Stephanie Raygoza/Signal Tribune
Transitional kindergarten student Emily Chung paints as part of the many activities incorporated into the early-childhood education program at George Washington Carver School.

Fighting to save the transitional kindergarten program that has already served hundreds of Long Beach children for the last five years, Long Beach Unified School District (LBUSD) leaders, educators, parents and advocates rallied on Feb. 7 to voice their opposition to Governor Jerry Brown’s proposal to eliminate transitional kindergarten.

The rally, held at George Washington Carver School, was a part of the statewide “Save Kindergarten” campaign launch, which advocates for the full implementation of the program this fall. The budget proposal, if passed, would mark the largest number of students removed from public school classrooms in history.

Preschool California Field Director Ernesto L. Saldana and LBUSD Superintendent Christopher J. Steinhauser led the rally to save early childhood education for 125,000 students.

Stephanie Raygoza/Signal Tribune
LBUSD superintendent Christopher Steinhauser addresses the crowd at a Feb. 7 rally where he announces his support of the full implementation of transitional kindergarten.

Stephanie Raygoza/Signal Tribune
Max Baranek (right) works with a parent volunteer during a crafting session incorporated into a transitional kindergarten class.

More Information
Preschoolcalifornia.org/savekindergarten

Cory Bilicko/Signal Tribune
At the Long Beach Clothing Company store on Tuesday, 8th District Long Beach City Councilmember Rae Gabelich announced that she will not seek a third term as a write-in candidate.

Eighth District Long Beach City Councilmember Rae Gabelich will not be seeking a third term. The Long Beach term limits law does not allow council members to have their names on the ballot after they have served two terms, but many residents in Gabelich’s district encouraged her to run as a write-in candidate. After mulling it over for a few weeks, Gabelich declined the invitation.
The councilmember announced her decision late Tuesday morning at the Long Beach Clothing Company store, 4218 Atlantic Ave. She also told the approximately 50 people in attendance that she is supporting Al Austin in his bid to be elected as her successor.
“It was eight short years ago that I made the decision to run for this elected position,” Gabelich told the audience. “It was one of the hardest journeys I have ever chosen to do in my lifetime.”
Gabelich spoke highly of two of her predecessors on the 8th district seat: Edd Tuttle and Jeff Kellogg. She noted that Tuttle was a leader in the 1980s battle to prevent the Long Beach Airport (LGB) from growing to a degree that would have harmed many Long Beach neighborhoods. “When I joined that movement, I began my role as a community activist,” she said.
Gabelich noted that after the city council passed a noise ordinance limiting the number of commercial and commuter flights at LGB, Tuttle helped appoint Gabelich first to the Board of Health and Human Services and then to the Parks and Recreation Commission, in which she was instrumental in the establishment of Long Beach playgrounds accessible to special-needs children.
“During Councilman Kellogg’s time, I actively worked with him, with success, to cover coal trains traveling through our communities, to build sound walls and appropriate landscaping along the UP (Union Pacific Railroad) corridor to reduce the negative impacts that disturbed the quality of life for area residents,” Gabelich noted.
She added that the City’s plan to expand LGB motivated her to run for office.“I proudly led the charge of HUSH 2 [a local community group that advocated against airport expansion] to defend the quality of life that was being challenged by those who wanted to triple the size of our boutique airport,” she said, noting that the efforts of the HUSH 2 group were successful and soon the city will see the “right size airport modernization that all of Long Beach can be proud of.”
Gabelich added that she had met most of the goals she had when first taking office– including limiting the expansion of LGB, repaving Long Beach Boulevard from Wardlow Road to the 710 Freeway, and reviving the commercial corridors in her district.
“It is humbling and rewarding to know that I have served successfully,” Gabelich said, fighting back tears. “Not that we have always agreed, but our district has grown in so many positive ways, and it has been wonderful to lead that process.”
Gabelich noted that recently, many of her constituents asked her to run as a write-in candidate. “After much contemplation, I believe it is time for me to turn over the reins,” she said.
Later, Gabelich explained that she has known two of the candidates for the 8th district seat, Al Austin and Lillian Kawasaki, for several years and considers both of them good friends. She added, however, that she believes Austin is the best candidate to “continue the progress we have made.” Gabelich then listed Austin’s accomplishments and qualifications and turned the microphone over to him. He pledged that if elected he would continue Gabelich’s good work and do what is necessary to keep the district moving forward.
Afterwards, in a private conversation with the Signal Tribune, former Assemblymember Betty Karnette praised Gabelich for her dedication and hard work during her tenure on the council. “I believe Rae was the best thing that ever happened to the 8th district,” Karnette said.
Former City Councilmemember Tonia Reyes Uranga agreed. “Rae always tried to do what was best for her district and the city,” she said. “She refused to just be a rubber stamp for what others at City Hall wanted to do.”
Blair Cohn, executive director of the Bixby Knolls Business Improvement Association, also praised Gabelich. “Without her supporting me and going to bat for me, I don’t think I could have accomplished as much as I have during the past three years,” he said.
Janeice McConnell, action chair for the Long Beach League of Women Voters, took it a step further. “Rae has been the moral compass of the city council,” she said. “I am very sorry to see her go.”
Later, Gabelich said that a few months from now, when her term expires, she will be happy to spend much more time with her family. She added that she plans to continue to live in Long Beach and to work for positive changes in the city. “I am not going to stop being a community activist just because my time on the city council has come to an end,” she said.

