S IGNA L T RIBUN E Serving Bixby Knolls, California Heights, Los Cerritos, Wrigley and Signal Hill VOL. XXXVIII NO. 13
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Those in attendance at the March 22 Signal Hill City Council meeting applaud the selection of the new mayor, Lori Woods.
March 25, 2016
Photos by Cory Bilicko | Signal Tribune
During the March 22 Signal Hill City Council meeting, new Mayor Lori Woods (left) commends Larry Forester (right) for his tenure as mayor in the previous 12 months.
Forester completes his fourth mayoral term Lori Woods, newest member of the Signal Hill City Council, becomes the city’s mayor. Cory Bilicko Managing Editor
It was with a spirit of supportiveness and appreciation that the Signal Hill City Council and a full house of community members in council chambers Tuesday night celebrated the end of outgoing Mayor Larry Forester’s most recent term in office. Forester will now resume his seat as a councilmember, as others on the council assume the positions of mayor and
vice mayor, as part of a rotation of service that has been customary for decades in Signal Hill. The focus of the regularly scheduled city council meeting was placed less on the usual business matters and more on Forester’s service in the last year and welcoming Lori Woods as the new mayor. That tone of support carried over from commendations of Forester to helping Woods navigate through helming her first council meeting as mayor. It was a challenging one, characterized by some confusion among the council members and city staff as to what the procedures are for nominating, closing nominations for and selecting the next mayor and vice mayor, but be-
tween them, unanimous decisions were reached to choose Woods as mayor and councilmember Tina Hansen as vice mayor. Shortly thereafter, Hansen explained to those in attendance that the State has recently changed its expectations of the parliamentary procedure that city officials are to use in city council meetings and that, consequently, the council is undergoing an adjustment period as they figure out the new approach. Before that nomination and selection process had begun, City Manager Charlie Honeycutt summarized how the procedure would occur. “This is your annual meeting where the city council reorganizes
by selecting a new mayor and vice mayor. The city clerk will preside over the selection of the mayor,” Honeycutt explained. “Council members can nominate any member from the city council, and no second is needed for that nomination. After nominations are closed, the city clerk will conduct a rollcall vote and then declare the results of the vote. The new mayor will then preside over the selection of a vice mayor, using the same process to select a mayor.” Thus, Tuesday became the first day of Woods’s first term as the city’s primary leader. The newest member of the city council, Woods was elected on March 5, 2013 and has served as vice mayor in the last
year. She and her husband, Lance, have four children, all of whom were present during Tuesday’s meeting, along with other family members. After Forester literally gave up his seat at the center of the dais, he walked to the front of it and switched out his name placard with Woods’s. Woods then approached the lectern, where she presented the outgoing mayor with proclamations and introduced others who recognized his service, not only for the previous year, but for decades. “Mayor Forester has had a very busy year, and he is to be really see COUNCIL page 11
Making sure that your vote is (literally) counted Recent changes in election law will allow more flexibility in tallying the mailed-in ballots. CJ Dablo Staff Writer
Now that the U.S. Postal Service has said that it might take a little bit longer for mail to get delivered,
election officials acknowledge that mailed-in ballots will be counted, provided they are postmarked by Election Day and received within three days of that date. The voters in Long Beach who will be deciding on a council member, school board or college trustee on April 12 will still have the option of dropping their choices into the mail box. They won’t get that iconic “I
voted” sticker, but at least it will be counted eventually. The recent changes in election law now allow flexibility for the people in charge of tallying the mailed-in ballots. Long Beach City Clerk Maria de la Luz Garcia said in a phone interview this week that a new law allows her department to collect those mailed-in ballots at the post office in the days after election. She added
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that only the VBM ballots received through Monday, April 11 will be reported on the night of the election. That opening tally released around 8pm on election night will reflect that count. Garcia explained that poll workers won’t have to be stationed at the post office to collect the final vote-by-mail (VBM) ballots on Election Day. However, for those voters who
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see VOTE page 5
March 25 through March 30, 2016
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might be tempted to procrastinate in getting their mailed-in ballots to the post office or to the city clerk until April 12, they may be disappointed to learn that if they merely drop off their VBM ballot at the post office or at the polling station on Election Day, there will be a delay in getting it counted. Garcia said that her office will begin
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