Letters to the Editor

Vote ‘No’ on AC

In 2002, voters approved Measure E, a bond granting Long Beach City College $176 million by increasing Long Beach property taxes. In 2008, voters approved another bond also named Measure E, this time granting LBCC an additional $440 million in property tax dollars. And in 2016, they approved Measure LB, a bond granting LBCC another $850 million, bringing the recent total to nearly $1.47 billion.

Now, in 2024, LBCC wants you to vote for Measure AC, rubbing their sweaty little palms together at the prospect of you giving them a whopping $990 million more – for a grand total of $2.46 billion (not even counting state money, nor massive donations like the 2021 gift of $30 million from MacKenzie Scott) – and they want to use your money to demolish and rebuild some of the exact same buildings they already spent your Measure E (twice) and LB money to build and renovate.

I attended LBCC as a “nontraditional” (read: not fresh out of high school) student from 2019 through 2021 – some hundreds of millions of taxpayer-funded renovation and re-renovation projects ago – and, at the time, the state of the Liberal Arts Campus facilities ranged from functional-but-a-little-outdated to brand-new.

I did notice that two of the oldest historical buildings, M and N, had clearly been allowed to fall into minor disrepair. One of them had a memorably dilapidated front door and an article in the LBCC Viking News quotes a student as saying that Building M “was always hot on the second floor and the restroom stall doors were hard to open and close.” Clearly, some small repairs were in order: one might expect LBCC to remedy these issues by spending tens of dollars on bathroom door hinges, a few hundred on a new front door, and perhaps a few thousand on air conditioning solutions. Instead, they spent over $77 million tearing down the existing buildings and constructing a hideous new Building M.

Such a capricious, wasteful expenditure of taxpayer dollars is LBCC’s modus operandi. One must hope that the looming edifice of the new Building M (built with funds from Measures E and LB, as well as from the state) has sturdy enough hinges on its bathroom stall doors to last a few years, because the dirtiest little secret of the nearly $1 billion Measure AC is that, while it pretends to be about infrastructure repairs for antiquated buildings, the actual project list on the signed bond resolution itself (visit https://www.lbcc.edu/post/november-2024-college-facilities-bond-measure and click to download the PDF) is filled, unconscionably and unbelievably, with do-overs of recent renovations and other frivolous vanity projects. The Measure AC project list includes:

“A new Horticulture Complex,” never mind that the Horticulture Complex was already renovated and expanded in 2017 with funds from Measures E and LB.

On the PCC Campus, “Building AA will be renovated and merged with the Welcome Center and Enrollment Center,” while on the LAC Campus, a “new Welcome Center” will be built and “Building A will be renovated as a Student Center and Cultural Resource Center.” Building AA was just built in 2015, and the beautiful, historical Building A was “retrofitted” to include Student Services in 2013 with additional Student Services renovations in 2019, all using Measure E and LB money. Both buildings also already include Welcome Centers, which opened together in 2018 – the grand opening celebration for which is still viewable on LBCC’s YouTube channel.

“A new multi-story Science and Nursing Building will allow the relocation of nursing and science programs from the older Buildings C and D,” never mind that Building C already received an $11.65 million Measure E renovation in 2016, and Building D received a $14.17 million Measure E renovation in 2019.

Building L (the current library) “will be rebuilt” and a “new Library + Learning Resource Center would replace the existing outdated library and also provide space for academic support services and meetings,” despite the fact that the supposedly “outdated” library was renovated with Measure E and LB money in 2019 and its existing meeting rooms are usually empty.

“The Carson Street Crossing, designed for pedestrians, will be built to better connect the north with the south side of the campus,” even though the north and south sides of the LAC campus are already well-connected via both a pedestrian bridge over Carson and a clearly marked crosswalk complete with walk signals and traffic lights.

Building I, which the document calls “the old Campus Bookstore,” is to be either renovated into a childcare center or demolished, never mind that this “old” bookstore was built with Measure E money in 2012.

