LBPOST.com: Of Pucks and Puppets

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Of Pucks and Puppets

by Keith Higginbotham | City Beat | 01.14.10 |

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First, we have a city official accepting a gift from a lobbyist friend with business before the city. Now we have a city council member accepting a gift from one of the most powerful developers in the city, a situation that involves the same exact lobbyist.

The Press-Telegram's City Hall reporter Paul Eakins reported over the weekend that e-mails obtained by the P-T reveal that 2nd District Council member Suja Lowenthal accepted an invitation to attend the Oct. 29, 2009 Los Angeles Kings game, free of charge, from the chairman of one of the most powerful developers in the city. Also at the game, evidently at the developer's invitation--lobbyist Mike Murchison, whose cozy relationship with and offer of a free gift to now demoted Development Services chief Craig Beck was also first revealed by the P-T.

I am not going to get into all the details of Council member Lowenthal's story other than to say that you should read Eakins' Jan. 9 article on the P-T website.

A major difference in the Council member Lowenthal situation is that unlike Mr. Beck, who initially felt compelled to lie about the gift from Mr. Murchison, Council member Lowenthal tried to report the gift from developer Frank T. Suryan Jr.

However, Heather Mahood in the City Attorney's office determined that because the ticket was a promotional offering to season ticket holders and "had no face value" it did not need to be included in Council member Lowenthal's required filing of gifts received.

What the puck?

Evidently leaving the price tag off of something now makes it worthless. You would think that the City Attorney's office could have made a simple call to Staples Center and said "I know this ticket doesn't have a price on it, but if I wanted to buy something identical, how much would it cost?"

Keep in mind that this was not some nose-bleed seat. According to the e-mails obtained by the P-T, the seats were described by Mr. Murchison as VIP tickets and included a chance to meet famed Kings player Luc Robitaille. I'm guessing that Luc doesn't normally head up into the rafters of the Staples Center to cavort.

And while Council member Lowenthal did the right thing in trying to report the ticket, does the City Attorney's office think we are all idiots? Obviously, this ticket had some value. I mean, you or I could not walk in off the street and sit in the seat for free.

Since it was available only to season ticket holders, someone paid for it, whether it was Mr. Murchison or the developer, Mr. Suryan. Even Council member Lowenthal knew it was worth something, that's why she tried to report it.

In an effort to defuse the situation in a post-Craig Beck environment, Council member Lowenthal told the P-T that the event was purely social.

Okay, here's where my Logic-o-meter starts going off like a gieger counter at Three Mile Island.

Yup. Just some friends hanging out. In VIP seats. At Staples Center. With a lobbyist now known to offer free gifts to city officials. And at the invitation of Mr. Suryan, chairman and CEO of Lyon Capital Ventures that has least two projects worth more than $130 million under development in Long Beach--both approved unanimously in 2007 by the City Council, including Council member Lowenthal.

Just a typical Thursday night for a council member.

Council member Lowenthal also said the "social" event had nothing to do with work. Just a chance to catch up with acquaintances.

Now the Logic-o-meter has fully pegged its needle in the red.

Put yourself in the same situation: You are invited to an event by people you know through work that you haven't seen in a while. Are you going to sit for several hours and talk about your new curtains or are you going to talk about work--which is, after all, what you have in common with each other?

I don't know about you, but I find it insulting when City Hall officials think the citizens are thick enough to buy this type of deflecting drivel.

Call it what you will, but this is pure and simple influence peddling.

And the more I think about, so what if Council member Lownethal tried to report it? The bottom line is she should not have accepted the invitation.

You know I like Frank Sinatra, but the man actually whined that he was being punished for hanging around with mobsters. Well, guess what 'Ol Blue Eyes, you lie down with mobsters...

The same goes for politicians. You hang around with lobbyists who apparently pick up their ethics at the five-and-dime and business people who are raking in taxpayer contracts you voted on and guess what? You have no right to complain when people look at you askew. It's called perception. And the public rightly expects its City Hall officials to be 100 percent above board at all times--24 hours a day.

In Council member Lowenthal's defense, though, it might be hard for any council member to turn down an invitation from the likes of Mr. Suryan and others in what I call the development industry.

After all, people like Mr. Suryan and others in the development industry are among the top donators to the campaigns of all the current council members.

