Council Candidates' Positions: Taxes and Spending Cuts

Taxes and spending cuts were among the issues constituents raised at the Candidates Forum at the Long Beach Library, where the six candidates running for City Council in the Nov. 8 election answered their series of questions Oct. 20.

• Question: You all do not want to raise taxes. To accomplish this, where would you cut spending?

Council President Thomas Sofield Jr., an eight-year member of the Council who is running on the Republican-Coalition ticket, said that the city froze or cut taxes in five of the last six years without decreasing services and while infrastructure projects are ongoing throughout the city. “All of which while maintaining your tax base,” he said.

The key to cutting spending, Sofield said, is to communicate with those on the front lines in the city, the department heads and workers, about ways to find efficiencies in their departments.

“And it’s through that communication that we’ve been able to do such a nice job with the city’s finances,” he added.

He characterized those finances as “very good,” and to buttress this he cited affirmation of the city’s A1 bond rating by Moody’s, a financial ratings agency, earlier this year.

“They upgraded us twice in the last four years,” he noted. 

But Councilman Len Torres, who won a two-year term in 2009, and his Democrat running mate Scott Mandel, an attorney and newcomer to politics, said that the accounting numbers must be known first before the city moves forward. Torres expressed concerned about whether the Moody’s rating can be sustained, and called to see the auditor’s report for the last fiscal year, which he said he has not yet seen.

“That will tell us exactly where we stand,” Torres said. “ … We need to see what these figures are.”

While Mandel called the Moody’s rating “outstanding,” he said that it “doesn’t fix our Rec Center, doesn’t repair our water tower, doesn’t stop flooding in North Park, doesn’t fix our roofs.”

“We have to go through everything that this city has on the books and scrub it from top to bottom,” Mandel continued. “In order for the city to grow, we have to repair what’s in disrepair.” 

Marvin Weiss, a health care sales professional who ran unsuccessfully for City Council in 2009, said that he would like to see the city, Long Beach School Distirct, Long Beach Medical Center and other government-private entities pool together as a purchasing group to become “better buyers.”

“If we bring our bills down, there’s less chances of our taxes going up,” he said. 

Weiss’ fellow Republican-Coalition running mate Mona Goodman, the vice president of the City Council, emphasized bringing in recurring revenue streams from other sources. She cited the city’s work with private business that have brought in a boardwalk banner program that advertises local businesses, and a chairs and umbrellas program on the beach, for which the city receives a percentage of their profits. 

“We’re brining in Decko Bikes,” Goodman said about the bike-sharing program the council approved earlier this year.

“That’s the way you avoid going into the taxpayers pocket every year,” Goodman said, adding that the administration seeks to bring in similar programs.  

Democrat Fran Adelson, a real estate broker in Long Beach for more than 20 years who ran unsuccessfully for the City Council two years ago, agreed that the way to keep taxes low is to bring money into the city.

Adelson said she would encourage working with the Chamber of Commerce and other business groups to attract small businesses to the area, and would like to institute a public relations campaign to attract outsiders, from restaurants to recreational companies, who may want to invest in Long Beach.

But first Adelson would want a forensic order of the budget, “so that we would know right away where we stand with the budget financially,” she said.

And while taxes were not raised last year, Adelson contended, recreation, sewer and water department fees were raised, some by nearly 50 percent.

“That is almost like a tax, when you think about it, because it is money out of your pocket and you cannot take that off of your taxes when you do your taxes for your home ownership,” she said.


* Patch will continue to post stories about the candidates’ positions on various issues raised at the Candidates Forum and future forums leading up to Election Day Nov. 8.

* This article was corrected and updated at 3:54 on 10.23.11.