Garcia Overstates Progress, Looks Beyond Long Beach in Final “State of the City”

At under 17 minutes, Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia’s seventh and final “State of the City” address may have been his shortest, but that didn’t stop him from being long on optimism and offering several lines seemingly intended more for ears inside the Beltway than here at home.

The first of those lines came early when the man who would be congressman — Garcia is seeking (and likely to win) retiring Congressman Alan Lowenthal’s 47th District seat — will not be mayor this time next year. “Until then,” he said, “I’m going to work every single day to ensure we build back even better” — an unveiled reference to President Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better Act,” which Garcia again name-checked later in his speech.

From there Garcia opened his state-of-the-city comments proper, beginning with — what else? — the COVID-19 pandemic (“the single largest crisis our city has ever experienced,” etc.), boasting Long Beach’s success in getting out in front of most of the country.

“Early on in this pandemic, the White House and the President called Long Beach ‘a national model for COVID-19 testing and vaccinations,’” Garcia said. “Long Beach was the first city to vaccinate public school teachers and educators, first to vaccinate food workers, and first to vaccinate dock workers. Today, more than 85% of all adults in Long Beach are vaccinated […] and 99% of our seniors are vaccinated.”

But as has often been the case with his “State of the City” addresses, Garcia appears to be fudging some of his numbers. According to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, as of January 6 — six days before Garcia’s speech — only 79.6% of Long Beach adults had been vaccinated (i.e., received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine), including 95.8% of seniors. (If we take “vaccinated” to mean “fully vaccinated,” Garcia’s numbers are something along the lines of an additional 10% too high.)

Regarding the local economy, Garcia briefly charted the ups and downs in unemployment during his term, noting a 9% unemployment rate when he took office, a 4.6% pre-pandemic level, a 21% peak during the pandemic, and a current rate of 7.7%. (Note: The Long Beach Business Journal reports pre-pandemic unemployment to have been 4.8%, with a peak of 19% in May 2020.)

While admitting that “we still have a long way to go,” Garcia neglected to note that, as reported by the Long Beach Business Journal in mid-December, Long Beach has a higher unemployment rate than 70% of Los Angeles County cities, with L.A. County having “among the highest [unemployment rates] in the state.”

Elsewhere, Garcia celebrated the achievements of the Port of Long Beach, while stating the need for making further progress on reducing emissions.

“As you know, the Port of Long Beach has been breaking records all year, and the doom and gloom predictions of empty store shelves and a ruined holiday never happened,” he said. “In fact, last year, we handled more than 9 million cargo containers. That’s more than at any time in our city’s history […] And while emissions are down 90% since 2005, we must continue to ensure we focus on stronger clean air standards — and the zero-emission trucks of the future. […] We will be finalizing our climate action plan and will be phasing out oil production by 2035 at the latest — five years ahead of the state.”

But the Los Angeles Times Editorial Board has been less than impressed with Garcia’s leadership on this issue:

In 2017, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia pledged to transform the port complex into a zero-emissions facility by 2035. But the region can’t wait 14 years for cleaner air. There’s growing frustration from air quality regulators and environmentalists that the ports — which are seeing record traffic — are not aggressively pushing for cleaner equipment and emissions cuts now. […] This is a moment when the region should be sprinting to adopt pollution-cutting policies. Southern California has a 2023 deadline to dramatically cut smog-forming emissions to meet Clean Air Act standards. The region will almost certainly miss the deadline and could face hefty federal penalties. […] During the last nine years, smog-forming emissions from the ports have barely decreased, according to the [Air Quality Management District]. (“Editorial: Port pollution is choking Southern California,” 8/16/21)

Among city initiatives to aid financially-challenged residents, Garcia touted recent “tenant protections, eviction moratoriums, and direct rent relief for tenants and families,” all of which “must continue,” along with a “move towards a free public transit for all” and the initiation of a Guaranteed Income pilot program, “[which] will provide 500 single parents living in poverty with $500 a month for an entire year, [plus] additional support like access to broadband, childcare, and other critical services.”

Among other current challenges, Garcia noted California’s “massive housing crisis — and Long Beach is no exception.” Among the recent efforts to ameliorate the situation, Garcia highlighted the “open[ing of] the city’s first municipal run shelter for unhoused people last summer, [which has] been operating at or near capacity”; and “three motel conversion projects that […] have added 280 units for people experiencing homelessness. And this year, we must commit to converting more motels to housing.”

Garcia reported that 2021 saw a 7.7% jump in violent crime over the previous year, which is consistent with a general trend across the U.S. — although he noted that, unlike most cities state- and nationwide, Long Beach’s murder rate did not show a similar increase.

Garcia spoke notably less about policing than he did last January, saying only that the city must “ensure we have enough officers on the streets,” that they “continue focusing on community policing by expanding bike patrols, neighborhood walks, and community partnerships,” and that “we will continue transitioning to a new 911 response model for those who need mental health assistance and not police officers.”

Whereas last year he spoke of the need for his city to “recognize the harms of systemic injustice,” partly by “reforming the Citizens Police Complaint Commission” through “major and significant changes,” on Wednesday Garcia was conspicuously silent on the subject, despite the recent conclusion of a CPCC review by a team of consulting firms, Polis Solutions and Change Integration, whose report and recommendations are slated for release this month.

Garcia closed his remarks with a series of shots clearly aimed beyond the confines of Long Beach: “We have an opportunity to turn the page on a dark moment in our history. We are better than what we see on cable television and on social media. We cannot become a country where truth becomes overwhelmed by lies. We cannot become a country where science is challenged by fear. We cannot become a country where demagogues try to chip away at our democracy. And we cannot be a country where we shut our doors and look away from the suffering and dreams of people outside our borders.”