Long Beach City Council

Grandpa navigated the nation through a 10-year economic quagmire, set a course for victory in a world war and cemented the foundation of the modern federal government. Del Roosevelt would be happy with hiring more cops and setting up some crosswalks in Long Beach. That's Roosevelt, as in President Franklin D., father of the New Deal and the only person ever elected to four terms in the White House.

Despite dozens of public meetings, and promises of jobs and millions in revenue, a bid to turn an aging pink hotel into a ritzy $320-million coastal development in Long Beach is over. "This had the potential of being huge and it's dead in the water," Councilwoman Rae Gabelich said Wednesday. After six hours of sometimes heated discussion at a packed City Council meeting Tuesday night, the proposed complex at 2nd Street and Pacific Coast Highway was rejected on a 5-3 vote. "Quite frankly, I'm disappointed with my colleagues," Gabelich said.

Elections will be held in even-numbered districts of Long Beach. There are contested races in Districts 2, 4 and 6. But in District 8, Jeffrey A. Kellogg will gain his second term without a challenge. 2nd District Election: April 14 District population: 49,195 On the ballot: Three candidates for one seat INCUMBENT Wallace Edgerton Age: 58 Occupation: Stockbroker Remarks: Edgerton, in office since 1975, says the city needs to change its priorities and its demographics.

Jenny Oropeza, a Democratic state senator whose battle with cancer five years ago drove her to sponsor laws protecting public health and the environment, died Wednesday evening at a hospital in her hometown of Long Beach. She was 53. Oropeza had been declared cancer-free in 2005 but had been under treatment since May for a blood clot in her abdomen that kept her from traveling to Sacramento to attend legislative sessions. On Wednesday afternoon she was taken to Long Beach Memorial Hospital because she was having difficulty breathing.

After backing down two years ago, the Long Beach City Council took a step Tuesday toward banning smoking in restaurants, cafeterias and other enclosed public places. Councilman Evan Anderson Braude proposed strengthening the city's current anti-smoking ordinance, which prohibits lighting up in municipal buildings and most workplaces. The council, consisting entirely of nonsmokers, referred the proposal to its legislative committee for further review.

Planning Commission Chairman Jim Serles accepted campaign contributions from developers and realtors then voted in favor of their projects in apparent violation of the state Political Reform Act, according to documents provided by his opponent in the City Council race. The Long Beach City Council has authorized the hiring of a special investigator to review allegations leveled against Serles by his opponent, Doug Drummond, a retired Long Beach police commander.

A study released Monday concludes that it would cost as much as $1.7 billion to close the Long Beach Naval Shipyard and make the land on which it sits useful again, far surpassing the $8 million a year that the Defense Department expects to save by shutting it down. "They are awesome figures," said City Councilman Les Robbins. "Given the respective mathematics, it doesn't seem to be a very good business proposition and that's what it's supposed to be--good business."

The City Council has declined to get involved in a political dispute between Mayor Ernie Kell and one of his challengers, Councilman Tom Clark, over Kell's regular appearances on a publicly funded cable television program. Clark asked the council this week to bar local elected officials such as Kell from appearing on special programming on the city's Channel 21 while they are running for office.

Long Beach's often-silent homeless population brought the stark reality of street life to the City Council this week and forced it to take a look, leaving a list of demands for open restrooms, a place to shower, decent housing and an end to alleged police harassment. "We're tired of this city holding homeless people hostage by the gut! I am tired of watching my 16-month-old baby pick crumbs out of the carpet because I pay too much for rent in this city!"

In one of her last controversial votes, Councilwoman Jan Hall scanned the crowd of irate boat owners filling the council chambers last month and coolly let them know that she was not on their side. "I believe every element in our community is going to have to be hurt a bit because of the financial situation the city is in, and I don't think the marina should be any different," she said in explaining her support for marina fee increases they vehemently oppose.

The effort to bring waves back to Long Beach by dismantling the massive breakwater sheltering its shores is getting a boost from the federal government. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is lending its support to a four-year, $8.3-million study on reconfiguring the breakwater and redirecting the mouth of the Los Angeles River. The Corps' decision, part of a 31-page report released Monday, is a victory for surfers and conservationists who have for years blamed the World War II-era, 2.2-mile rock barricade for trapping water pollution, weakening waves and making Long Beach one of the least popular and most polluted beaches in the region.

A tipster's recollection of a hazardous substance spill in Los Cerritos Wetlands in the 1950s has led to the discovery of elevated levels of carcinogenic PCBs that could derail a controversial proposal to restore the degraded Long Beach salt marsh, officials say. The Environmental Protection Agency is scheduled to present the results of its study of the contamination to the Long Beach City Council today. "The informant, who wishes to remain anonymous, was an apprentice electrician in his late teens in the early 1950s," said EPA spokesman Robert Wise.

Southern California's strict environmental rules and green political culture make it notoriously difficult to build industrial facilities here, especially when they're on the coast and bring pollution with them. That's as it should be -- with the worst air quality in the country, Los Angeles and environs have to take extraordinary measures to protect residents' health and welfare.

Long Beach is about to consider a rare step to ease anti-smoking rules. At a time when cities nationwide are banning smoking in public places from bars to beaches, the Long Beach City Council today will consider a proposed amendment to its no-smoking ordinance that would exempt cigar lounges and hookah bars.

The Long Beach City Council will hold a public hearing on whether or not to lease its commercial airport to private investors after critics called for greater "transparency" in the important policy discussion. The council had planned to discuss the matter in closed session Tuesday, but the officials voted instead to hold a public workshop after three council members and four citizens protested. The hearing will occur at a later date.

In a closed meeting scheduled for today, the Long Beach City Council is set to discuss whether to lease some, if not all, of the city's small commercial airport to private investors, a move that could generate millions of dollars in municipal revenue. The idea has already sparked controversy over whether such an important policy matter should be considered in secret and whether relinquishing control of a valuable city asset to a private company would be in the best interest of the public.

The Marina Drive bridge to Long Beach would be closed for one year under a city plan to demolish and rebuild the dilapidated structure. Officials recently approved a consultant's recommendation to close the bridge completely to allow faster construction, rather than keeping one lane open for more than two years. The Long Beach City Council still has to approve the plan.

Gov. George Deukmejian has appointed Jan Hall, a Long Beach City Council member, to the state Commission on the Status of Women. Hall, who replaces Josephine Mena of Fresno, has been on the City Council since 1978. The new state position pays $50 per meeting and requires Senate confirmation. Hall is a Republican.

Lennie Arkinstall deftly steered his 14-foot aluminum skiff through murky tidal inlets teeming with shorebirds and strewn with trash in the heart of the degraded salt marsh known as the Los Cerritos Wetlands. The groundskeeper of the privately owned mosaic of mud flats and oil fields framed by power plants, tank farms, malls and busy highways a few miles east of downtown Long Beach wanted to show off the area's potential as a wildlife refuge.

Long Beach has been preening its oceanfront image for more than a decade by pouring money and support into a wealth of new projects on its shores: a $117-million aquarium, gleaming Miami Beach-style condominium towers, a waterfront shopping center with sea-themed eateries, such as Gladstone's and Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. What's missing amid all this sea fever, some say, is a Southern California style seashore.