Remember how the city’s proposed Los Cerritos Wetlands landswap with uber-developer Tom Dean included trading him the city’s public service yard along the eastern bank of the Los Angeles River?

And remember how relocating city services somewhere else was projected to cost $500,000–in a time when we’re facing a $43 million structural budget deficit in the 2009-2010 Fiscal Year?

Well, city officials may have found the money to relocate the public service yard.

As the Press-Telegram’s Paul Eakins reports, Long Beach City Council will consider Tuesday whether to approve restructuring Long Beach Gas & Oil bonds, in order to “put savings from future gas expenses in the hands of city officials now.”

Writes Eakins: “Officials expect the bond restructuring to produce $25 million in one-time money, which would mostly be used for unplanned costs such as relocating gas pipelines and helping pay for Long Beach’s new utility billing system. The money would also pay for moving the public service yard operations from San Francisco Avenue on the east side of the Los Angeles River to Gas & Oil’s site at 2400 E. Spring St.”

And here comes the denial–which may be perfectly on-the-beam:

“City Treasurer David Nakamoto said that the public service yard, and even some of the Gas & Oil projects, weren’t the original reason that the bond restructuring was considered,” Eakins writes.
” ‘The wetlands deal wasn’t a motivation for doing the bond tender offer,’ Nakamoto said. ‘The original intent of the gas pre-payment deal was to fund LBGO’s infrastructure.’ “

Now here’s a question for all of us to ponder: this is money that “which would mostly be used for unplanned costs,” according to the P-T–but $25 million is a lot of money, even a lot of money to be spent on so complex and costly a deal as the wetlands swap.

Might some of what’s left over be used to retire the Long Beach Museum of Art’s $3 million bond debt? I’m sure you could argue that that’s an unplanned cost–in the sense that the city would say that it didn’t plan to have to deal with this debt; it didn’t plan to go into hock for an art gallery, etc.

Just a thought.

What started out as a joke after District Weekly contributor (and Drink of the Week champ) Dave Gooch took a ride in a helicopter after downing a few cocktails at DaVinci—next up blimp, then Hoovercraft, then Virgin Galactic—turned into reality today as Gooch boarded Airship Ventures‘ Eureka, which is actually a Zeppelin, currently stationed in Long Beach through the weekend.

He has been in communication with us via text and Twitter, and here’s what he has to say:

11:09:07 AM — T-minus 50:53 — “Waiting for orientation. There’s an astrophysicist here!”

12:47:43 PM — “Look to the beach and you can see me in the air.”

12:49 PM — “In a zep over the skies of Long Beach. So great.”

We will continue to update you on Gooch’s observations. In the meantime, anyone got a number for Richard Branson?

BREAKING!

1:13:13 PM — “Just landed. Should’ve Tweeted more.”

UPDATE!

1:14 PM — “Having champagne toast after zep ride. Well played airship ventures.”

Photo by MGK in LBC. Join our Flickr pool.

At Tuesday’s Long Beach City Council meeting, the Press-Telegram’s Paul Eakins reports that City Attorney Robert Shannon will ask the council for $200,000 to fight two of what sound like class action lawsuits from Long Beach Police Department officers.

“The cost of outside legal counsel for the city of Long Beach to fight two lawsuits filed by more than 800 police officers may soon approach $700,000,” Eakins writes. “Shannon says it is worth it to fight payment of the ‘tens of millions of dollars’ that officers are demanding.”

The lawsuits, writes Eakins, “allege violations of fair labor practice laws and ask that the city compensate police officers for a variety of hours that they claim they worked but for which they were never compensated.”

The city, says the P-T, has already spent $495,000 for outside counsel in this case, from the Los Angeles law firm of Meyers, Nave, Riback, Silver & Wilson.

After a killer and possible final show at Alex’s Bar on the night of June 26 (which was this past Friday, for those that don’t like dealing with numbers), Long Beach garage-geeks The Bolides had a less-than-pleasant weekend. Turns out someone made off with two major pieces of singer/guitarist/synthesizerist(?) Dr. Mikro Fiche’s equipment.