This really shouldn't surprise anyone, since politicians figured out long ago that to raise the money needed to win and re-win office, you have to kowtow to the people and groups with the money. And guess what, that is not you or me. Oh sure, the vast majority of the City Council campaigns are funded by individuals like you and me, but we are all just single donations with no group power or organized agenda.

The reality fro Long Beach is that since the 1950s, the people and groups with the majority of the political juice have been the development (and property) industry. This umbrella group consists of people like realtors, robber-baron landlords, property investors, building trades, commercial banks, property management firms, and more, who all became rich in the unrelenting residential, commercial and industrial development and redevelopment of Long Beach.

And with so much money being made, the development industry in Long Beach has never been at a loss to throw campaign contributions at politicians to make sure that the wheels of development and redevelopment never stop turning and regulations favor their interests, not that of the citizenry.

Take a look at the willy-nilly zoning laws that allowed entire streets of Craftsman houses to be decimated to make way for Stalinesque apartment buildings. Or the lack of oversight which has allowed some of the richest landlords in town to become absentee slumlords, doing what they want and charging what they want because they know no one at City Hall is looking over their shoulder. Or the insane commercial real estate overbuilding in downtown during the late 1980s. Or the complete and utter destruction of downtown's once-scenic Ocean Boulevard into a chasm of mocking and soulless apartment high-rises. Need I even mention the Nu-Pike, the old mall, or the new old mall called the City Place?

That these things can go on year after year tells you where the power in this city lies, because it surely isn't being wielded by the citizens that have to live in the bric-a-brac shoulder-to-shoulder reality that has been created. Evidently, when you have the cash, you can peddle any crap you want in this city and get it approved.

But, let's be realistic.

A free Kings ticket, even a full price, is not really going to get you much in the buy-and-trade world of politics. No, the life blood of any elected official's future is campaign money.

For this reason, your intrepid writer spent a couple days looking through every single campaign contribution ever made to each sitting city council member since they first ran for office. Due to a filing and posting lag, these only included those made through the end of June 2009. For example, if a council person is in their second term and thinking about running a write-in campaign this year, I looked at every contribution they received in the first and second campaigns as well as anything raised through June 30, 2009 for the upcoming race. And so on for each sitting council member.

I tagged each contribution by a company or organization as one of several interest groups that were clearly the most numerous. These included the development industry, unions, attorneys, and lobbyist/public relations firms. Executives of firms or groups that fell into these categories also were tagged. I should point out that each of those special interest groups listed on the following chart represent the largest such contributing groups for each council member.

Now, this little project encompassed just shy of 3,500 contributions, totaling close to $1 million in donations over roughly four years, and I fully concede that in the course of my efforts I most certainly misidentified a few. But not many.

The whole idea of this was to gather some sense of who the vested interests are that support those sitting behind the council dais.

The results were interesting, both dispelling several common myths and quite clearly showing who is holding the strings at City Hall.

In the case of five council members (Lowenthal, DeLong, Andrews, Gabelich and Lerch), the development industry was by far the largest special interest contributor. In the case of three of the remaining council members (Garcia, O'Donnell, and Reyes-Uranga), the development industry was number two, and for Council member Schipske it fell to number three.

All told, the development industry has over the years donated a total of just under $190,000 to the nine sitting council members.

This is just over 19 cents of every dollar collected by the current council. This is also just over 2.5 times more than the next nearest interest group, the unions, which spent just over $70,000 on all the current council members' races.

Click here to download a PDF version of the chart.

Now, while I hope you will peruse this chart at length, and come to your own conclusions, I would be remiss in not pointing out at least one item of note.

Five of the six council members whose districts are mostly contained within the city's redevelopment zones all saw their greatest special interest donations from the development industry.

Remember that nearly 40-percent of the city falls into one of the RDA's seven zones, with the majority falling within just five council districts: the 1st, 2nd, 6th, 8th and 9th. In fact, Robert Garcia's 1st, Dee Andrew's 6th and Val Lerch's 9th District are virtually 100 percent RDA zones, while roughly 60 to 70 percent of Suja Lowenthal's 2nd district and Rae Gabelich's 8th district fall within RDA zone boundaries. The remaining four districts have some RDA zone areas, but these are very small pockets in comparison to the first five districts mentioned.