View of new Signal Hill Library conceptual design

Facing harsh words from several members of a community watchdog group, the Signal Hill City Council at last Tuesday’s meeting accepted a conceptual design for a new library and authorized City staff to move forward with construction plans.
The price for the project has been estimated to total more than $10.5 million. This amount reflects the cost of construction plus an additional amount to cover design and construction management and other costs related to the project. It also includes a large contingency fund, according to City Manager Ken Farfsing.
“This is a library for the future,” Councilmember Michael Noll said, just before he cast his vote in favor of proceeding with the construction plans to replace the 4,234-square-foot library with a building more than three times its size.
The design features artistic elements to celebrate the City’s historic ties to the oil industry. The new library will also have space dedicated for a children’s area, a teen area, a learning center, and a historical museum to fill more than 15,000 square feet of space.
The library will have an expanse of windows, a courtyard area and– if the budget has room for it– an optional terrace area.
According to the city manager, planning for the library has so far taken up more than a decade and involved the efforts of a library design committee. Despite criticism from some members of the community regarding public input, there were indeed opportunities for the public to comment on the plans. The funding for the library is coming from several sources, including approximately $8.4 million from redevelopment agency (RDA) bonds, $1.8 million from park-development funds, and $316,500 from library reserve funds, according to a staff report.
Farfsing also emphasized that the library project will not impact the general fund, which pays for city services and public works, but this assurance from the city manager did not stop criticism from a few residents.
Several members of the community spoke up at the meeting. While a few praised the project and the process, a number of residents criticized the plan. They said they belonged to Signal Hill Community First, a watchdog group that has criticized the Council on different issues. The group recently distributed a flyer to residents that has called the project a “15,000-square-foot Taj Mahal.”
Several of the members of Signal Hill Community First said they were not speaking on behalf of the group, but instead spoke out as individual residents.
“Our concern,” said resident Richard Harris, “among other things, is that in your enthusiasm for building this beautiful, new library, you’ve put our city at risk by having misled the state in your assertion that the construction of the new library would remove blight from our redevelopment area. This action has the effect of taking revenue from the state and will now receive extra scrutiny in the wake of the dissolution of the RDA.”
Much of the funding is available from bonds through the City’s RDA. The RDA was ordered by the California Supreme Court to dissolve by Feb. 1. The agency’s original purpose was to eliminate blight from the neighborhoods and provide affordable housing.
Signal Hill resident and former Councilmember Carol Churchill added that the project is out of the redevelopment area and that the project does not eliminate blight. She compared the Council’s actions on behalf of the library project to corrupt behavior by public officials in other cities.
“I am sure that a number of people were sickened by the cities that have come under criminal investigation for improper expenditure of state redevelopment funds and city general funds such as the cities of Bell, Vernon and Compton,” Churchill said, stating that there had been a lack of public oversight of those city officials.
“However, what I found most outrageous was the defense that [those] city officials asserted,” Churchill said. “They claimed that they did not know that they were doing anything wrong, and because they didn’t know, they could not be held legally responsible. I like to call this the ‘village idiot defense.’”
Churchill specifically criticized Vice Mayor Hansen, Councilmember Ward and Mayor Forester for their participation in one special meeting that dealt with the library issues.