Not cool! The next time you’re Craigslisting, at a pawn shop, or hanging in your shady friend’s garage, be on the lookout for the following:

-Roland KC500 Keyboard Combo Amplifier (looks like this)

-”Fender The Twin” With red knobs and a glow-in-the-dark painted meteor on the grill. The wooden tube protector on the back is broken off.

Just remember, stealing from a scientist is a Cardinal Sin.  Stealing from a scientist who doubles as the singer and guitarist in a new-wave-garage band? Now that’s just mean.

Contact The Bolides at their Myspace or drop a note here if you have any information.

Erstwhile Long Beach Unified School District board member Michael Shane Ellis turned up yesterday, in a manner of speaking.

Ellis, who has missed five of the last six school board meetings, “contacted district officials by phone, according to LBUSD spokesman Chris Eftychiou,” reports the Press-Telegram’s Kevin Butler.

Butler writes that Ellis “told school district staff that he expects to attend the next board meeting on July 7, according to officials with the Long Beach Unified School District.”

The Press-Telegram’s Kevin Butler reports this morning that Long Beach Unified School District school board member Michael Shane Ellis, who has been absent from recent board meetings, has also been “out-of-reach for school district officials, [and] was evicted from his apartment in October for failure to pay rent, according to court records.”

Check it out.

In case you missed it over the weekend, federal money to study the breakwater (and to throw a kegger after the final, which we are totally not ready for) is trickling through Congress.

As the Press-Telegram’s Paul Eakins recently informed us, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water last week approved a bill that includes $100,000 for the Army Corps to review the city of Long Beach’s reconnaissance study of the breakwater.

The city thinks this is a good thing, and so does our erstwhile Congressional Rep. Laura Richardson (D-ilapidated), communicating by statement as is her wont.

“This $100,000 allocation for the Army Corps’s reconnaissance report is one of the most vital allocations this region will receive and it is particularly vital in these economic times to ensure an objective evaluation is made so that all resident, business and government issues and concerns are considered,” Richardson said in a statement Friday, reprinted in the P-T.

Not exactly spellbinding verbiage–certainly no “Cross of Gold” speech–but Fourth District Councilman Patrick O’Donnell was suitably impressed.

“Long Beach owes a thank you to Congresswoman Laura Richardson,” O’Donnell told the P-T. “This has been an issue that not everyone wanted to push.”

He’s right about that. We have–and will very likely continue to have–a breakwater for a long, long time. But progress is always nice.

Not at www.TheOnion.com.  Check out the news report of Michael Jackson’s death, the American Voices feature, and Timeline of a Star. These people are going to hell, and I want to go with them.

Theo Douglas, news editor: “I was in a hardware store I’d never been to before, the kind with a display case full of Buck knives–and ‘Buck’ is capitalized–and a cashier with full-sleeved tattoos, when an early middle-aged man who worked for the store just came up to me and said Michael Jackson had died. I’ never met the guy before, and now, apparently, we are bonded forever.

Ellen Griley, editor: “I was whale watching. I had just seen the fluke of a fin whale, which is apparently a miracle because the Aquarium of the Pacific  people were going apeshit. I looked at my cell and someone had sent me a message asking me if Michael Jackson was dead. I said, ‘If he is I haven’t received my e-mail alert from the New York Times yet.” A minute later I got the e-mail alert saying Michael Jackson is dead.”

Miles Clements, food editor: “Multiple instant messages. Later I received a text saying Jeff Goldblum was dead, which turned out to be unfounded.”

Dave Wielenga, news editor: “I was at the Long Beach Central Library doing research through rolls and rolls of microfiche. A guy who was waiting for a computer just came up and told me. He was sad. I felt sick to my stomach, mostly because I was dizzy from a couple of hours of watching the microfiche spin.

 Bryan Gerhart, intern: “I work at a Boy Scout summer day camp when someone started running around yelling, ‘Michael Jackson is dead!’  One of the guys I work with said he went to school with one of the guys who made molestation accusations against Jackson. He said the guy was a total tool.

Kevin Ferguson, free lancer: “I was boogie boarding. We started boogie boarding knowing he was in the hospital. We were assuming he was dying as we were catching waves.”

Heather Swaim, associate publisher: “I was in the office. Bill Child told me. I didn’t believe it, probably because denial is first stage of grief—but also because Bill is such a liar.

And you?