Also keep in mind that in the 2010 budget, the city expects to spend upwards of $140 million on redevelopment in these RDA zones. Can you imagine a more tempting piggy bank for the development industry? Especially one like the RDA that is mandated to spend a majority of its funds each year. And considering that Long Beach is not exactly overflowing with conventional development opportunities given the feckless fiscal leadership that City Hall seems to attract, these RDA dollars are no doubt highly sought after.

Just ask Mr. Suryan. His firm's more than $130 million in developments are all being handled under the auspices of the city redevelopment office.

So, there you have it. I am not going to rant too much this week or really even offer any solutions.

I just thought that everyone out there might like to know who is holding the purse strings and which puppets those purse strings might be tethered to.

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Comments

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34 Comments so far.

John Greet
A most excellent and revealing "just-the-facts" sort of column, Mr. H! You set the bar on this one for others, like myself, to aspire toward.

give me a break
Does the writer actually think that a Kings Hockey game ticket is going to influence the way one votes on major projects; besides Mr. Suryan's projects are already in the ground long before the hockey game, so what is the influence? In addition this article takes the tone that something was violated - nothing was according to city attorney's office and furthermore campaign contributions that he has listed are all legal, so is the writer trying to point something out that is illegal or just his own moral compass that seems to be unrealistic. The fact of the matter is that developers, lobbyists, and others play by the rules that are established by elected officials. if you don't like the rules change them, but don't make accusations or innuendo's just because you don't like the rules. Finally, does the writer think that without development anything would get paid for city service wise - how many city services does the writer and others such as Mr. Greet come to depend upon daily - those very city services - police, fire, public works, etc are dependent upon the fees, permits and taxes that developers generate without that you might as well move to a communist society. The writer infers a piggy bank in his article re redevelopment dollars and how tempting - wow what earth shattering news - government has property and developers want to build on those properties so what that is normal not illegal, immoral or anything else that this writer has inferred in his last three, (play it again sam) articles. Again, to the writer or Mr. Greet if you don't like the system go about changing it the way normal people - there is no need to villify the very people that play by those rules just because you have some personal bias.

Mike Ruehle
Interesting article Mr.Higginbotham. However, I am curious about a couple of things. First, why didn't you analyze similar contributions to Mayor Foster? It would have been interesting to see how his campaign contributions contrasted those of the Councilmembers. Second, you did not mention that developers contributed more than twice as much to both Councilmembers Lowenthal and DeLong as they did to any other Councilmember. DeLong and Lowenthal each received more from Developers than Lerch received in total contributions from everyone for both of his terms. Third, you did not mention that Councilman Garcia collected more campaign contributions for one "special election" than other Councilmembers collected over both of their terms. And Garcia’s largest contributor was the shipping industry which is fighting pollution restrictions on the port. Maybe you can follow up with another article that touches upon these other issues.

Anonymous
"Give me a break" expresses my sentiments exactltY!

Juan Pardell
givemeabreak: The issue isn't just singling out one city councilmember. The general matter is a question of ethics. Should elected officials accept any gratuities from entities, or individuals, who do business with the city? If you choose to infer items pertaining to redevelopment in Long Beach, perhaps you should base your comments on the results they've produced. Frankly, most every recent downtown RDA project has been a fiscal failure for the taxpayers of Long Beach.

John Greet
give: I think you're missing about a dozen very important points and assuming about twice as many facts not in evidence. I wont presume to speak to what the author may or may not think but I can tell you that I think the effect of corruption in government is most often both incremental and cumulative so when a person takes exception to a single incident, it is also being considered in the context of an ongoing pattern of behavior. My own columns, here, on government ethics spell out my thoughts on this pretty well. I would strongly caution you to avoid assuming that comments I or others post here about our government are all that we are doing to address the various issues. These columns and comments, at least in my case, are only the efforts that you, personally, see any evidence of. But none of us always sees all that exists. Lastly, no one is saying development or developers are bad. We're saying that we expect our government officials to adhere to the highest ethical standards possible at all times because every time they don't, someone other than the those our government officials are supposed to be serving (the electorate) is enjoying undue influence over public policy decision making. This is not acceptable because the property being developed and the money being spent belongs to the people, not to the officials to whom we have delegated some of our authority. It is an axiom of any self-governed society that the moment someone enjoys more influence over government than those whom that government is intended to serve, liberty contracts and tyranny expands.

