Signal Hill community brainstorms vision for city at third and final Strategic Plan workshop

Sean Belk
-Staff Writer-

What is the City of Signal Hill’s image, and should it be updated? Should the City have a new signature event? And how can the City harness new technology to better communicate with residents and businesses?

These questions and others were brought up during the third and final Strategic Plan visioning workshop at the Signal Hill Community Center on Monday, Sept. 29.

A group of about 40 people from all walks of life took part in the brainstorming event, including residents, business owners and community leaders, providing input for the City to develop a new Strategic Plan that would set the City’s goals for the next five years. Signal Hill’s current outdated plan only covers the time period from 2006 to 2011.

The Council added the third community meeting after concerns were brought forward that discussion during the second workshop was dominated by perceived potential impacts of Measure U, a citywide tax-oversight measure that failed to pass in the last election. It was also added to receive more input from business owners.

Bill Kelly, president and chief executive officer of consulting firm Kelly Associates Management Group, which the City hired last year to assist in the visioning process, asked attendees to provide brief responses on Signal Hill’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, also known as a SWOT analysis.
The responses were written on large sheets of paper that Kelly said he would compile into a report for the Council to prioritize in regard to which opportunities would be best for the City to look into for future budgeting.

Kelly said he plans to provide a full report to the city manager by late November or early December, after which the Council will conduct a Strategic Plan public hearing, possibly by early next year, when stakeholders will be able to weigh in on the findings and how the City should move forward.

At the beginning of the meeting, Signal Hill Mayor Ed Wilson told participants that no ideas or suggestions would be ignored. Wilson, along with City Manager Ken Farfsing, Councilmember Michael Noll and Councilmember Lori Woods all left before the meeting started in order to not influence the visioning process.
“This is about your ideas and what your thoughts and visions are for us as a city going forward,” Wilson said. “At the Council, we’ve already had input, and staff has had input. Now, it’s your turn to throw out all the ideas and provide us with where you want the city to be [five] years from now.”

Still, Kelly noted that, while all ideas would be documented, the City might not be able to implement all of them, since the Council will have to prioritize which ideas and suggestions would be most timely and feasible to execute. Kelly encouraged participants to express their thoughts about opportunities for the City’s future regardless of “how much money the City does or doesn’t have.”

During the workshop, residents and business owners identified the city’s strengths, which include being business-friendly, having a “responsive” police department, being able to utilize a new emergency operations center, having a sense of community and being “relatively” safe. Other key strengths for Signal Hill include having a trail system, having an accessible city government and contracting with a trash hauler/recycling center (EDCO) that is located in the city.

As was the case in the prior two community meetings, however, not everyone agreed. Sometimes, what some considered strengths others considered weaknesses.

For instance, participants said that being surrounded by Long Beach comes with both negatives and positives. Though Signal Hill benefits from neighboring resources in Long Beach, being so close to such a large city also comes with “spillover” effects, including traffic impacts along with siren and helicopter noise, one resident said.

Being entrenched in oil operations was also considered a strength and a weakness.

Debra Russell, spokesperson for Signal Hill Petroleum, the largest oil producer and landowner in the city, said Signal Hill benefits greatly from sitting over a “huge natural resource— oil.”
Planning Commission Chairman Tom Benson, who is a small-business owner, added that the city benefits from having “responsible corporate citizens” that provide a “great deal of support.”
However, some attendees said having oil operations throughout the city is a weakness.

While some speakers said Signal Hill’s rich oil history provides a “unique” and “fun historic character” in regard to the founding of the City, others said the “oil town” persona no longer applies given the City’s growth throughout the years and the Council should focus on creating a new identity.

The lack of a clear image for the city was a common theme among responses from some participants, who considered it a weakness, threat and an opportunity for Signal Hill.

“I’m still trying to figure this place out, because it’s so strange,” said Michael Ashworth, an architect who said he moved to Signal Hill three years ago from Los Angeles. “To reinforce what everybody’s saying, I think it’s poorly, poorly branded. There’s no image to the city.”

Kelly said creating a city image has been brought up at all meetings as a weakness and opportunity, adding that the topic is an important issue for the City’s future.

“It’s amazing when you do a meeting like this and you ask people ‘What’s the image of your city?’ and what they feel,” he said. “That creates the graphics and the architecture and everything else. That’s a huge issue. At every single meeting, it’s been brought up as a negative, or a weakness, and an opportunity. Who and what is Signal Hill?”

