As a U.S. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class, Virginia Sanchez sees why literacy is vital

Long Beach native Virginia Sanchez was an adult services librarian at Long Beach Public Library when she answered the call of duty and enlisted in the United States Navy.
Petty Officer 1st Class Sanchez was sent to Afghanistan last Fall, where she’s [...]

If the City of Long Beach had stuck to its original timetable, Main Library would be open just more six weeks before closing indefinitely. Then, some day, a new, watertight, earthquake-proof Main Library would be built or rebuilt, there or elsewhere. Some day.
That’s what worries members of

On the day that Nicolas Dibs, a virtually unknown public school substitute teacher, has officially become a little-bit-better-known candidate to replace Congresswoman Laura Richardson, the city of Sacramento has declared Richardson’s home a public nuisance.
The home is one of three on which Richardson has defaulted several times—the others are in Long Beach and San Pedro—as part of a [...]

Beware of outside agitators!
As reported previously, Long Beach hotel workers have recently protested against low pay and elusive health benefits.  Their complaints are not unfounded: pay in the Long Beach hospitality sector is well below the national average.  The workers are supported by the Long Beach Coalition for Good Jobs and Healthy Communities–which has argued [...]

Strange enough that the most-influential lobbyists in the city were gathered on the same side of an issue being considered by a Long Beach City Council committee Tuesday afternoon. The really weird part is that they seemed to be sitting on the side that was losing.
Two-thirds of the council’s three-person Election Oversight Committee appeared to [...]

In a conversation before, and remarks during this afternoon’s budget study session at City Hall, City Manager Pat West changed the course of Main Library’s proposed closure–originally said to be looming just over the horizon, possibly as soon as Oct. 1.

And what’s this about a two-year “gap in service”?

Time to leave work early today, for this afternoon’s budget study session, at 3:30 at City Hall, 333 W. Ocean Blvd.
Among the hot topics, of course, will be what to do with the city’s leaky 32-year-old Main Library

Long Beach Museum of Art’s third audit in two years–and its second audit this year–was unleashed earlier today by City Auditor Laura Doud’s office. As promised, it takes a long, hard look at the museum’s extensive inventory, and the results are rather chilling.

…and the sobering implication: if you want to make decent money, don’t work in Long Beach.
Earlier this month, Long Beach hotel workers and community activists held a march to protest low wages and a lack of benefits in the hospitality industry.  The march–organized by the newly-formed Coalition for Good Jobs and Healthy Communities–began at the [...]

Developer Tom Dean is abandoning his plan to build a Home Depot-anchored shopping center on the edge of the Los Cerritos Wetlands as part of a settlement that will also reimburse much of the legal fees incurred by the two organizations that successfully sued to stop the project.
The District Weekly learned of the settlement Thursday [...]