Sunshine Week --My Op Ed Piece in Business Journal

This is National Sunshine Week -- an effort started in 2005 to encourage openness in government.

I want to thank George Economides, the publisher of the Long Beach Business Journal, who invited me to write an op-ed about the work I am doing to encourage the City of Long Beach to become the most open, transparent and accountable local government in the state.

Below is the article which ran this week in the Long Beach Business Journal:

LBBJ Schipske Editorial Open Up Long Beach

Sign the Petition -- Repeal Officeholder Accounts in Long Beach

Sign the Petition to Stop Political Slush Funds in Long Beach
The Long Beach Mayor and City Council have totally changed the purpose of "officeholder accounts" by voting to triple the amounts they can raise and by voting to allow the transfer of the officeholder accounts to political campaigns. The voters of the City of Long Beach enacted campaign finance reform back in 1994 to try and stem the flow of special interest money into local elections and to "allow candidates and officeholders to spend a lesser proportion of their time on fund raising and a greater proportion of their time dealing with issues of importance to their constituents." A measure should be placed on the ballot that allows voters to repeal officeholder accounts so elected officials can get back to spending time representing their constituents, instead of doing year-round fundraising.

Article Discusses the Tyrannies of Local Government

It is ironic that last night the City Council without any dissent, passed the City Budget in record time (even before all council districts were able to hold public meetings on the budget) ignoring the continued concerns of many residents about the lack of adequate police services particularly in and around City parks and today an article (http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119249/fergusons-lesson-local-government-poses-real-threat-liberty) appears in The Nation titled: The Greatest Threat to Our Liberty Is Local Governments Run Amok.
The article rightly points out with the lack of strong local media watchdogs and elections that are bought by special interests, local elected officials have developed political monopolies and enact proposals that do not reflect the concerns of their constituents:
Political scientist Jessica Trounstine calls “political monopoly”—officials and organizations who have so effectively defeated any potential predators that they can lazily begin to gorge. She …

Read more

Why Mayor Garcia Won't Veto the Bad Ordinance on Office Holder Accounts

April 26, 2017

By the time this is published, the deadline to veto the recently passed office holder account ordinance will have passed and it will have become law.
The ordinance allows council members, the Mayor, City Prosecutor, City Attorney and City Auditor, to raise funds for their "office holder accounts" and then to contribute those funds to other political campaigns.
Mayor Robert Garcia should have vetoed this very bad law, but he didn't.
Here's why.
The voters of the City of Long Beach enacted campaign finance reform back in 1994 to try and stem the flow of special interest money into local elections and to "allow candidates and officeholders to spend a lesser proportion of their time on fund raising and a greater proportion of their time dealing with issues of importance to their constituents."
The Long Beach Campaign Reform Act was the brain-child of the Long Beach Area Citizens Involved (LBACI that also moved the City to form council districts instead of elec…

Read more

Search This Blog

Long Beach city government - Google News

Open Government - Google News