No doubt you have seen that the past two weeks have brought to light a series of dramatic twists for the Second District Council race:
- Councilperson Pearce’s failure to disclose her conflicts of interest has lead to an investigation by a state watchdog after a report by the City Attorney showed that the payments she received for her consultation work “created ‘disqualifying’ conflict of interest votes”. This has lead to talks about censuring the Councilperson for the second time, something totally unprecedented in Long Beach affairs.
- Our current Councilperson has also come under fire for voting to increase parking citation fines by $10 each, in order to bring in $1.5 million more in income. That brings the expected increase in city earnings from parking ticket fines to $5 million over the past two years. Councilperson Pearce voted for both of these increases, in full knowledge that her District is the most parking impacted of the city. If elected, Robert Fox will introduce legislation to roll back parking fines by at least $20 to their 2015 levels in the most parking impacted areas of the city.
- LBPD data shows that the rate of accidents on Broadway in 2019 are 30% higher than the five year average. Since the ‘road diet was completed’ we have already recorded 15 injuries on the Corridor, compared with the five year average of only 7. These numbers should be taken with full knowledge that not all collisions (or even injuries) are reported. On July 27th, A pedestrian was injured on the 1000 Block on Broadway by a hit and run via e-scooter, and was sent to the hospital. This incident does not appear on the LBPD collisions report.
- This week, the limitations on public comment at City Council meetings were approved by a 7-0 vote. This included establishing the e-Comment system, and reducing speaking times to 90 seconds per person in some situations. If elected, Robert Fox will introduce legislation to restore speaking times to 3 minutes per person, in order to encourage public engagement and ensure that the people of Long Beach are able to educate City Council on the various issues and solutions involving their specific neighborhoods and communities.
I will discuss all of this in more detail at the upcoming Meet and Greet on Monday, please come out and support your candidate for the Second District Council seat!