{"id":137228,"date":"2026-01-17T04:16:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T04:16:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/137228\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T04:16:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T04:16:08","slug":"mayor-touts-progress-opportunity-in-long-beach-state-of-the-city-address","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/137228\/","title":{"rendered":"Mayor touts progress, opportunity in Long Beach State of the City address –"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Long<\/a>Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson during State of the City. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou can win, so long as you keep your head to the sky,\u201d sang the youth chorus \/ drum line that opened Mayor Rex Richardson\u2019s annual State of the City address Tuesday night. \u201cBe optimistic!\u201d<\/p>\n

You couldn\u2019t ask for a more apt opener, as Richardson unfailingly touts the LBC as strong and getting stronger, regardless of how much more nuanced the reality is.<\/p>\n

In case you missed it, here are a few highlights\u2026and lowlights:<\/p>\n

New Kids in Town<\/p>\n

The State of the City was held on the eve of the groundbreaking ceremony for construction of the Long Beach Bowl, a waterfront amphitheater that will hold around 11,000 people. Scheduled for completion in June, Richardson noted that the Bowl is slated for 25 events in its first year of operation, after which it will host upwards of 40 per year.Iconic swimwear brand Speedo will relocate its North American headquarters to Long Beach, a choice informed by the fact that Long Beach will play host to 11 events<\/a> during the 2028 Summer Olympics, the majority of which are aquatic.Joining Greece and Denmark in selecting Long Beach for the location of their respective Olympic National Hospitality Houses is Ireland, which promises<\/a> a wide variety of cultural programming, events, and live entertainment right on Pine Ave.Much ado was made about Marathon Burger opening a Pine Ave. location come March. But even for those who do eat red meat, no doubt some want nothing to do with anything related to Snoop Dogg since he chose to perform at an event celebrating Trump\u2019s inauguration<\/a> last year.This summer will see the debut of a Long Beach pro baseball team \u2014 though not one associated with Major League Baseball; instead, the team will play in the independent, 11-team Pioneer Baseball League. The name, though, has been a cause of confusion. First Richardson teased the audience with three choices on which the public voted last year: the Parrots, the Regulators, and the Coast. The audience\u2019s clear favorite was the Regulators (a reference to team co-owner and Long Beach native Warren G\u2019s song \u201cRegulate\u201d), while the least favorite was the Coast. The video segment that followed revealed that fans chose \u201cthe Coast,\u201d but then Warren G said something to the effect that the team would be called both the Coast and the Regulators. After the video, Richardson said the same thing: \u201cIt\u2019s the Long Beach Coast, and the Long Beach Regulators.\u201d The first question I was asked after the event was, \u201cDid you understand what he meant about the team name?\u201d Everyone I queried was similarly confused \u2014 including a member of the mayor\u2019s own staff, who had been asked the same question by others. The Long Beach Post got clarification<\/a> from a team spokesperson: \u201cthe Regulators name \u2018will appear through select in-ballpark experiences, special activations, creative storytelling and limited merchandise drops.\u201d\u2019 Really? If y\u2019all wanted to call the team \u201cthe Regulators,\u201d why have a fan vote? It\u2019s a way better name than \u201cthe Coast,\u201d for fuck\u2019s sake.<\/p>\n

Most Unrealistically Optimistic Goal
Well, nothing could compete with the ludicrous wish Richardson made last year: \u201cto position Long Beach as the coastal live music capital of the world.\u201d Uh-huh. But this year\u2019s winner has almost as little chance of coming true: \u201cto achieve our goal of ending homelessness [by] 2030.\u201d A \u201ccritical step\u201d down this path, he said, is the Youth Shelter and Navigation Center,<\/a> which provides not only temporary housing but mental-health and vocational support. That\u2019s great (even if it has only 12 beds), and it\u2019s not the only way in which the City is trying to reduce homelessness, but real talk can only be helpful. No homelessness in Long Beach in four years is not real talk.<\/p>\n

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics
\u201cLong Beach has now seen consecutive years of declining years of street homelessness,\u201d Richardson claimed. That\u2019s true<\/a> \u2014 just don\u2019t skip over the word street, because it\u2019s also true that last year, overall homelessness rose 6.5%.<\/a> That truth he left out.<\/p>\n

