voters toward passage.

Yet in open session of the City Council the city manager directly stated that that is exactly what he is doing, using taxpayer dollars to craft the wording in a way to influence voters.

The Long Beach Reform Coalition will not sit idly by and allow the process of democracy to be denigrated yet again and even more blatantly than in the past.

We hope the city manager changes course before subjecting the city to further legal liability.

Ian Patton,
LBRC Executive Director

Tax and Spend

In my view, the most dangerous threat to our safety and security is not the possibility of being invaded by another country, terrorist actions by any of the world’s radical elements, climate change or even nuclear war. Instead, the greatest threat facing the safety of our country is a weak national economy. Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome and the Ottoman Empire were really not conquered by external forces. Instead, they overspent themselves to death and their economy imploded.

That is a major lesson in history, and the government of the United States of America has not learned that lesson. All unproductive expenditures of the federal government must be eliminated, and Congress should not be allowed during peacetime to spend any money unless it designates where that money will come from. These are matters of our nation’s security!

Judge Jim Gray (Ret.)