L. Smith
Are developers banging down our doors? Maybe LB City Council should buy some Kings tickets and invite developers and businesses we want here to accompany city council members to the games. Obviously there are those that think this is a very persuasive and valuable tactic to winning business.

Paul
This system of prostitution, a person who offers his talent or work for unworthy purposes, is harmful overall to the residents. Give that statement a big "DUH." So why do the residents put up with these whores? The main reason is the number of people with no personal stake in this town. A town of renters, where people come and go. Add to that the people that buy here and move when it sets in that government does not have their interests in mind, and you may have the answer. How to change it? Nothing so far has worked. They usually hang themselves, but the future looks dim for any respect or concern for constituents. They even had to resort to picketing one well known council member, who did change her vote on one harmful issue for, "Cover." However, we remain a mostly one party town, hopelessly sold out to the highest bidder.

LB Gal
you are all missing the point. Even if all the councilmembers only took donations from developers, much of the horrible development in the city was the result of PLANNING STAFF ok'ing it way before it ever got to the City Council for approval. One can drive around this city, especially in the 2nd District and see Planning staff approvals that make you scratch your head and wonder what they were smoking. Landlocked parcels with NO access ok'd, add-on's that make absolutely no sense and are shoddy workmanship, zero sideyard and backyard setbacks, and the list goes on and on. Yes some of the RDA projects have not been successful (i.e., the CityPlace Mall) and some are don't meet with community aesthetics (Aqua and the new Lyon development on Broadway/Chestnut) but for the most part RDA's work has been good for the city's economic portfolio. The westside industrial area has been very well served by RDA, and otherwise would be mostly vacant except for port-related businesses. You all can rant and rave about the City Councilmembers on the take, but just remember, the Planning staff can approve most of what is built without Council approval. Hence, that is why Craig Beck's relationship with Mike Murchison was more problematic than Lowenthal's with Lyon.

KeithH
Thanks for the comments. Just real quick, to Mike R.: I wanted to include the mayor, but that will have to wait for another column. His total number of contributions were almost equal to the rest of the council combined. Simply put, I did not have enough time. Fear not, though. I will get to it. And the only thing I can say to 'give me a break' is go read a different columnist. If you can't make a simple correlation between campaign contributions from special interest groups and the people that receive them, then you don't need the mental stress that this column evidently brings to your world. Chill and move on.

KeithH
LBGirl, thanks for the comment and you make good points. I would only add that from my experience working for City Hall the tone is set by those at the top. Rank-and-file City Hall staff, in my general experience, typically want to do the best job they can. However, when as a staffer you know by experience that the suits at the top are going to only approve certain projects a certain way with certain aesthetics, it renders much of the staffs good intentions moot before these projects ever seen the public light. And I hope you didn't take the column to indicate that I am slamming all RDA work. Some has done what it set out to do. It does appear to me though that most of the large-scale high profile projects usually fall well short. And as far as I know, any contract over $50k or $100k needs to be approved by the Council. I have seen several large projects, Aqua being one, that started out on paper from staff looking amazing but were watered down during Council meetings to the pablum we see now.

5th District
Keith has raised some interesting points, but I'd go even further. First, it sounds like it's not just that we don't want our politicians to disclose their relationships with people who do business with the City, we don't want them to "socialize" with them period. I recommend we pass a law that says politicians can't socialize (hockey games, lunches, event dinners, etc.) with anyone who does business with the City. Further, politicans should be prevented from paying for guests. We shouldn't allow a politican to purchase a ticket for a developer, or lawyer or neighbor, or anyone who might do a "favor" for the politician. Such as make a campaign contribution, or volunteer on their campaign, or advocate on behalf of a community project the politician is supporting. Let's remove the politician from all influence and put them up on a pedastal for all of us to adore. P.S. When you refer to "labor" (as well as the chamber of commerce), you should include Independant Expenditures as well as all the "labor" they provide for free. That's how these groups influence politicians, not thru campaign contributions.

lbresident
good article. I'd like the next one to be about union influence on our council. I don't think people understand how much the unions hurt our city. Most city employees don't live in Long Beach. When councilmembers like Uranga vote to keep high pensions, etc. there is a direct correlation to things like poor infrastructure, number of police, etc. The next time uranga complains about her flooding district, we should ask why she didn't vote for residents over unions for the last 8 years.

