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Sizing Up the Local Politics
by Les Robbins
The past several weeks have been interesting ones on the political front. The Police Officer’s Association has been busy, doing what they do best, which is flexing their political muscles in the aftermath of the selection of an “outsider” as the new police chief. Count me among those who believe that City Manager Pat West made an excellent choice in picking Jim McDonnell as the new chief of police.
He was formerly the #2 in command at the LAPD and has been a resident of Long Beach for many years. Insiders at City Hall with whom I have talked to said that during the selection process he was actually head and shoulders above the internal candidates who applied.
While working for the LAPD his reputation outside that organization, especially within the Los Angeles County law enforcement community was excellent and my sources within LAPD tell me that he was really the favorite of the line officers to succeed William Bratton as chief. I applaud Pat West’s choice, gutsy and the best move for this city. Good luck chief.
The very overt and public attempt on the part of the POA to have Pat West fired, in significant part for his choice of police chief, was not a surprise to me. I am very pleased that the majority of the City Council did not give the POA what they wanted. Had they chosen to replace the city manager it would have sent a horrible message to any future applicants for this job and you can rest assured that the quality of future applicants would drop significantly. If we are going to have a city manager form of government then have a city manager form of government.
If we are going to politicize this position to this degree then just let the idiots on the City Council run the show but don’t make a mockery of our form of government by playing this type of politics with the job. And furthermore if you want to know how a Mayor/City Council form of government works, just look at the City of Los Angeles. I rest my case!
I have to admit that I was absolutely shocked by the dozens of illegal campaign signs that popped up in the 5th District a couple of weeks ago when city prosecutor candidate O’Reilly violated this city’s campaign laws when he put campaign signs on both private and public property in violation of current city regulations. How can we elect a guy to the position of city prosecutor who doesn’t even know what the laws are and who would be expected to enforce those laws when others do the same thing. It is either ignorant or arrogant to do what he did and I will let each of you decide which it is.
Kind of makes my decision to support Doug Haubert an easy one. Furthermore I believe, based on my 10 years as the city councilman from the 5th District, that enforcing local ordinances in our neighborhoods is absolutely critical to maintaining property values and protecting the largest investment that most of us living out here have. All politics is local and in neighborhoods like the ones that we have in East Long Beach, enforcing and prosecuting those who violate, local city ordinances and codes is absolutely necessary.
After what has seemed like an eternity our elected representatives actually completed a first reading on the new marijuana ordinance that will regulate the sale and distribution of medical marijuana. Surprisingly it was not a unanimous vote, but then again I guess that this really isn’t a surprise because this divided group of elected officials rarely agrees on anything. I am glad that at least a majority heeded the advice of City Attorney Bob Shannon with respect to some of the key elements of the ordinance.
It also stuns me when some of them ignore his legal advice but I just chalk that up to arrogance, a quality that isn’t lacking on this current group of elected officials. The city attorney is the lawyer for our City Council and I have a great deal of difficulty understanding why you would ever go against the advice of the person who is in the legal position, per our charter, to advise you on what is legal and what is not legal. But, then again, look at this group.
After reading the information on the current city attorney election I will have no trouble figuring out how I will vote. While I have not always found myself in total agreement with our current city attorney, Bob Shannon, I certainly find him a far superior choice to his opponent, Tom Reeves.
Bob is a good and decent man who had worked diligently to try to advise our City Council on legal issues as well as represent the interests of this city. Voting for Bob is an easy thing for me to do.
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