“The special meeting engaged in by these individuals demonstrates a massive contempt for citizens that were elected to serve in the democratic process,” Churchill said. “I hope that you won’t be the next village idiots.”
The comparison to the cities who have been rocked by public corruption scandal especially irked City Attorney David Aleshire.
“I just think it’s offensive to compare that situation to the long-term effort of this City Council [which figured] out how to financially put together a program to provide a library in this community,” Aleshire said. He explained that the officials under investigation in Bell and other cities were accused of using public projects to line their own personal pockets. “I think if people are going to get up and do a smear like that as opposed to asking about legitimate public questions, unfortunately I think it undercuts… their whole modus operandi in terms of the questions that are being raised.”
The city attorney also explained that the legal arguments Churchill had specifically raised were not offered in a timely manner. He also noted that the timing was crucial when City officials had authorized the bond.
“If in fact the bond issue had not been done, staff would have no way of going forward with the library,” Aleshire said.
The city attorney added in an interview Tuesday night that the bond had to be used for the library, and not for another purpose.
Another resident brought up the issue of public safety. Signal Hill Community First member Maria Harris said that the police department had two unfilled positions and warned that the police department funds could be at risk if there is a pullback in state funds to public safety.
“Work to bring back the full strength of our police department,” Harris said. “Leave the library expansion to a date when the City’s fiscal future is more certain….And in a more calm environment, it would be possible to design a library expansion that fits the actual City’s fiscal limits.”
Tom Benson, a resident and a member of the Planning Commission, blasted the comments and defended the project.
“The ridiculous comments that were just made [are] infuriating,” Benson said. “The dollar amount is substantiated in many ways through studies, through years of work and, if anything else, I believe the Council just transferred a million dollars back into the emergency fund….political grandstanding should not be done at this podium.”
The vice mayor said she was most offended at the suggestion that public safety is at risk.
“One of the things that I’ve found over my years is that when people want to scare other people, they bring up public safety,” Hansen said, describing the suggestions made by critics of the Council that the police force would be cut and that when there’s an emergency, the police won’t come.
Hansen asked Police Chief Michael Langston to address the police staffing. He reported that the police staff levels for the city are higher than the state staff levels. He also spoke of the new hires that were in process to fill the open positions.
Other members of the Council weighed in on the critical remarks. “If you want credibility, make credible comments,” Councilmember Wilson said, adding that corporations do borrow money for long-term projects.
He also warned that the bond money could not pay off operational costs, adding that observers shouldn’t confuse capital improvements and investment in buildings with operational costs. He warned that “those are totally separate categories of money.”
Forester addressed the issue of blight.
“The police department and the fire department, I am told, were built in an era of asbestos,” Forester said in an interview Tuesday night. The library years ago had moved into the City’s former fire department. “We could not modify either [of] those buildings to accommodate either police or library. And, as such, they are blighted buildings. I think we did our job in meeting all the requirements for redevelopment. Most importantly though is….property-tax dollars are staying within the city to help build the city.”
The vice mayor took the time to praise the efforts of the Library Design Committee and design by architect Robert Coffee.
“When we get past all of the inflammatory rhetoric, this is a great project,” Hansen said, noting how the diverse groups of the community would be able to use the library.