LBResident
Great research and I suspect that there is unwarrented development. Contributions are not the only motivator for grossly unpaid councilpersons. Many see this as an interim position to a better job in Sacramento or they wouldn't be working so hard for so little compensation. Unions may not contribute as much money but without their endorsement few council persons are elected. Our city's financial health is more undermined by excessive salary and pensions than by unnecessary development. Again great research.

Javier
LBGal does make a great point, which was later addressed to some degree by KeithH. However, from what I've experienced in working with the City Hall rank and file, is that many of them are jaded by the inevitable meddling of projects by the council members long before they are ever brought to the council for consideration. This is a culture that is either: supported by the city manager who should be protecting his staff in a council-manager form of government, insisted upon by the council to whom the city manager works for and thus wants to keep happy, or of course, both. The result: trained professionals end up shaking their head when the opportunity for political gain outweighs sound principles. As a side note: if planning was a valued component of the public process, it wouldn't be managed as an enterprise fund.

Grumpy Guy
Good Job Keith! Keep exposing this rancid crap so we can see the prostitution ring at work. Voters are apathetic when they think they can't make a difference, and how can they if they don't have facts? But give us the info and we'll act accordingly. I have no problem with reasonable development in the city. But buying politicians that make the decisions is totally corrupt and won't get us the BEST for OUR money. People who think the status quo whoring that goes on is normal and OK business are just as corrupt or jaded. We need to clean house and get more honest representatives in office with a sense of morality like Gerrie Shipske. Suja, your whole career reaks of opportunism, please go. BTW there is now on 2nd St. in Naples one busy car lane missing and one new bike lane being unused... while the potholes get deeper. Jeeze lady, whatruthinking!

concerned
Thanks to the blog-o-sphere, here is another example of someone who thinks they know how to write. Keith, you claim you are "...not going to rant too much this week...", but that is exactly what you have done in EVERY article you have written for this website. It's your "style". My opinion on the subject matter is not expressed in this comment; what really troubles me is the quality of "journalism" espoused in this blog. If our City is corrupt, perhaps it is due to the dearth of quality journalism. Perhaps you and your comrades, sir, are to blame for the needless graft in this town. Without a proper rake, the muck will fester. My suggestion? Go back to school, take several journalism classes and come back when you've received ten (10) consecutive "A's". And - you may want to bring your spellchecker with you - unless you intended to use the word "fro" in this article. I simply can't fathom why anyone has ever paid you for any service involving the use of words. Best wishes for a quality education, Mr. Higginbotham. This time, skip the reefer during class.

Joe Weinstein
Bravo Keith, Your article, and comments of Paul and LB Gal, together show why 'our' antiquated muni charter (and similar ones around state and nation) and its provision for readily corrupted oligarchic muni government are retarding or killing prospects of a healthy life and community in this city. Without the unchecked concentration of power vested in a few long-term-electeds and their chosen appointees (and their rubberstamped staff decisions), we would have far less means and opportunity for corruption by developers or other interests. Friends, you may find real democracy inconvenient (that means ordinary citizens taking turns making and reviewing decisions, not leaving it up to specially chosen politicians and staff). It's also not been constitutionally fashionable, ever since pro-oligarchy folks wrote our federal constitution (with populist veneers). But just maybe it's time to consider what our needs actually are in this 21-st century.

Juan Pardell
Javier: Perhaps you can answer this question: Over the past two decades, have most elected officials in Long Beach, past & present, acted in the best interests of the city, or were they more interested in advancing their own political careers?

KeithH
Sorry I am, 'Concerned.' Me goes to school befores. Get me 4.0 average on grades. Also me speak as valedictorian. Topic of me grad day speech was "No speak of stuff one know nothing about." Me forward you copy, you be interested.

concernced
Keith - you may want to put that 4.0 education to use and forget about all of the nonsense. This article isn't your worse - the Santa "toy" article probably wins that title. That was a classic example of your "style" that I'm referring to. Cut out all the allegory and analogies and speak plainly about the issue. There's just so much fluff in your articles that I honestly don't read them all the way through. I read enough to discover whatever you're talking about and skip to the end to find your overall take and opinion. You probably could have some worthy articles, but you've got to edit (and spell-check) the hell out of them. It honestly reads like a high schooler is writing it - not someone with a "more than a decade" bio. The average blog-ranter may not take issue with an article's quality, but if you want to gain the respect of ALL the LBPost readers (I'm not alone), you may want to take my criticism seriously rather than reply as a toddler would. Again - best wishes.

