In an effort to increase awareness of hospitality industry working conditions, more than 300 hotel workers and housekeepers will march a mile through downtown Wednesday evening, from the Hilton Long Beach to the Hyatt Long Beach, bearing with them a 60-foot-long “Hope Quilt.”

In all the hubbub over things like wetlands landswaps, this might have slipped through the cracks–but LBReport.com’s Bill Pearl has been eyeing campaign contributions in the April 2010 Long Beach City Council races.
He reports that Assistant City Auditor James Johnson, who has announced he will run for termed-out Seventh District Councilwoman Tonia Reyes Uranga’s seat, [...]

Taking a stand against low-paying jobs, Coalition and community members will hit the streets Wednesday night
In an effort to keep the momentum building from a town hall meeting and at least one march last year–and a sobering study released Feb. 4 showing that many downtown Long Beach tourism industry workers labor in poverty–the Coalition for [...]

As the Press-Telegram reports this morning, Assistant City Auditor James Johnson has formed a campaign committee to explore running for Seventh District Councilwoman Tonia Reyes Uranga’s seat in April 2010.
Uranga, you’ll recall, is termed out, though her husband Roberto Uranga pulled papers in February to run for the seat–raising at least the possibility of keeping [...]

Los Angeles Times reporters Louis Sahagun (who’s written about the wetlands, and Main Library) and Dan Weikel, who’s also covered Long Beach in the past, weigh in today with a follow-up on privatizing Long Beach Airport.
Turns out, it’s no road to riches.
“Local governments that have tried to privatize airports in the past have found it [...]

Stirring words on a hot day at Long Beach’s latest anti-Prop. 8 rally
Saturday’s anti-Proposition 8 rally at the usually-deserted Burton W. Chace Civic Center was, as advertised, a “peaceful rally,” with babies frolicking on the grass outside City Hall, loving couples lounging barefoot in front of the stage, and Long Beach police sitting on their [...]

Literary superhero Ray Bradbury stands up for threatened Main Library, as the vote to keep it open approaches
With a number of our public officials warming to the notion of keeping Main Library open until real, actual plans can be made for its demise, famed science fiction author Ray Bradbury made what could have been a [...]

If you get around Long Beach a bit, you might have seen Press-Telegram Executive Editor Richard Archbold and his wife Pat–and P-T columnist Shirley Wild–helping judge yesterday’s Haute Dog Easter Parade in Belmont Shore, alongside yours truly.