Other City Council highlights:
Precinct ballots
In a second reading, the Council voted 4-0 to approve an ordinance that would allow the City to purchase precinct ballots for general municipal elections to accommodate 50 percent of the number of registered voters. Councilmember Wilson was not present for this particular vote.

Animal boarding/daycare
The Council took several actions surrounding the proposed use of animal boarding/daycare. In a first-reading vote, the Council unanimously passed an ordinance approving a zoning ordinance amendment that will allow animal boarding/daycare in specific industrial zoning districts. The use will be subject to conditional-use permits that have performance standards. In a first-reading vote, the Council also approved changes to the municipal codes to accommodate the animal boarding/daycare use. One of the changes specifically addressed noise-level standards. The Council also unanimously passed a resolution approving a conditional-use permit for animal boarding for the business named Bark! Bark! Daycare & Grooming of Long Beach.

New employee
New library assistant Charles Hughes was introduced to the City Council.

Budget adjustments
The City Council unanimously approved staff-recommended adjustments from a preliminary carryover report of expenditures from 2010-11. The action effectively increased general expenditures by $356,561 for the current Fiscal Year 2011-2012, according to a staff report from Director of Finance Maida Alcantara. These carryover items were budgeted for the previous fiscal year, however these items were not spent until the current fiscal year, according to Alcantara’s report. The Council also approved the transfer of $1,000,000 to the Economic Uncertainties Fund.

The next Signal Hill City Council meeting will be held at 7pm, on Tuesday, Feb. 21 at the Council Chambers.

Lillian Kawasaki, candidate for Long Beach City Council’s 8th district, issued a press release Wednesday announcing that her campaign has raised more than $60,000 from 150-plus individual donors as of the Dec. 31 reporting deadline. Kawasaki outraised her opponents, Al Austin and Gustavo Rivera, by a 4-to-1 margin. The current incumbent, Rae Gabelich, is termed out.

