The group elected Seventh District resident Carlos Ovalle as the Executive Director.
According to Ovalle, the idea for a people's advocacy group had been in the works, but the final Long Beach City Council vote on placing Charter Amendments on the November ballot scheduled for this Tuesday at 3 pm presented an immediate threat to the voter protections in the City Charter.
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| Doud has been Auditor for 12 years |
Mayor Garcia and Auditor Laura Doud are behind the proposal to increase term limits from the current two terms to three terms. Garcia is a Democrat and Doud is a Republican.
Doud has been in her position for 12 years. As City Auditor she has no term limits but has been quoted in the local media as supporting increasing Term Limits for the Mayor and City Council. The slogan on her website is "Independence you can count on". She is now calling the voters right to write in a candidate a "loop-hole".
When Ovalle, his brother, and sister-in-law learned about Garcia and Doud's plans to increase Term Limits, they decided to take action They started an online petition and tagged it to Mayor Garcia's Facebook page.
The trio then received a call from Mayor Garcia offering to meet with them.
On the afternoon of July 3rd, Mayor Garcia met with Ovalle and his brother and sister-in-law in the Los Cerritos neighborhood of Bixby Knolls. All of the Ovalle family members had supported Garcia's mayoral campaigns
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Ovalle recounts that the Mayor tried to convince the group that the proposed increase in Term Limits was really limiting terms. Ovalle also states that during the conversation the Mayor brought up the possibility of serving on a city commission.
The Ovalle's used neighborhood networks to call the August 1 organizational meeting for People of Long Beach. At that meeting, Carlos Ovalle was elected Executive Director.
On Friday, August 3, 2018, an advertisement from the People of Long Beach appeared in the Signal Hill Tribune about the Term Limit increase vote.
Also on Friday, the Council of Neighborhoods (CONO) Executive Director Robert Fox was interviewed live on Long Beach Local News about the Garcia-Doud term limit increase.
Fox put the blame for wanting to Increase Term Limits squarely on Garcia. The Fox interview video has gone viral with over 5,700 views as of this posting.
To view the Long Beach Local News Fox Facebook video CLICK ON
Current LB Two Term Limit has been in place for over a quarter of a century
When Garcia and Doud jointly announced their plans to increase the current two Term Limit to three Terms, they tried to hide the increase as a "reform" as fixing a problem with the "write-in" portion of the Term Limit section in the City Charter. The two are branding the write-in as a "loop-hole". Opponents argue that branding the current Term Limits as having a "loop-hole" is a political tactic to trick voters into voting to INCREASE Term Limits. Garcia and Doud are the first to call the write-in a "loop-hole".
In 1992, a 4th District resident Dennis Carroll using his own money wrote and worked to get Proposition G, the Long Beach Term Limits initiative on the ballot. A Los Angeles Times article published just after the voters approved Proposition G reported why Carroll spent $65,000 of his own money to limiting the terms of the mayor and council members:
"The guy representing my district has been there 26 years," said Carroll, a criminal lawyer. "And he's a good man, but it seemed to me that some new ideas or new enthusiasm might be productive."
Carroll's inclination to run for office was stopped by the large sums the council incumbents raised for their reelection campaigns.
"I was shocked by what was being spent. They were spending $50,000 to $100,000 for a part-time job," he said. "The incumbents have these tremendous advantages. They can mail things for free, and their special interests are already in place to support their campaigns."
Carroll said it dawned on him that, as a lawyer, he could change the whole system. "It would probably be a better contribution to Long Beach than just being a city councilman who could be basically ignored."
So he decided to write a term-limits initiative. He said limiting the politicians' time in office would be a step toward opening city government to concerned people who don't have the money to run against an incumbent.
Opponents of the Garcia-Doud increase in Term Limits note that it took 41,000 people signing petitions to place the Two Term Limit Charter Amendment on the ballot. Now 26 years later, just two people Garcia and Doud need just five councilpersons to vote to place a misleading amendment onto the ballot pretending to "fix" a problem that does not exist.
In the last 26 years, the write-in option has been used six times. In those 26 years, Garcia and Doud are the first ones to call the right to write in a candidate a "loop-hole". Three attempts were successful, three were not:
- In 2002, Mayor Beverly O'Neil won as a write-in candidate.
- In 2006, termed out 5th District Councilwomen Jackie Kell ultimately lost in a run-off after successfully conducting a winning write-off bid against challengers.
- In 2010, termed out 9th District Councilman Val Lerch ultimately lost in a run-off after successfully conducting a winning write-off bid against challengers.
- In 2010, termed out 7th District Councilwomen Tonia Uranga ultimately lost in a run-off after successfully conducting a winning write-off bid against challengers.
- In 2012, termed out 4th District Councilman Patrick O'Donnell ultimately won a third term in a run-off after successfully conducting a winning write-off bid against challengers.
- In 2016, termed out 6th District Councilman Dee Andrews ultimately won a third term in a run-off after successfully conducting a winning write-off bid against challengers.
The voters right to write in names is listed in two places.
In Section 1910 of the Long Beach City Charter, it states:
“…all municipal elections shall be held in accordance with the provisions of the Elections Code of the State of California governing municipal elections”
The State of California Elections Code Section 15340 states:
“Each voter is entitled to write the name of any candidate for any public office, including that of President and Vice President of the United States, on the ballot of any election.”
While math doesn't support Garcia and Doud's claims that adding another four-year term is reforming term limits, the campaign money math is clearly in Garcia and Doud's favor.
Doud has handwritten the latest required financial forms filings with no funds listed. Mayor Garcia's war chest is enormous.
For Measure M, the Mayor's personal PAC spent over $181,000 on the campaign. As of the July 25, 2018 filing, the Mayor's campaign war chest has $189,400.
The Long Beach Police Union PAC has announced support for increasing the Term Limits. Its latest filing shows that the Police Union PAC spent over $112,000 on the Measure M campaign and still has $153,000 in its war chest.
Garcia's political ally L.A. County Supervisor Janice Hahn's PAC committee donated $30,000 to the Measure M campaign. Hanh's last public campaign filing in May 2018 shows her with a $25,000 war chest.
The total bill to taxpayers for placing all five ballot Charter Amendments on the ballot is estimated to be $650,000.
The last public hearing before the City Council votes to place the Increased the Terms Limit measure on the ballot is 3:00 pm Tuesday, August 7, 2018, at the Long Beach City Council Chambers.
To contact the elected leaders to voice your opinions:
The Charter Amendments proposed by Auditor Laura Doud and the Mayor are quickly becoming a political flashpoint as the City Attorney has filed an action with the Los Angeles Superior Court for a hearing on Tuesday 8/28/18 to force the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors to change the opponent's ballot measures arguments.
