{"id":215025,"date":"2026-03-11T15:49:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T15:49:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/215025\/"},"modified":"2026-03-11T15:49:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T15:49:13","slug":"3-7-million-in-federal-funds-will-help-pay-for-new-crime-lab-park-improvements-youth-center-in-long-beach-long-beach-post-news-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/215025\/","title":{"rendered":"$3.7 million in federal funds will help pay for new crime lab, park improvements, youth center in Long Beach \u2022 Long Beach Post News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite a divided Congress that has so far seen two partial government shutdowns this year over budgetary fights, Long Beach Rep. Robert Garcia on Tuesday announced federal funding for several projects in his district.<\/p>\n

The $3.7 million in federal earmarks will pay for technology upgrades at the community center at Admiral Kidd Park, murals and benches along the Broadway Corridor and ballfield improvements at Marina Vista Park, among other ventures.<\/p>\n

Federal monies will also cover some construction costs for a new city crime lab and a youth center in the Washington neighborhood. At a news conference, dignitaries spoke at length about the two facilities, saying they will be critical in speedier DNA testing and more comprehensive offerings for teens needing counseling or other help.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are a city with big ideas and clear vision for the future, but it requires partnership and layered funding of all levels of government,\u201d said Mayor Rex Richardson.<\/p>\n

This comes as a partial shutdown within the federal government, mostly over funding for the Department of Homeland Security, has already resulted in long lines and flight delays at airports.<\/a> DHS funding affects the Transportation Security Administration, Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Coast Guard.<\/p>\n

Federal policy changes have taken a major toll on other areas of the city budget. Its Health Department finished last year with a $14 million deficit<\/a> and expects millions more in grant funding to be pulled this year.<\/p>\n

While congressional Republicans have tightened spending on larger projects, Garcia said there is little pushback in Washington to move forward on small-time earmarks that, while pennies to federal lawmakers, make a huge difference for city budgets.<\/p>\n

He said there continues to be bipartisan support for funding the universal issues seen in every city, like streets, bridges and parks.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think people hear all the time that it\u2019s hard to get stuff done in DC, and that\u2019s true, but it\u2019s also great when you can get bipartisan support to help support projects, and I think these are really good examples,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, most members, regardless of their politics, can get projects through,\u201d Garcia said. \u201cI maintain a pretty good relationship with the folks that are making the decisions about projects in the Congress. So it doesn\u2019t worry me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite a divided Congress that has so far seen two partial government shutdowns this year over budgetary fights,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":213834,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-215025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215025\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/213834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}