Strength in numbers

To address the needs of Long Beach’s East End, three-year resident Matt Pinelli is forming an East End civic association.

“I feel like I need to get everyone together as one,” said Pinelli, who lives across the street from the Allegria Hotel & Spa on Broadway.

Living so close to the beach, Pinelli said, he is accustomed to circling his block for a parking space in the summer. But he became increasingly frustrated when the hotel opened in mid-September and parking attendants began parking guests’ cars along Broadway, between National and Edwards Boulevards — and in front of his building. When Pinelli came home from work one particularly rainy night, he said, he was forced to walk two blocks in a downpour.

Shortly afterward, he began working to organize a civic association. He hopes the group will join others of its kind, like the Walks Association, the High Rise Association and the Long Beach Latino Civic Association.

“The West End Neighbors Association has a lot of pull with getting things done in the West End,” Pinelli said of the influence civic associations seem to have with the city. “I feel like the East End doesn’t really get that.” Individual complaints made by East End residents, he added, seem to fall on deaf ears.

“I think it’s really great that each area has a voice in City Hall,” said West End Neighbors secretary Karen McInnis, whom Pinelli has asked for help in getting his association off the ground. “Over the past few years we’ve been a model for other organizations.”

Pinelli is collecting signatures of interested residents and beginning the process of creating a not-for-profit organization. He plans to open a bank account, have an election for a six-member board and register the organization with the IRS. He said he would raise money by collecting membership dues and donations and through fundraising.

With neighbors finding out about Pinelli’s venture via word of mouth and a Web site, eastendneighbors.org, he said there has been a lot of interest and positive feedback.