CHARLIE
I still think Keith should run for Mayor, and Grumpy Guy for Chief of Police - Our City would become Sainted rather than Tainted :>), however, In reading all the comments posted here on the Pucks & Puppets of Long Beach, lbresident made the most sence and truth; I remember the days of Walter Ruther of the UAW in Detroit, not to mention the CIO or AFofL...

Dennis
I think I have this right: Many of the same people who are up in arms over the contact between those who have business with the city and those who work for the city are also the same ones who want police officers, fire fighters, senior city management and others to live in Long Beach. But while living, and working, in Long Beach they cannot socialize nor hang out with nor have contact with anyone who has a contract with the city, has a developement in the city or wants to pursue a development in the city. So if their kids go to school with say Murchison's kids, and Murchison is at a PTA meeting the city employee/official should stay away. Or if the city employee/official has a kid on a soccer team and a developer is the coach the city kid needs to transfer to another team. So we want our city employees and leaders to be in the community but not engaged in the community--at least that part of the community that many here feel is unseemly. Good grief.

give me a break
Dennis is right on. It is unrealistic to think that Mr. Murchison who according to everything I have read is born and raised here and still resides here is not going to come in contact with city officials or city staff that also live in LB. They probably attend alot of the same events - LB is a small town in reality. Given the City's budget situation one would think that the primary interest is to make sure that our core quality of life issues are supported financially - cops on streets, firefighters to fight fires, public works staff to take care of trees, roads, alleys, and sidewalks - anyone who has seen the general fund and understands how it is funded realizes that without development this town would be up a creek without a paddle. Regarding Mr. Pardell's comments on fiscal failures - how does Lyon's projects the two that they just built constitute fiscal failures - I have seen nothing to indicate such and quite frankly haven't they been a boon to a dismal LB economy in terms of jobs and taxes already. It seems to me that we are biting the hand that feeds us and all we need to do is get outside of LB's fishbowl and realize that lobbying and development are done this way nationwide - is LB all of sudden going to become an Andy Griffith town?

Freud
You guys slipped again. "concerned", you misspelled worst. Not really so bad? "Charlie" you misspelled sense. Please get some. "Dennis" just stop inventing excuses for corruption.

Union's Man-hours
Unions may have only given $70,000 in cash, but you forgot to mention all that "in kind" contributions they have given, such as days and days of Union employees walking Districts passing out flyers and knocking on doors (especially in their union T-shirts like the ones that read Long Beach Fire Department) or the use of their Union headquarters and personnel to make all those evening phone calls that politicans were able to exempt from "Do-Not-Call" laws, or even their "independent expenditures" that produce and mail out thousands of flyers and cards. The public employee unions have the most impact and control of Elected officials from their various kinds of "contributions", and their goal is to get more pay and benefits from their employers (the elected officials. In other words, the unions are buying their pay increases funded with public tax money.

Paul
John Greet said, "but I can tell you that I think the effect of corruption in government is most often both incremental and cumulative so when a person takes exception to a single incident, it is also being considered in the context of an ongoing pattern of behavior." Givemeabreak said," realize that lobbying and development are done this way nationwidwe-" They are both right and the net result is the Long Beach that we see, with it's spot zoning and inappropiate land uses. That is what many want to change. Just because other places are bad does not mean a California Beach City with a great location has to follow the crowd. We are special, but many try to avoid that conclusion. Look at the filling in of the beach one of our great assets. Yes, there is the greater good argument, as the Port is used nationwide, but our price is cheap, and we cheapen ourselves with every questionable move by our city over time, as it was pointed out. It is time to change the way we operate and no one has done that. Bob Foster promised change when running, but he has done little. BTW did you know that campaign money is the candidates to use as seen fit. In other words, if they lose, they can keep the remaining money is my understanding. That is why we see Wally Edgerton still listed as running for office. He is spending the 90k he claimed was left over from his loss to Alan Lowenthal years ago. Probably playing a loophole. Please correct me if wrong.