His name won’t appear on the April 12 ballot, but that won’t stop Long Beach Councilmember Patrick O’Donnell from seeking a third term in office. Long Beach councilmembers and the mayor are limited to two terms in office unless constituents choose to re-elect their city official through a write-in vote.
In a recent telephone interview, O’Donnell touted his experience over the last eight years as the representative of Long Beach’s fourth district.
“Long Beach has a balanced budget because individuals like me have made the tough choices to move our city forward and secure a balanced budget,” O’Donnell said.
O’Donnell is one of several city officials in the last decade to attempt to hold on to the office for a third term via a write-in vote. Beverly O’Neill successfully won a third term when she ran for mayor in 2002. Other incumbent candidates like Jackie Kell, Tonia Reyes Uranga and Val Lerch who ran for re-election to City Council have not been so fortunate. Kell lost her campaign for Council in 2006. Reyes Uranga and Lerch each lost their elections for Council in 2010.
O’Neill remembers just how tough a write-in campaign can be. She also explained in a telephone interview last week why she ran for a third term in the first place. The former mayor described how, in her first two terms over eight years in office, Long Beach had been moving away from its identity as a defense town that used to have a shipyard, station, hospital and housing for the Navy.
“I felt that it was just not through,” O’Neill said, as she explained how she and others had set goals for the city’s transition and that there was still work to do. “Because we were known as a Navy town and we have an entirely different identity now. So when I ran, we realized that even though [the constituents] knew me, they didn’t know how to vote for a write-in.”
O’Neill emphasized the timing of a campaign. She said she believes that her own 2002 campaign began around spring in the year prior to the election. She explained how it may be a risk for candidates to wait too long to announce a bid for office. He or she may discover that some of the people on whom they’ve depended could have already committed to supporting someone else. Potential endorsers may not have known that the candidate was going to run.
According to the city election handbook from the City Clerk’s office, the filing period for write-in candidates begins Feb. 13 and lasts until March 27.
O’Neill provided a clear message to the constituents in her campaign, which involved meetings and brochures to communicate how voters can fill out their ballots correctly. On the ballot, voters have to fill in the blank corresponding to the correct office, write in the candidate’s name and fill in the bubble next to his or her name. O’Neill described one way organizers creatively spread the word.
“We did send out a letter that had a small golf pencil in it that said ‘Write In Beverly O’Neill.’ I don’t think you can do that anymore,” the former mayor said, laughing.
The fourth district councilmember said he’s taking cues from prior candidates for office who tried to launch a write-in campaign.
“You can absolutely be assured that we’ll be creative, but the most basic thing you can do is get out and knock on doors and talk to voters on their doorstep,” O’Donnell said, indicating that he’s already started to visit with voters. He estimated he will knock on thousands of doors by the time the election is over.
He also emphasized his own priorities.
“This is about protecting the basics,” O’Donnell said. “We’re not in an era where we’re planning to spend large amounts of money on unique and new things. It’s about protecting public safety, our parks, repairing our streets and sidewalks and focusing on quality-of-life issues.”
O’Donnell will face opponents John Watkins and Daryl Supernaw, who months ago started work on their own campaigns to run for the fourth district Council seat. Watkins initially submitted paperwork in July of last year. Supernaw filed his candidate papers in September. At the time, they had understood that O’Donnell was running for the State Assembly. O’Donnell announced earlier in January that he intended to drop his bid to run for the Assembly. Assemblymember Bonnie Lowenthal last year announced that she would seek another term in the California Assembly instead of running for state senate.
O’Donnell didn’t cite Lowenthal’s decision to seek another term as the main reason for his own decision to run for Council again.
“I don’t apologize for taking a look at running for the State Assembly,” O’Donnell said. “Ultimately, I didn’t do it for a variety of reasons, among them being the fact that I’ve got young children and traveling is hard on a family.”
Winning a seat on the Council through a write-in vote was not a path Eighth District Councilmember Rae Gabelich is choosing for herself. Gabelich is also finishing her second term on the Council this year, but she has decided not to run as a write-in candidate for a third term. She announced this week that she will support Al Austin for the Council seat. (See related story on page 1.)
Despite the fact that she has served three terms, O’Neill said she feels “ambivalent” about term limits.
“While I like the fact that term limits [bring] in new blood, I also know that term limits sometimes [limit] the seniority that people have and the feeling of history that they have in the cities,” O’Neill said. “So… I really didn’t feel as though I was defying the term limits as much as wanting to complete what had been started. And some of the people I was running against didn’t want to do some of these things.”

Matt Sun/SignalTribune
Long Beach Police Department Lieutenant Braden Phillips (right) presents a report of the 2011 crime statistics to the Public Safety Committee in a meeting on Jan. 31 in the Long Beach City Council Chambers.

Stephanie Raygoza
Staff Writer

In a 2-1 vote, the Long Beach Public Safety Committee passed a motion on Jan. 31 to request the full Long Beach City Council to direct the city manager to prepare a multi-year police academy and recruitment plan to be presented to the Council at the beginning of the March discussion process. Fifth District Councilmember Gerrie Schispke, who voted against the move, referred to the motion as just another “feel-good thing” and not an action item.
The committee, which consists of chair and 1st District Councilmember Robert Garcia, 7th District Councilmember James Johnson and Schipske, conducted the meeting to provide constituents with a police department update and to discuss the status of a 2012 police academy and police staffing levels. Long Beach Police Department (LBPD) Administration Bureau Chief Braden Phillips presented a report on the 2011 crime statistics and the fiscal year 2012 agenda.

