Grievance about malfeasance?
I know not every member of the Long Beach City Council is as dumb as their votes would indicate. Isn’t there some point at which actions by reasonably intelligent officials become so absurd as to constitute malfeasance? In Long Beach, that’s a question badly in need of an answer because this city council does one incredibly stupid thing after another.
In recent months, it: has committed taxpayers to decades of debt for a new civic center that we can’t afford and don’t need; signed a 66-year lease on city property by the Queen Mary, which may not make any profit for the City; created a new PUD (planned unit development) zoning that will lead to extremely high density in residential neighborhoods; [and] is about to spend over $100 million for a swimming pool!
More stupid yet is the council’s ongoing failure to provide enough money in the budget for sufficient fire protection. Can you imagine a city having three fire stations without engines capable of putting water on a fire. It’s a reality in Long Beach that I’d call malfeasance.
How about providing so few police officers that shootings have become so commonplace in Long Beach that they are hardly news anymore?
Is there any provision in state law for recalling a city council en masse? There should be.
Richard Gutmann
Long Beach