Ashworth suggested that the City market Signal Hill’s open spaces and trail system, which he noted are already used regularly for recreational use by walkers and joggers. He said there should be a path connecting the trail system to retail, specifically the shopping center that includes the Fresh & Easy grocery market along Cherry Avenue that he said could be turned into a downtown-like area of shops.

“What I do love about [Signal Hill] is the open space,” he said. “People are trying to figure out the image here. The thing that I see, as an architect, is the open spaces and the trails and all the people who come to walk here all the time. I think that would probably be something you could latch on to.”

Meanwhile, one resident said retail centers throughout the city should have a better architectural style. While she said there is a lot of big-box retail in Signal Hill, the quality of the experience in the retail centers is “stark” and “doesn’t invite the type of welcoming, casual atmosphere to really build a sense of presence and identity.”

Another resident requested that oil wells be painted to look like animals as a way to beautify the city. However, Russell said painting oil wells is “illegal” since they would attract sightseers, including children, to dangerous oil-well operations, constituting what’s called an “attractive nuisance.”
Furthermore, Russell indicated that concerns regarding issues about development and oil operations would be addressed during the final public hearing with the Council.

However, one woman, who said she owns a small business in the City but lives in Long Beach, said a current threat to Signal Hill’s future is its lack of marketing to younger generations, adding that the City isn’t an attractive place to live for younger people and is considered “an old town full of old people.”

One resident said the City should create a new signature event, adding that, while the former “Roughneck Roundup,” had clearly identified the City as an “oil town,” the City now needs a new event and identity to get behind.

“Long Beach is the Queen Mary city,” she said. “We need a new identity. The Roughneck Roundup oil thing is our history, but not what we are today.”

Melissa Guy, co-founder of Signal Hill small business Asset Media Group, echoed that sentiment, adding that the City should utilize the Signal Hill Auto Center to create a new annual event, which would create more public outreach and a “brand” for the City. Guy said that, currently, Signal Hill is rarely ever spoken of in public circles.

Some residents said the City should better utilize technology and social media to connect with residents and business owners, adding that the City of Long Beach has a more “robust” communication when it comes to getting the word out through social media.

In the City’s defense, however, Terry Rogers, president of the Signal Hill Chamber of Commerce, said the City is already regularly posting information on its Facebook page, which she said is already linked to the Chamber’s page. Rogers added that it takes a while to grow a following in social media.

Meanwhile, some residents expressed concerns about a disconnect between the northern and southern sections of the city, divided by the 405 Freeway.

“Those of us on the north side feel like we’re really not connected to Signal Hill south of the 405,” one resident said.
In addition, one resident suggested that a weakness for the City is the fact that the City Council has no term limits and no districts.
Another resident said park programs are centralized and parks, such as Discovery Well Park, are neglected. The resident also said that a weakness and a threat for Signal Hill is the fact that children are assigned to a “low-performing” elementary school that is inaccessible to children from the northern part of the city.

Rogers, a realtor, agreed that the issue of low-performing schools is a concern in terms of being a threat to the City’s future in regard to property values.

“When people buy homes, they’re attracted by the performance scores,” she said, adding that people are “dying” to move to the City of Cypress since its high school is ranked in the top 10 for state standardized test scores.

Still, city officials noted after the meeting that the City has nothing to do with schools and the issue should be brought up with the Long Beach Unified School District.

In terms of “physical” opportunities, some speakers expressed the need for a new public library, a new hotel and better restaurants. One resident suggested the need for historical home tours in Signal Hill similar to those in Long Beach. Signal Hill resident Carol Churchill said the city should have more open space and more housing for low-income, disabled individuals.
City officials have confirmed with the Signal Tribune that a project to build a new library and civic center remains on hold after state legislation, known as AB 2493, which would have allowed the City to use $8.6 million in former redevelopment bond proceeds toward the project, was vetoed by Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday.

In a phone conversation after the meeting, Kelly told the Signal Tribune that he plans to create a summary of the responses from all three workshops, primarily focusing on opportunities. During a public meeting, the Council will prioritize the suggestions by placing stickers on a list of potential projects, and the community would have a chance to weigh in, he said.

Kelly noted that, even though individuals who participated in the workshops were asked to provide their names on a sign-in sheet, the responses will be provided to the Council anonymously and “no names will be attached” to the report.