AT 11TH HOUR, WHEN PEOPLE HAVE GONE HOME, COUNCIL PASSES BUDGET THEY OPPOSED
By LBReport.com
At 11:11 p.m. Tuesday, after the large crowd that testified hours earlier had gone home, the Long Beach City Council passed the fiscal year 2012 budget in an empty chamber—enacting with a minor change the cuts to police, fire, parks and libraries proposed by Mayor Bob Foster and City Manager Pat West.
The vote was 6-3, the majority consisting of Robert Garcia, Suja Lowenthal, Gary DeLong, Patrick O’Donnell, Dee Andrews and James Johnson.
In dissent were Gerrie Schipske, Rae Gabelich and Steve Neal, whose proposal to maintain services through use of uplands oil money was defeated earlier in the meeting, despite support from all but one person who spoke during public comment.
As an emergency ordinance, the new budget takes effect immediately. The cuts to police, fire, parks and libraries are effective Oct. 1.
Per recommendation of DeLong and Lowenthal (in DeLong’s Budget Oversight Committee), Council votes 6-3 (Schipske, Gabelich, Neal dissenting) to cancel the fiscal year 2012 replenishment police academy (that the police chief said in Nov. 2010 he favored in 2012) to fund between nine and 11 patrol officers (that Mayor/Manager proposed to cut).
11 Comments
Rather farcical is it not?
Without question—something smells–and the smell will turn more
pungent—as the charred remains of burnt homes–or human flesh-
permeate the air.
Clearly,the ill advised cuts could have been avoided were we not
hobbled by those,disconnected,so void of any true interest in the
this City.
No question: The Mayor and Councilman De Long need to resign.
By ballot measure:Full time Mayor should be eliminated-returning
to what worked so well-for so long.Eliminating such with the equally
dubious posse could give us at least three more LBFD.Reducing
Council Districts from 9-5 could give us 20 or three more.
Clearly,something smells.Soon it will be the stench homes and or
charred flesh.It is not a question of if—but when.
Equally clear is the need to:
l.Eliminate the waste inherent in the full time Mayor-and his equally
useless posse.
2.Reduce the number of Council Districts from 9-5.
3.Keep–a close–very close eye on all revenue streams as the City tries to
funnel money into the Alamitos Bay Marine Re Build PLan–which could
have been long under way were it not for the boating adverse poor
management–of the Marine Bureau–so lacking in understanding of
maritime issues.
Proves comments from the public have no effect since Council members have already decided beforehand how they will vote and the public comment period is an inconvenient exercise in tedium and boredom for them.
Snap Quiz
How were the concerned residents of Long Beach who participated in the open to the public comment period treated at last night’s council meeting? They were:
(a) Hornswoggled
(b) Discombobulated
(c) Bamboozled
(d) All the Above
a.
(a)
In 2005, Bob Foster was pushed out as the President that drove SCE to the brink of bankruptcy. The settlement agreement (below link) he signed with SCE required Foster to never apply or take a job at SCE for the rest of his life. It appears Foster led SCE to accumulating $4 Billion in debt and was forced to sign a go-away and stay-away agreement as commonly done for people at his level when the Board of Directors doesn’t want shareholders to know how badly their President had performed.
http://www.secinfo.com/d14D5a.z5B7n.htm
It gets better. In 2008, SCE agreed to an out of court settlement with the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) with a $146 million fraud fine (below link) for lying about customer satisfaction and safety reports during Bob Foster’s vice-presidency and presidency at SCE. Upper management (that’s Bob Foster) at SCE had justified their $48 million in bonuses they gave themselves based upon the falsified data. SOUND EERILY SIMILAR TO WALL STREET? The investigation and resulting charges were based upon a 2004 whistle-blower’s letter detailing the fraud perpetrated under Foster’s leadership. Though it was a record high CPUC penalty, it was a relief for SCE because the original judge on the case had ordered SCE to pay $237 million in penalties.
http://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/word_pdf/NEWS_RELEASE/91048.pdf
d.
“Upper management (that’s Bob Foster) at SCE had justified their $48 million in bonuses they gave themselves based upon the falsified data. SOUND EERILY SIMILAR TO WALL STREET? The investigation and resulting charges were based upon a 2004 whistle-blower’s letter detailing the fraud perpetrated under Foster’s leadership”.
Sounds eerily similar to ENRON…remember the power shortages in CA engineered by them…
It wasn’t just ENRON. There were a lot of companies involved that were never charged. ENRON was the arrogant company that got caught.
Kinda like Lehman Brothers and the financial scandal.