R-32 Correspondence – Anna Christensen
From: Anna Christensen [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, August 2, 2022 12:00 PM
To: City Manager <[email protected]>; Council District 7 <[email protected]>; Council District 2 <[email protected]>; Council District 1 <[email protected]>; Council District 3 <[email protected]>; Council District 4 <[email protected]>; Council District 5 <[email protected]>; Council District 6 <[email protected]>; Council District 8 <[email protected]>; Council District 9 <[email protected]>; CityClerk <[email protected]>; Mayor <[email protected]>; Brent Dennis <[email protected]>
Subject: City Council meeting 8/2/22, Agenda Item 32, File # 22-0896
-EXTERNAL-
To: Long Beach City Council
Re: City Council meeting 8/2/22, Agenda Item 32, File # 22-0896, Contract to Arcadis U.S. for construction/management of the Belmont Beach and Aquatics Center From: Los Cerritos Wetlands Task Force, Sierra Club
The Los Cerritos Wetlands Task Force opposes this expenditure of public monies for the following reasons:
1. The priority for our City Council must be the equitable distribution of public funds for the purpose of maintaining and enhancing public health and safety.
2. In 2015 the City Council adopted a strategy that prioritized public health and safety regarding the use of Tidelands Funds on capital expenditures.
3. The City has stated a commitment to reverse a pattern of institutional racism that has led to current inequities in the quality of life, including fewer parks and lack of access to public pools, for low income communities of color.
4. The City has stated a commitment to address the impacts of global warming, including sea- level rise in vulnerable coastal areas.
The Belmont Beach and Aquatic Center fails to meet any of the above priorities or goals.
Instead it absorbs funds needed to address them. Building this extravagant facility in the wealthiest and whitest corner of our city, while leaving the majority of residents without even a small community pool, continues the pattern of disenfranchising marginalized neighborhoods.
Building a facility on a beach that will be underwater during the lifetime of the facility actually contributes one more structure to those that will have to be torn down or become debris washed away in the high tides and storms of a not so distant future.