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”

Residents worry about city plans to build a homeless center
Last night’s 8-1 Long Beach City Council vote to build a police substation at the Schroeder Hall U.S. Army Reserve Center at Willow Street and Grand Avenue, when that becomes available in 2011–and to also build a homeless services center across the street–caught locals almost completely [...]