Richardson strongly tied homelessness to housing affordability and praised Long Beach on that front, too, saying that \u201camong the 14 largest cities in the state, Long Beach has had the third-lowest rent increase over the last three years.\u201d I have no idea whether that\u2019s accurate: we were told someone from the Mayor\u2019s Office would get back to us with supporting data and followed up when they didn\u2019t, but no dice. Whatever the case, something tells me things sound less rosy if we make it a round number like 15 or 20, rather than 14. Who makes a list of the top 14 anything?<\/p>\n

Chased Off the Stage, Again
Last year was the first time in the 15+ years I\u2019ve attended State of the City events that protestors disrupted the proceedings<\/a>. But this year Richardson was chased off not once, but twice. The first came 10 minutes into his speech, when a pair of men stood up and yelled, \u201cRex, when are you going to protect Black workers?\u201d Twenty minutes later, a group of about 10 people began chants of \u201cICE out of Long Beach!\u201d<\/a> Richardson again departed as the group was ushered out. Near the end of his speech more protestors took up the same chant, this time also exhorting Long Beach officials to \u201cdo more\u201d to resist, but Richardson refused to depart for a third time. (Prediction for 2027: From now on, people will always see the State of the City as an opportunity to voice their grievances in front of a captive audience. This is the new normal.)<\/p>\n

Solidarity
While I don\u2019t know whether Rex is somehow not properly protecting Black workers, interrupting his speech to protest ICE seemed inapt, as both he and the city council have been unequivocal in their denunciation of ICE under the Trump administration. And once he returned to the stage, Richardson passionately reiterated that position:<\/p>\n

These are serious times we\u2019re living through, and we get it. What we shouldn\u2019t be doing is [the Trump administration\u2019s] job for them by dividing ourselves: we should be sticking together, [and] that\u2019s what we should be doing this minute. That\u2019s how Long Beach makes it through. [\u2026] Let me say this directly and unequivocally clear: ICE does not belong in our city, ICE does not belong in our hotels, ICE does not belong in our schools, not in our places of worship, not in our places of work, not\u2026in\u2026Long\u2026Beach\u2026period!\u201d<\/p>\n

He noted that in 2018 the city council approved the Long Beach Values Act,<\/a> which codified various ways in which the City would resist onerous enforcement of federal immigration law; and that the Act was strengthened last year,<\/a> \u201censuring that no City resources are used to aid ICE, and holding all City departments and contractors to the very same standard [so that] residents can trust and access City services, send their children to school and [go to] work, making sure they can engage their [local] government without fear.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hot Air?
In acknowledging the fact that for generations certain areas of Long Beach have been disproportionately affected by Port of Long Beach emissions (\u201cFor families in West Long Beach, air quality isn\u2019t an abstract issue: it\u2019s asthma inhalers, it\u2019s missed school days\u201d), he touted last year\u2019s \u201chistoric partnership, a new standard and enforceable agreement<\/a> between the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles and the South Coast Air Quality Management District\u201d as a pathway to \u201cfaster zero-emission infrastructure [and] cleaner air for surrounding frontline communities.\u201d But nonprofit, nonpartisan news org CalMatters urged<\/a> the SCAQMD to vote against \u201cthe so-called cooperative agreement\u201d on the grounds that \u201cimpacted community members were not meaningfully included\u201d in the process of crafting the agreement, which \u201cweakens the [D]istrict\u2019s ability to reduce emissions and it creates a dangerous precedent.\u201d CalMatters noted that the agreement \u201cincludes a five-year ban on rulemaking. That handcuffs South Coast Air Quality Management District, effectively blocking the agency\u2019s authority to address port pollution when the South Coast Air Basin can least afford a delay.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most Unsurprising Omission
Regarding the LBPD, Richardson declared that \u201cprofessionalism and respect for human life [\u2026] should not be the exception: this should be our standard.\u201d Asserting that this is the standard, he cited declining crime rates<\/a> and the fact that 2025 was the first year ever without a single officer-involved shooting. Something he didn\u2019t say was that going into 2025, complaints of officer misconduct had risen by over 10% each year since 2021. (Stats on 2025 will be released this spring.) It\u2019s a subject he and the city council have consistently refused to comment on or (according to City records) ask questions about,<\/a> just as they refused to comment on a 29% jump in use-of-force incidents<\/a> between 2023 and 2024. So much for what he said next: \u201cWe\u2019re also committed to transparency.\u201d<\/p>\n

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