There are more chapters in this saga of LBCC and the never-ending reconstruction of its twin Winchester Mystery Campuses; I could go on. Notably – and despite the deceptive mailer ads – the signed bond resolution for Measure AC guarantees no roof repairs, plumbing repairs, safety and security improvements, disability access, or similarly practical concerns: those are buried several paragraphs later in a long “may include […] some or all of the following” slush list, provided only as afterthoughts “[i]n addition to the projects listed above.”

Whether this is merely the height of fiscal irresponsibility or suggests a purposeful ploy to wheedle yet another billion out of credulous voters a few years from now (2016’s $850 million Measure LB promised the same roof repairs et al, but wouldn’t you know it, that darn roof still leaks…), I will leave to the reader’s imagination.

I have, for the most part, fond memories of my days at LBCC. Some of its professors are true gems – not that they would receive a single cent from Measure AC. But LBCC will not receive my vote, nor a dime of my charity, until the grasping hands clawing their way up from the depths of the LBCC money pit prove that the endless stream of taxpayer dollars they covet will be put to responsible, necessary, non-deceptive use.

Vote NO on Measure AC and its nearly $1 billion dollars worth of taxpayer-funded vanity projects.

Kathryn Colvin

 

Vote ‘No’ on 33

Why is rent so high and homelessness won’t stop in a sanctuary state and city? Maybe you figured it out.

If you advocate for, and bring in a million or two low-income foreigners year after year who 1) find their way into jobs vulnerable American citizens no longer have, 2) find their way into low cost housing that vulnerable Americans no longer have and 3) represent overall border lack of security flooding our streets with fentanyl, heroin, cocaine and most of the meth that vulnerable Americans do have because with Prop 47 it’s legal … what else do you expect?

[There’s] no abundant supply of housing and lots of dual income earners willing to pay the high cost of rent. [There’s] an exacerbated homeless problem due to no housing, high rents, lots of addiction, and no income from no service and manual labor jobs our most vulnerable used to have. If you follow deceitful politicians into finding some other fault for these problems – get smart.

See the truth, especially how you are being lied to and used for a totally different agenda than compassion. And see the true costs of vote buying – the pain in so many families with addiction problems and deaths, the real stealing of tens of billions of California tax dollars every year that could do so much good, year after year to further this agenda. And see the lie those who advocate for unlimited immigration continue to say – bashing housing providers, stripping their ownership rights like history’s former failed socialists.

You will never fix housing shortage, high rents, or homelessness until you have a secure border and a legal immigration system for a million or two foreigners per year that go to all 50 states. It’s idiocy to be victimized by “Where will we live?” ads and the “bully that is corporate landlords” in the pro Prop 33 ads.

Stealing should not be allowed on our ballots and hopefully judges will defeat any such criminal behavior. Prop 33 will fix nothing, just make it worse. Vote ‘no” on 33 so more housing can be built and “yes” on 36 to restore sanity after the failed experiment of Prop 47.

Bill Shelton

 

Please Vote Early

Recommended candidates, measures and propositions compiled from many reputable sources by the Board of the Long Beach Area Republicans (LBAR).

President: Donald J Trump, United States Senator: Steve Garvey, State Senator 33: Mario Paz, State Assembly 69: Joshua Rodriquez, US Representative 42nd District: John Briscoe, Long Beach Community College Area 4: Richard Gaylord, District Attorney: Nathan Hochman.

Judge Office 39: Steve Napolitano, Judge Office 48: Renee Rose, Judge Office 97: No Opinion, Judge Office 135: Georgia Huerta, Judge Office 137: Tracey M. Blount.

City Measure LB: Yes, City Measure JB: No, City Measure HC: No, City Measure AC: No, County Measures G and A: No, State Measures 2, 4, 5, 6: No, State Measure 3: No Opinion, State Measures 32, 33: No, State Measures 34, 35, 36: Yes.

Submitted by LBAR

Category:

Beachcomber

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