Thursday was a busy day in Main Library history. The city aired its new proposed budget in public meetings at two of our toniest semi-private locations–Long Beach Yacht Club, and the Petroleum Club–at both of which the library could theoretically be discussed.
Then, out of public view, City Manager Pat West met with the so-called Library [...]

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

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

Giving us one more reason to consider remembering the November election for the rest of our natural lives, Long Beach City Council voted 8-1 last night to put Mayor Bob Foster’s $571 million infrastructure improvement plan on the ballot in about three and a half months.
In other words, it’s now known as the Long Beach [...]

Mayor Bob Foster is expected to say more this morning about his $570 million plans to rebuild streets, sidewalks and alleys–plus the more bureaucratic-sounding storm water management systems–but already we know more than we did about what’s in store.
In this morning’s Press-Telegram, Paul Eakins reports on a 102-page streets audit City Auditor Laura Doud released [...]

Another year, another city budget–this one made perhaps more interesting by what they’re now calling a projected $16.9 structural deficit in the 2009 Fiscal Year.
Otherwise, this afternoon’s Long Beach City Council budget workshop in Council Chambers veered from dry (four words: “Successful Refuse Nexus Study”) to, in Vice Mayor Bonnie Lowenthal’s words, “draconian”

It’s okay if you’ve been sitting around wondering whatever happened to Long Beach’s former city manager Henry Taboada, whom we’re pretty sure immediately preceded Jerry Miller–who in turn preceded our current City Manager Pat West.
And now there’s an answer.
Taboada, our former public servant, turns up today in Rossmoor, in Press-Telegram reporter John Canalis’s story on [...]

And other solutions to the high cost of pensions, and the city’s financial straits
Maybe it was the chicken in a red-wine reduction talking, but a packed room of business owners this afternoon got a handful of dire predictions at the East Anaheim Street Business Alliance’s (EASBA) annual luncheon.

There will be other important demolitions in Long Beach.
But yesterday’s dismantling of the crime-ridden Avalon Motel came with a free Southern lunch, served after Vice Mayor Bonnie Lowenthal clambered into the cab of a towering Caterpillar front-loader for a de-construction worker’s perspective, as the city struck down the blighted building.

Last month, the City of Long Beach burned more hydrocarbons than even the most-traveling salesman. But is there a way for the city to get around that–and help save the environment?