The Los Cerritos Neighborhood Association (LCNA) sponsored the March 9 event, which delved into issues that affect the city as a whole and problems that particularly concern the council district encompassing not only Los Cerritos, but also Bixby Knolls and parts of north Long Beach.
All three candidates were invited and participated: Laurie Angel, who works as business manager of Academic Technology Services at Cal State Long Beach and has served on various advisory and community boards and organizations throughout the city; Al Austin, the incumbent who serves as a Council 57 business agent for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 2620 and has served on several boards of local community organizations; and Wesley Turnbow, a small-business owner and president of the Metal Finishing Assocation of California.
According to information the candidates provided about themselves to the Signal Tribune: Angel has been a Long Beach resident and 8th District resident for 27 years; Austin has resided in Long Beach for over 20 years and in the district for 15; and Turnbow has lived in the city and district for 30 years.
LCNA President Bob Gill led the one-hour forum and asked questions that had been prepared in advance. In some cases, only two candidates were asked to respond; with other questions, all three were invited to provide their replies.
The first question Gill posed, which was presented to Angel and Turnbow, was, “The Los Cerritos neighborhood has over 600 large lots zoned R1L (residential, single-family limited) which are exclusive to this area. Currently, there is a temporary moratorium on home additions over 1,600 square feet, while the City and residents in this area consider changes to the development standards to limit mega-mansions. Do you support or oppose development standards for the R1L lots, and what would you like the rules to be?”
Angel said the process needs some strict development standards.
“I think we need a very strong ordinance to control the development and growth within the area and actually keep its wonderful charm and culture that it has,” she said.
Turnbow said the current code ordinance has been in place for decades and have served the community well. He acknowledged, however, that there may be a time when it is necessary to make tweaks to them.
“But, here’s the real problem with what’s happened,” he said. “If you’ve talked to those on Locust [Avenue], those on San Antonio [Avenue], what’s happened is we’ve had… not a code thing; it’s always a time thing. So, the City has not brought anything to bear to get buildings done in less than four, five, six years— in the case of Locust. That’s the real frustration for the residents. It’s not the house that goes in. And same on San Antonio— it’s how long they have to deal with construction and the streets being blocked.”
He added that, on the flip side, the City is taking “forever to put this code together.”
“And that’s frustrating for those who are just trying to add a hundred feet here or there to some room and can’t do it,” Turnbow said. “And the City’s going to take a year to figure this out and put it together. Our City can’t move this slow on things that affect us.”
Gill then asked all three candidates for a quick “yes” or “no” response to the question, “Since it is taking quite a bit of time and this is a temporary moratorium, would you be in favor of extending the moratorium so the City can complete its work?”
“Of course,” Angel replied.
Gill then directed the question to Austin.
“Yes. I brought the moratorium forward as leader on the city council at the request of residents, and we’ve been working with the residents,” Austin said. “I know it’s a ‘yes or no’ answer, but I should respond as well. The moratorium was put in place in July. Oftentimes, when you’re making policy and you’re working with the City, you have to understand that, when you bring forth items, you can’t expect everybody else to drop everything else that’s going on just to make it happen. So, I know our City’s Planning Department is working with the neighborhood groups— the folks who brought this forward— to get a resolution on this as soon as possible.”
Turnbow said no.
“I think we’ve kind of overstepped as a city to take this much time to go this far, and we haven’t just said we’re going to do a moratorium on mansionization,” he said. “We’ve said we’re not going to let anybody build anything that’s going over 1,500 square feet.”
The next question was presented to all three candidates: “The vast majority of Los Cerritos residents believe the airport’s noise ordinance is critical to the neighborhood’s quality of life. Recently, the City has issued a contract to study the effects of having a fully staffed federal inspection station at the airport, also known as ‘internationalization.’ What is your opinion of the internationalization study and the possible effects on the neighborhood?”
Austin began his response by stating that he believes he has been very straightforward and very clear on the issue.
“I voted against the study,” Austin said. “Let me just tell you— the international flights only benefit the airlines, and I have a real problem with that. I think, as a city, we should be driving the future of our airport— not the tenants at the airport. I think the risks of going through international flights… or having an international terminal at Long Beach Airport far outweigh the rewards. The only real benefit— the only party that really benefits from that— is the airline, JetBlue.”
Turnbow remarked that he is against international flights in Long Beach but that the real key is management of the noise ordinance.
“One of the issues we come up with is we say, ‘Hey, we don’t want this, we don’t want this.’ And we have to be very careful,” Turnbow said. “We don’t want the international [flights], but we also don’t want to lose this special grandfathered noise ordinance we have that only about four cities in the U.S. have. And so, that takes some smarts. We don’t want to propose things like a master plan of the aiport. These kinds of things are dangerous. We don’t want to do anything that might be a foothold for the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) to come and say, ‘Hey. Since you’ve got flights going here, we think you ought to do some more,’ or ‘We’ve got an airline that just came to us and said they would like to have a fair shot too at having an international flight. By the way, while we’re doing that, and we’re looking at your airport, we see you’ve got some slots open. Now we want to get involved in maybe changing the flight patterns a little bit, saving some fuel here and there.’ And this is the danger of an international [airport].”
Turnbow said it is not enough for leaders to just state that they’re against an international airport— they have to know how to work with “all the players” and manage the noise ordinance.
Angel said it’s important to get the rest of the city council on board, which requires effort and leadership.
“You can’t just passively sit back and say you’re against the airport expansion,” Angel said. “You have to actively manage and work with the rest of the council so they understand what the impacts of the noise ordinance are to the rest of the community. So, it’s encumbent upon us to share that information with the other council members and make them understand. There’s a quality-of-life issue here, and there’s a balance that has to take place.”
Angel said there is a lot of pressure to welcome a federal inspection station but she believes she has the leadership to stand up against the pressure.
“Our incumbent had knowledge of the international facility way back in 2013 but failed to inform the community to engage you and let you know that it had occurred,” she said. “If he had been more proactive, then we might have been able to put the stops to such an action beforehand. But that did not occur.”
Per Gill’s next question, the discussion then moved on to cover the funding of senior programs versus other needs in the district’s community, code enforcement, raising the sales tax, public safety and balancing district and citywide issues. (The Signal Tribune will publish the second part of this story, which will cover these items, in the March 18 issue.)