2011 crime summary
In his summary, Braden reported that crimes trended up last year but were still 15 percent lower than the 10-year averages. Last year’s statistics included the total summary of violent crimes and property crimes. An increase in robberies by 9.1 percent was reported, in part related to the price of gold. Additionally, a spike in residential and commercial burglaries was also reported.
Bike thefts were up by 22 percent, which were in part contributed to the City’s bike-friendly renovations and their increased popularity. Phillips said that, with police numbers on the decline, the department looked to various sources for force multipliers. He referenced a crime triangle to combat crime. “Each side represents a suspect, victim and a location,” Phillips said. “If you can eliminate one side, the crime does not occur.”
With the collaboration of city departments and the redevelopment agency, LBPD successfully eliminated various problem locations with histories of high numbers of calls for service and high incidences of crime. Those locations included the Willow Liquor Store, Pacific Coast Highway Liquor Store, El Paisano Bar, Locust Apartments, and several others.
Other force multipliers utilized by the LBPD included the expanding network of city cameras placed in critical locations and the development of a community watch in place of the neighborhood-watch programs.
“Divisional-support police officers and the community are coming together to expand the number of eyes and ears in our neighborhood,” Phillips said. “We have identified more than 50 partners from a variety of businesses who have agreed to share their security camera information under the community camera partnership.”

2012 police academy and agenda
LBPD made $9.39 million in general-fund cuts and eliminated more than 75 positions to meet its proportional share of the deficit-reduction target. With the onset of the 2013 budget process fast approaching, the department will turn its focus on how and when to fund the next recruitment academy. The projected fiscal year 2013 fund deficit is estimated to be around $14 million.
“There will be a number of other difficult resource allocation issues to deal with in the upcoming budget process, but the timing of the academy is among the most important for the department,” Phillips said.
Even if a decision is made in March to allocate funds for an academy, the traditional recruit academy was described as a lengthy process. The department would have to work with civil service to explore ways to use modern technology to conduct a recruiting. Funds would have to be set aside to train a new cadre of instructors due to a lapsed certification since the last academy. The total cost for a recruit academy would be $2.5 million, according to Phillips. The last police recruitment was conducted nearly four years ago and was put on hold because of budget constraints.
Lieutenant Steve James, who serves as president of the Long Beach Police Officers Association, voiced his concerns with the delay of a police recruit academy and the increase in crimes to come.
“I believe that property crime is a precursor for violent crime,” James said. “As staffing is going down, crime is going up. It’s not an exact science but certainly the untrained eye can see a correlation there. There is an academy need to maintain the level we’re at right now.”
Garcia also addressed concerns raised with the release of prisoners in future months. “There is no question that the release of prisoners into our communities will have an impact as far as what happens with those prisoners with the release and the ability to work with other public agencies to not just work on the public safety side, but on the service side,” he said.
While Schipske, James and other residents pressed the committee to make a final decision on allocating funds immediately, Johnson sided with Garcia’s motion to conceptualize a plan first. “I think the purpose of the motion is that we all want an academy,” Johnson said. “It’s only fiscally prudent that we make sure we have the money to pay those officers in the added academy.”
Schipske cited discrepancies in crime statistics given to her constituents weeks prior, an increase in home burglaries in her district and an alarming decline in police presence with the need to get a police academy going as soon as possible.
“The majority of the Council did a great disservice to the constituents by not restoring public safety funding when we had excess oil revenue available,” Schipske said. “It takes about three years to have an experienced officer on the streets. I don’t think we need to wait until March to ask the full Council to take up the issue of funding. I think we need to take some action because our residents are really getting upset when they hear that we don’t have enough police officers.”
Schipske also reported that her constituents have had to take the initiative to purchase home security alarms. She recommended that with the $5-million surplus reported at the end of the last budget year, the police department could fund an academy.
The meeting was closed with a second motion approved by all three councilmembers to ask the city manager to access areas of the city that could benefit from enhanced public lighting and to explore new technology that may allow additional lighting in an environmentally and fiscally responsible manner.