Ever wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night, wondering how much this spring’s spate of Long Beach City Council and Long Beach Unified school board elections will cost us?  Maybe you should.

The Press-Telegram’s Kristopher Hanson checks in on Council member Gerrie Schipske’s proposal that Long Beach get a greater portion of Port of Long Beach profits – and does the early foot soldiering for the Port’s strategy for spinning against it – in his On The Waterfront column today.
Hanson calls Schipske’s proposal “just the latest City Hall grab at the Harbor Department.” He points out that [...]

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?

St. Mary Medical Center sues city–or does it?
Interesting Press-Telegram piece over the weekend. Apparently Catholic Healthcare West, the parent corporation of St. Mary Medical Center, has three separate breach-of-contract lawsuits going against the City of Long Beach.

City letter, somewhat a formality, could help fire survivors find a new home
Today, while you’re shopping at Trader Joe’s, or figuring out what to do on New Year’s Eve, take a moment to remember the Aviles family, which lost three of its youngest members earlier this month–sisters Stephanie Aviles, 6; Jocelin Aviles, 7; and Jasmine [...]

Thanks mostly to the Los Angeles County Tax Assessor’s office–bringers of property tax–it’s difficult to be a landowner this time of year.
But the City of Long Beach, which owns the land under the Long Beach Yacht Club, finds itself in curious circumstances for an entirely different reason: labor negotiations at the Club, one of the [...]

Sadly, the words in this headline–and the scenario they’re plucked from (fast-talking career gal reporter Jennifer Jason Leigh’s resignation in “The Hudsucker Proxy”)–probably didn’t read as colorfully in real life.

Mike Cincola–owner of Looff’s Lite-a-Line, the marriage of bingo and pinball–sold his game’s original location near Ocean Boulevard and Chestnut Place in 2000, to Camden Property Trust, which promptly turned it into condominiums.
Part of the deal, though, was that they’d save Looff’s distinctive multi-sided, wood-beamed roof structure, which has a cupola on top and (it [...]

Stop me if you think that you’ve heard this one before
It’s interesting how the news sometimes gets out–and out and out and out.
On Sunday, the New York Times published a story on Long Beach’s vintage furnishings district on Fourth Street, otherwise known as Retro Row. Our comrades at Portfolio informed us on Monday–and we informed [...]