Letters to the Editor

Luv Gov Newsom

I don’t care if California has, per capita,

• Highest welfare recipients in the nation
• Highest poverty rate in the nation
• Highest gas tax in the nation
• Highest state tax in the nation
• Highest income tax in the nation
• Highest homeless in the nation
• Highest illegal immigrants in the nation.

Also,

• Billions of dollars unaccounted for
• Billions of dollars state deficit.

I would vote for Newsom again because I’m a Democrat!

Leo Mitchell

Route 66

Thank you, Claudine Burnett, for another interesting and well-crafted article on local history. The write-up on Route 66 [June 12] was a fun read. Your histories sparkle like jewels on the pages of this local newspaper.

Bill Courtney

Vibe City

So now Long Beach is “Vibe City.” But what’s the vibe? The city’s desperately youth-coded, new Vibe City marketing campaign, praised by Mayor Rex Richardson as having finally captured the true essence of Long Beach, gives me the same cringe feeling I had years ago at the Jersey Shore when my grandmother announced that she may want to wear a bikini!

I can tell you where there’s a really bad vibe: The Long Beach City Council chamber. The council meeting on Tuesday, June 16, a snapshot of business-as-usual for the Long Beach City Council, was a pathetic excuse for governing. The council was seated in their usual position of dominance, also known as the dais.

The citizens who had waited through four hours (which is actually shorter than usual) of congratulatory ceremonies and presentations of information the council already knew in order to participate in a subject important to all of us – ironically, the vote on shortening the allotted time for citizen input – stood in line kindergarten-style to be then permitted to stand in front of, and imploringly look up at, the council.

And all the while, the cartoonishly huge countdown clock marked the seconds until their mics would be turned off. Twenty-two citizens wanted to speak, and therefore each speaker’s time was reduced to only 90 seconds. Vibe City? What a vibe.

The citizens had arrived with a chip already on their shoulders, anticipating the demeaning vibe of the Long Beach council chamber as is routinely demonstrated at Long Beach City Council meetings. Predictably, the meeting devolved into the usual insults and shouting match.

The mayor wasn’t even present at this meeting of utmost importance to his constituents. He must have been vibing somewhere else: apparently, his salary of $200,000+ isn’t quite enough to keep him interested.

But maybe Vibe City is a good name for Long Beach after all – a city where any promise of positive action turns out to be just vibes.

Merry Colvin