Friday Newsletter Friday

McBride Teen Center & Skate Park

Break Ground

August 6, 2010
 City of Long Beach Memorandum
Working Together to Serve

Date: August 6, 2010

To: Mayor and Members of the City Council

Patrick West, City Manager
From: Suzanne Frick, Assistant City Manager
Subject: Friday Newsletter

Another Ground Breaking! McBride Teen Center

Tomorrow at 11:00 AM at 1550 Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue, Councilman Dee
Andrews will break ground on our new teen center to be located at McBride Park.
This will be a great recreational opportunity in Central Long Beach and will help
for years to come to provide our youth safe and healthy activities in their leisure
time. The $3.5 million funding is coming from the Open Space Bond program,
administered by the Redevelopment Agency and funded through tax increment
and CDBG dollars.

Gridlock at the Shore

I’ve mentioned in the past several weeks that we have had the opportunity to
undertake many street projects throughout our 50 square miles. Although we
tried to stage construction within the short ARRA window for completion, along
with other funding sources we are experiencing some severe traffic congestion
related to our 2nd Street repaving project, which starts at Bayshore, runs through
Naples Island to Pacific Coast Highway. The Public Works team have been
working closely with Councilmember DeLong to reduce traffic impacts by
relocating message boards, adjusting work schedules, re-opening curb-side
parking, revising alternate routes and suspending other conflicting street projects.
The difficulty we face is that Naples is an island and can only be accessed via
bridges.

The work on 2nd Street and the proposed alternate routes conflicted with an
ongoing County project to replace the Termino Avenue Drain. Message boards
and signage were used to try to successfully route traffic up to 7th Street.
Unfortunately, on Wednesday, a Sig Alert on the southbound 405 freeway
resulted in many drivers exiting the freeway and overwhelming what little
capacity we had on PCH, 2nd Street and 7th Street. The good news is: 2nd Street
is completely open today and will remain open over the weekend. Monday will be
a very long day to complete the asphalt paving on the entire street between
Bayshore and Naples Plaza. One lane in each direction will be open at all times.
The intent is to complete this final asphalt work in one day. Then, crews will
return in a few weeks and pave the Davies Bridge at night to minimize traffic
impacts.
August 6, 2010
Page 2

More Street Work

Major street work (not including residential streets) currently underway or near
inception includes:
• Long Beach Blvd from Ocean to 10th
• Pacific Avenue from Ocean to 7th
• Los Coyotes Diagonal from Outer Traffic Circle to Studebaker
• Broadway from Livingston Drive to Bayshore Avenue
• Wardlow Road from Clark to Woodruff
• Atlantic Avenue from San Antonio to 52nd St
• Long Beach Blvd from Del Amo to 710 freeway
• Vista Street from Temple to Nieto
• 3rd Street from Alamitos to Golden
• Broadway from Alamitos to Golden
• The Toledo Undergrounding project

Welcome Marshall’s

Our newest department store opened yesterday to a crowd of over 300 people at
the Bixby Knolls Shopping Center. As noted last week, this is a huge
accomplishment for Councilmember Gabelich and the Bixby Knolls community.
This project was made possible by a $3.5 Million low interest loan by the
Redevelopment Agency from 2006. Even local celebrity “the Knoll’s Ranger”
was in attendance.

Mobility Hub

This week we celebrated the opportunity to install several mobility hubs in our
community, all sponsored by private dollars. Go to
http://www.denverpost.com/election2010/ci_15673894 for an article from the
Denver Post that may make anyone rethink his or her support of mobility hubs!
Apparently, Republican Governor candidate Dan Maes (a Tea Party favorite) was
warning voters that the bike movement is very well disguised plan forced on
America through the United Nations.

Unexpectedly Green

USA Today ran an article that highlighted a list from the Huffington Post, which
featured Long Beach as one of 7 “Unexpectedly Green” cities. See their website
at http://content.usatoday.com/communities/greenhouse/post/2010/08/usas-
greenest-cities/1….. In addition, the NRDC Smarter Cities program did a case
study on Long Beach, which is featured on their website at
http://smartercities.nrdc.org/topic/energy/long-beach-ca-2010-smarter-city-
energy. Bringing Long Beach a place among the NRDC’s 2010 Smarter Cities!
August 6, 2010
Page 3

Los Angeles River Stormwater Clean Up

This week kicked off the LA River Cleanup Project where the COG was
successful in getting $10 Million to install catch basin “treatment trains” to capture
debris from 16 cities bordering the LA River. This has been lauded as a national
model in dealing with regional environmental issues. Approximately 12,000
storm drains will receive these treatment trains.

Memos to the Mayor and City Council

We sent up the following memos to the Mayor and City Council this past week:

• Neighborhood Leadership Program Graduation – August 14, 2010

• Restructuring of the Summer Concert Series