For LB
Thanks again Mr.H. we look forward to your future work. We enjoy the facts regardless of your STYLE! Here is an additional interesting subject for future consideration: pension reform, and early retirement amongst City employees making over $90K. Thank you. Dennis and give me a break: We think you are both missing the point. No one is saying that people should not be in the same place at the same time for X, Y and Z legitimately innocent reasons. Overall, if a public representative is receiving any kind of gift to socialize with those who may have ulterior motive, then we have issues. In fact, the required government ethics training course and exam specifically indicates that these issues are not just about what is right or wrong. The same source requires that if an action gives a PERCEPTION of unethical behavior, public officials should not be engaged in that action. End of story. Thank you.

Alan
Keith, thanks for a well-researched article. I, too, encourage a study of union campaign contributions. I believe theirs are more difficult to track, yet more influential. As touched on by another poster, many union contributions do not appear on candidates' reports. Unions -- and others, to be sure -- use independent expenditures and volunteer hours. The value of these can easily surpasses the monies from the development community. In our city, some people claim to have inside knowledge of past improper union collaboration with candidates regarding independent expenditures. Another example of union influence is four years ago in the 9th District. The union-picked candidate did virtually no campaigning and had little previous local community or political involvement. Yet, in the closing days of the campaign, a major, COUNTY union (non-city) flooded the district with campaign pieces and volunteers. Supposedly, the union compensated these "volunteers" for their lost wages. The GOTV was unprecedented. Two people in each of several cars went to every union member's house several times on election day. Many voters had no history of voting before, but they were driven to the polls that day. They seemed to know about only one election and one candidate. The incumbent scraped in, by less than 200 votes. No doubt, this will replay on April 13.

Alan
Further on union vs. developer political impact. No question, the development community has much influence on elected officials. Does it have more than unions? I say no. A dominatant majority of our city council, state assembly and senate are pro-union. (Code: for the workers or families.) This does not prevent politicians from supporting development, necessarily. If union interests and development interests conflict, however, I believe most of our elected officials would vote union without hesitation. One might claim that these majorities are primarily due to Democrats being elected from Democrat-dominated districts. I don't think so. How many elected Democrats won competitive races without great union support? Also, it's fairly well accepted in California that elected Democrats vote with union desires -- or risk their political careers. That's a major reason Laura R. is in Congress, not Jenny O. Shortly before the campaign, J did not vote as directed. L did.

CHARLIE
Well you see, Freud, my automatic speller is not perfect! :>)

John Greet
Yet another reason for a solid lobbying ordinance...as a check and balance against what occurred Sacramento recently, where the Associated Press received copies of Fair Political Practices Commission-issued enforcement letters through a Public Records Act request (reported by the AP's Judy Lin in the 1/16, Press Telegram). Turns out about 1 in 3 State lawmakers may be in violation of laws requiring that they report gifts and other perks they have received. The FPPC compared the reports required by State-level lobbyists with the reports required by State-level lawmakers and found many discrepancies. Long Beach currently has no lobbyist ordinance and, so, lobbyists here are not required to report their activities. Without such reports, it's much more difficult -though not impossible, as we've seen recently- to discover such discrepancies.

nobody special
GIVEMEABREAK: naples is in gary delong's district, not suja's. CONCERNED: Given your arrogant put-downs of Mr H, one would think you must be an impeccable writer. But you're not; please go look up "espoused" and "allegory" because you obviously have no idea what these words mean. 5th district: You can't pass laws barring people from socializing. Please go read the first amendment to the US Constitution.

Goebbels
Did anybody read that junior league claptrap in today's PT by Suja? According to her it's not about who whores with whom, it's about in & out (shaddup). Judge her not on her level of corruption but only on what she has "output" in terms of legislation and good done for the community. Sorry Suja, but we do care who is buying your vote not just what bike lanes and hotels you helped green light. If you really want to redirect and confound us with political doublespeak, stop studying a tool for the elite's economic views like Friedman and study a master sophist like the GOP's Reich Minister of Propaganda Frank Luntz.

City Beat

Keith Higginbotham takes you inside City Hall and reports weekly on the decisions being made.

Keith Higginbotham is a freelance journalist and writer who most recently served as the West Coast editor for the trade magazine American Shipper, covering the shipping and logistics industries. Prior to this, he served as the Advertising and Multimedia Manager for the Port of Long Beach. He began his journalism career more than a decade ago as the Trade and Transportation beat reporter at the Long Beach Press-Telegram.

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