Long Beach Mayor’s Corner: A great staff makes a great city

Published 8:12 am Friday, June 10, 2022

We are now in the sixth month of 2022, how time flies! This time, I wanted to highlight the city personnel who have a wide spectrum of skills and talents. Whether it is personnel, financial, planning, utilities, building inspection or code enforcement the staff at City Hall is a complete knowledgeable team. Individually they have great qualities, but as a combined team they provide excellent service to the citizens and visitors. While individuals have specific responsibilities, the staff works collaboratively to cross train and know each other’s position. As a small staff, we do not want customer service to suffer if someone is out.

The city crew are also highly skilled employees that do everything from streets and parks maintenance and construction to water and wastewater treatment. They are the people that do the jobs, allowing us to enjoy a nice, clean, and attractive city. As a relatively small group, they must be able to multitask and have a broad range of abilities. At the same time, the small group is also highly specialized to be able to treat water and wastewater to state and federal standards, as well as work on the various types of equipment our city operates. Their pride in a job well done is very evident.

Our police department is comprised of nine outstanding officers. The chief of police ensures that all officers are not only well-trained but continue to stay up to date with the most innovative training on various subjects related to law enforcement. Our city can be proud that we do not face the same issues that so many other cities face today. All our department members are professional, community-minded, and live within our area.

Pull Quote

Our city can be proud that we do not face the same issues that so many other cities face today. All our department members are professional, community-minded, and live within our area.

As referenced below, although we only have six full-time office staff, which includes the city administrator and community development director. Their talents and dedication to the city are evident in all the accomplishments they have attained. In just the past two years, the following grants have been submitted and/or obtained. These grants take a lot of staff time to prepare and follow-up to meet the state or federal agencies requirements:

Boardwalk

In 2021 the city applied for a large grant to reconstruct the 30-year-old boardwalk. This notice of funding opportunity came from the American Rescue Plan Act, through the Department of Commerce (Economic Development Administration) specifically for recreation and tourism.

The city estimated that the project will cost approximately 43.4 million and has reserved matching funds of $650,000, leaving a grant request of $2.8 million. The city should soon be notified on the final outcome of this request.

Updates from the agency have been promising.

‘Complete streets’

The Transportation Improvement Board released a call for projects, specially to complete a “complete streets” project. In order to qualify, the city must have a complete streets ordinance and have a project construction ready in order to apply.

The city applied for $100,000 to complete the north-end beautification project, specifically for the sidewalk portion of the project. The city has already reserved money to trench and install electrical and purchase the light poles.

The city was awarded $75,000 to work on the sidewalks.

FEMA grants

FEMA declared the winter storm in early 2021 as a “disaster.” Therefore, the city identified the following needed repairs that were storm related: sewer line replacement on 11th Street SW and 2nd Street SE, as well as a culvert repair on Ocean Beach Blvd and a generator head repair. FEMA will cover 75% of these costs and the Washington State Military Department covers 12.5%, leaving the local jurisdiction with a 12.5% match. The total cost of the repairs was $153,073 and the city was reimbursed for $138,495.

FEMA also has had open grant funding for covid-19 related items. The items must be related to the prevention or awareness of covid and all these items are reimbursed up to 100%. The city purchased two electronic reader boards in 2021 and parked them on the north-end and south-end of town. The purpose of the reader boards were to remind everyone to be safe, wear a mask and indicate where vaccinations were available. The reader boards cost $39,000 and due to the formula FEMA uses for reimbursement of equipment, the city was awarded $48,998.

Shoreline planning

The city applied for a Department of Ecology grant to complete the Shoreline Master Program periodic update. This is a mandatory update and something that must be done every seven years.

The city was awarded $11,200, which completely pays for the consultant to complete the update.

Help from Congress

The city also submitted requests for congressional spending in 2022. The first request was for a lift-station replacement to the sum of $2.2 million. This money would be used to replace the aging critical infrastructure, specifically for four lift-stations throughout the city limits.

The city also submitted a request for police body and traffic cams to U.S. Rep. Jamie Herrera-Beutler. This request was roughly $75,000. The city should be notified this summer if any of the items will be funded.

As a board member of the Association of Washington Cities, I talk with numerous other elected officials in relation to legislation that our city may need. We also discuss what our cities have in common and how we can work together to address one another’s needs. Long Beach is extraordinarily blessed in comparison with most cities under 5,000 in population in our state. Other small cities are not as gifted as Long Beach.