Long Beach City Council kicks off community meetings

In keeping with its campaign pledge to be more accessible to residents, the City Council kicked off its first monthly community meeting, Long Beach Listens, on Monday, with members fielding questions ranging from the city’s troubled finances to traffic safety and quality-of-life issues.

The meeting attracted nearly 100 residents who packed the West End Community Center and voiced their concerns to City Council President Fran Adelson, Vice President Len Torres, Councilman Scott Mandel and City Manager Jack Schnirman. Councilmen John McLaughlin and Mike Fagen did not attend.

The meetings will be held in different parts of Long Beach — including North Park and the West End — to gauge residents’ concerns and to encourage them to get more involved in local government. 
Adelson told the Herald in January that these kinds of community meetings had not been held in about six years, and explained that the gatherings would not be run by any local community organizations. 


“We’re here to listen to your concerns about your neighborhood,” said Adelson, who thanked residents for the “great” turnout.

Some residents, including Gary Pollakusky, inquired about the city’s recent declaration of a fiscal crisis, and asked Schnirman to clarify the city’s $48 million general obligation debt and its annual operating deficit.

“We see that this debt has been a long-standing debt for many, many years, and a surplus that has been used and depleted from administration to administration,” Pollakusky said. “Perhaps you can tell us how we are facing a fiscal crisis that perhaps we can wrap our heads around.”

Schnirman said that the city’s long-term debt is not what created the crisis, but rather the city’s annual operating deficit, which took the overall fund balance into a deficit.

“For a period of several years now, the city ran a multi-million-dollar operating deficit, meaning that each year it took in less than it spent,” Schnirman said. “The city’s fund balance has run from $7.5 million to, as of June 30, 2011, $100,000. Once this current operating year began, we know the city just went from $100,000 totally into the red. How do we know that? We know that over the course of the year the city ran out of cash.”