The council will wait until January to make that vote.
However, not everyone is happy about the procedures some council members are taking, and one former member of that governmental body has made an official complaint.
In a 6—3 vote, the Long Beach City Council Tuesday night decided to wait until late January to vote on the matter, per a motion by 5th District Councilmember Stacy Mungo.
In an email blast after Tuesday’s meeting, Mungo thanked residents for their continued engagement concerning airport proposals and explained her reason for making a motion to postpone the conversation.
“I appreciate how many of you have reached out and provided your opinions to date, and I think we can agree we would all benefit from more time and information before we can have a true picture to evaluate,” Mungo wrote. “Tonight the city council supported my motion for staff to gather all information and prepare it for a date certain, Jan. 24, pushing this past the holiday season and giving residents 45 days’ notice. I feel this is crucial in having an informed dialogue and provides us with plenty of time to discuss what is best for our neighborhoods.”
That meeting will take place at City Hall, 333 W. Ocean Blvd., at 5pm.
Next week, however, residents will get an opportunity to voice their concerns about having an international airport, during a study session scheduled for Tuesday, Dec. 13 at 5pm, also in Long Beach City Hall Council Chambers, 333 W. Ocean Blvd.
The council had originally planned to vote Dec. 13 on whether or not to move forward with the proposed facility to allow international flights at LGB, but that date is now slated for the study session that will allow for public questions and comments.
In a Dec. 7 email update, 8th District Councilmember Al Austin wrote that, although he was in favor of scheduling a study session for the city council prior to the item coming up for a vote, he, along with councilmembers Daryl Supernaw and Roberto Uranga, voted against the motion by Mungo because it went well beyond calling for a study session.
“Councilmember Mungo’s motion that passed the city council on a 6-3 vote, took the unprecedented and ill-advised step to also direct the city manager to begin talks and negotiations with JetBlue and other stakeholders, as well as the Governor’s office, about the international terminal prior to the council voting on the matter in January,” Austin wrote. “As I said at [Tuesday’s] meeting, this is putting the cart before the horse. The city council has not, in my memory, previously directed the city manager to start negotiating the deal points on a major project before discussing and voting on the merits of the project. We didn’t do this with the new civic center project. There is no reason to start this now.”
Austin noted that Jacobs Engineering’s consultants, as reported in the feasibility study, already reached out to JetBlue and the other airlines to gauge their interest in offering international flights. JetBlue was the only airline that expressed a desire to offer such flights at this time, according to Austin’s email.
“As the study also specified, the City won’t know the final costs and the scope of the project until a request is submitted to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Customs and Border Protection, and they give their input about their requirements,” Austin wrote.
On Wednesday, Rae Gabelich, the former councilmember for the 8th District, filed a complaint letter with the L.A. District Attorney Public Integrity Section alleging that the city council’s 6—3 majority action violated the Brown (Open Meetings) Act. Gabelich’s complaint letter notes that Mungo made a substitute-substitute motion, seconded by Price, to hold the Dec. 13 non-voting study session but also to direct city staff to take many of the same steps to advance the controversial proposal that city staff agendized for separate council-voted approval on Dec. 13.
In other words, Gabelich claims, the Mungo-Price substitute-substitute motion took voted actions that were not agendized on Dec. 6 to approve taking actions that were agendized for council action on Dec. 13. The council majority’s Dec. 6 voted action was not accompanied by any agendized notice of the actions taken and prevented the public from preparing, attending and testifying on those significant actions taken, Gabelich claims.
“I’ve been inundated by telephone calls and emails from residents appalled at what they saw,” Gabelich wrote in an emailed statement sent to the Signal Tribune. “Councilmembers Uranga, Austin and Supernaw tried to do the right thing, but Councilmembers Mungo and Price stood in their way. I regret that Mungo and Price continue to take unhelpful actions on this issue. Members of the public who attended the council meeting commented at the podium on the disrespect they saw some councilmembers display toward the public. Those disrespectful actions reflect on all councilmembers, who should call such behavior out of order, and Mayor [Robert] Garcia, who ought to maintain order, not maintain disrespect.”
The city council authorized a federal inspection services facility feasibility study in July 2015, and on Jan. 19, the City commissioned Jacobs Engineering to conduct the study.
On Nov. 1, the city council requested a report from airport officials on the process, potential scope, and pros and cons of developing a long-range airport master plan (AMP).
According to a Dec. 2 memorandum from Airport Director Jess Romo to City Manager Patrick West, LGB does not yet have a master plan on file, but a number of planning-related work efforts have been completed, or are currently underway, to ensure LGB is compliant with federal regulations.
“Airport staff have undertaken specific planning studies to evaluate various components of the airport in order to accommodate future aviation demand,” Romo wrote in the memo, adding that among those undertakings is the feasibility study to evaluate whether LGB is a suitable site to develop a federal inspection services facility to process arriving international passengers.
Three other studies airport staff have undertaken are: an airport layout plan, which is a detailed drawing set with data such as airport boundaries, existing buildings, orientation and lengths of runways and taxiways, flight instrumentation facilities and planned modifications; a terminal area improvement project environmental-impact report, which was completed in 2006 and led to the development of the new terminal and related improvements; and an airfield geometry study, which was completed in 2015.
“All of the studies noted above contribute to ensuring that the airport is well positioned to consider and support development as may be warranted,” Romo wrote. “This includes federally mandated work, terminal improvements that have been completed, airfield improvements that increase safety and efficiency, and projects that may be undertaken in the future.”
Romo noted that, by far, the airport layout plan (ALP) is the most critical of the studies.
“As required by federal law, the airport has a current ALP on file with the Federal Aviation Administration and is in the process of receiving approval on a recently submitted ALP, which is expected in 2017,” he wrote. “It must be kept current and, therefore, must be updated on an ongoing basis.”
He added that the ALP is a planning study, which itself is a form of an airport master plan.
Information on the feasibility study for a federal inspection services facility is available at lgb.org/information/fis_feasibility_study/default.asp.
