Democratic slate sworn in

“I think people have seen how we’ve worked to build back Long Beach,” City Council President Scott Mandel said after being sworn in for a second term. “Not to the point of where it was before the storm, but bring it back to the point of making it even better.”

The Jan. 1 inauguration ceremony struck a reflective but optimistic tone, with Mandel and his running mates noting the challenges the administration faced over the past two years and pledging to continue the city’s recovery efforts and support residents and businesses still reeling from Hurricane Sandy.

Democrats retained control of the City Council in the November election, defeating their Republican-backed challengers by a wide margin in what supporters called an affirmation of the administration’s handling of a fiscal crisis it inherited two years ago, and its storm-recovery efforts.

In the battle for three open council seats, incumbents Mandel and Eileen Goggin earned four-year terms, while newcomer Anthony Eramo, a member of the Working Families party, won a two-year term. City Court Judge Roy Tepper, a Democrat who was also re-elected, was also sworn in.

Mandel, who was also reappointed council president, pointed out the administration’s successes: the rebuilding of the boardwalk and other infrastructure projects, solid relationships with elected officials in Albany and Washington that have benefited the city’s storm recovery, and initiatives to promote Long Beach in Sandy’s aftermath, including the filming of a commercial starring Billy Crystal. Mandel also lauded the administration for its handling of a fiscal crisis, which eased in September after Moody’s Investors Service revised the city’s credit rating outlook from negative to stable.

“This administration’s first term was truly eventful and action-packed,” Mandel said. “We were tested. Our administration was full of reforms [and] initiatives, and bookended by two unprecedented crises, one of which was avoidable, in the form of inherited fiscal disaster, the other unavoidable, in the form of a superstorm the likes of which we have never seen before and hopefully will never be seen again. We immediately hit the ground running. We never stopped.”