S IGNA L T R IBU N E Serving Bixby Knolls, California Heights, Los Cerritos, Wrigley and Signal Hill VOL. XXXVIII NO. 32
Your Weekly Community Newspaper
August 5, 2016
Garcia, West unveil Long Beach FY17 budget proposal Budget uses Measure A funds to prioritize infrastructure and public safety. Cory Bilicko Managing Editor
Eight weeks after Long Beach voters approved Measures A and B to help address the city’s infrastructure needs and regenerate public-safety agencies through a sales-tax increase, officials were presenting a Fiscal Year 2017 budget that reflects those additional funds and focuses on an “improved future.” On Aug. 1, Mayor Robert Garcia and City Manager Patrick West conducted a press conference at Fire Station 8 in Belmont Shore to share their proposed spending of the general fund– the only portion of the City’s $2.6-billion budget that is completely discretionary– for the coming fiscal year, which will begin Oct. 1. According to the officials, a previously expected shortfall for FY17 has been reduced by $1.1 million and the budget is “structurally balanced.” “We’re going to spend the money for Measure A exactly where we said we would,” Garcia said during the event. “And I think that’s really, really important from a community point of view.” The mayor stressed that the primary use of Measure A funds will be to restore “incredibly important” public-safety investments that had been cut during the recession, and the reason behind the choice of venue for the press conference soon became apparent. “I love being able to live up to campaign promises and things that we said we were going to do,” Gar-
cia said. “And the first one– and the reason why we’re here in this building today– is the first thing we’re going to do with this budget, as we said we would, is to restore Engine 8 here in Belmont Shore.” That announcement garnered enthusiastic applause and cheers, about which Garcia joked that it was obvious some of the advocates for that cause were present. He said that restoring Engine 8– which was positioned directly behind the podium from which he spoke– was important because it not only provides critical fire service to that part of the city, but it also improves fire responses across Long Beach by having another vehicle. He added that with the restoration of that engine comes a net gain of firefighters to staff it. Garcia also remarked that Measure A funds have secured the restoration of the police department’s south division. “During the recession, we reduced our police command divisions from four down to three, and that really caused a strain also on services and on assuring that we’re able to respond appropriately to what is going on in the city,” he said. “And when you ask the [police] chief what his top priority [was], from a public-safety point of view, it was the restoration of south division– and not just restoring the division, but restoring a net gain of police officers to allow us to rebuild the police department.” Garcia then turned his attention toward infrastructure, indicating that Measure A investments will not begin until the start of the new year. “So, those dollars don’t begin see BUDGET page 10
Graph by Denny Cristales Info source: City of LB
The budget Mayor Robert Garcia and City Manager Patrick West proposed Monday for Long Beach’s Fiscal Year 2017 continues to dedicate 69 percent of the general fund to public safety, as in FY 2016. The general fund is the only portion of the City’s $2.6-billion budget that is completely discretionary, and it accounts for only 17 percent ($430.5 million) of the Fiscal Year 2017 proposed budget.
Local church to host active-shooter exercises An Ohio-based emergency firm will teach a two-day course on survival strategies in the event of a mass shooting. Denny Cristales Editorial Assistant Courtesy ALICE Training Institute
Participants apply a “counter” strategy– a last-resort technique that seeks to decrease an attacker’s ability to focus through noise, movement, distraction and swarm tactics– during a class for ALICE, an emergency institute based in Ohio that specializes in survival strategies in active-shooter situations. ALICE will teach a two-day survival instructor course at Los Altos United Methodist Church on Aug. 15 and 16.
In a day and age when mass shootings are the closest they have ever been to a social norm, public institutions are taking it upon themselves to learn survival methods in the event of an ac-
tive-shooter situation. The Los Altos United Methodist Church has partnered with the ALICE Training Institute, an emergency-training organization based in Ohio, to host a two-day instructor course at the church on Aug. 15 and 16 designed to teach survival strategies “for those critical moments in the gap between when a violent situation begins and when law enforcement arrives on scene.” “I operate on preparing people for about a five- to eight-minute event,” said Greg Crane, founder of ALICE
August 5 through August 9, 2016 Friday
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Training Institute, in a phone interview. “These events are rare, but, unfortunately, they are real... They are in the news constantly, and people are just more and more asking themselves, ‘Gosh, what do I do?’... There needs to be some very basic knowledge and understanding of what these events really are– not the fallacies, not the hype– but what is one person with a firearm capable of? What are the people who don’t have firearms capable of?” see ALICE page 15
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S undAy , A uguSt 7, 2016