Last Tuesday, the City Council continued its review of the proposed FY27 Budget. For the Police Department, Councilmember Duggan focused on response times and staffing. She asked how reductions to patrol, overtime, Community Services Assistants, investigators, and Quality of Life officers will affect the level of service residents receive.

For Health and Human Services, Councilmember Duggan asked what safeguards have been put in place following the audit to make sure homelessness funding is being used effectively. Lastly, for Community Development, she supported moving noise enforcement alongside code enforcement and short term rental enforcement to create a more coordinated approach. Click below to watch Councilmember Duggan’s full comments.

This coming Tuesday, the City Council will discuss the proposed FY27 budgets for the Parks, Recreation and Marine Department and the Library, Arts and Culture Department.

For Parks, Recreation and Marine, the proposed budget includes reductions to recreation programs and routine maintenance. This includes reducing weed abatement from a monthly schedule to a “very limited basis” and longer response times for repairing vandalism damage. The proposed budget also includes $325,000 in ongoing funding for Parks Maintenance to support encampment cleanups, which were previously funded with one-time dollars and supported more than 600 encampment cleanups in parks last fiscal year.

For the Library, Arts and Culture Department, one of the most concerning proposed reductions is moving five libraries, including Bay Shore Library, from six days a week to five days a week, with those locations no longer open on Mondays.

Last week, Councilmember Duggan joined our Parks, Recreation and Marine team for Movies in the Park at Recreation Park, featuring How to Train Your Dragon. It was great to see families and neighbors come together for a fun summer evening in the park.

A special thank you to Signal Hill Petroleum for its $55,000 donation to Partners of Parks to help support park programs and community activities across Long Beach.

Last Sunday, 850 swimmers took part in the Naples Island Swims, an open water swimming event in Alamitos Bay. The event included 350 participants in the one-mile swim, with the oldest swimmer age 84; another 350 participants in the three-mile swim, with the oldest age 79; and 150 participants in the 500-yard swim, including swimmers as young as 11.

Olympic gold medalist Sharon van Rouwendaal of the Netherlands also joined the event and spent time in Long Beach. It was another great example of why Long Beach has earned a place on the world stage for aquatic sports and events.  

Last week, Councilmember Duggan joined Cal State Long Beach to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of the Laurén Chalmers ’83 Beach Pantry. Over the past decade, the pantry has helped thousands of students facing food insecurity access the support they need to stay focused on their education.

Last weekend, we celebrated the reopening of Marina Vista Park. It was great to see neighbors back out enjoying this cherished community space after years of construction. Families joined us for a bounce house, games, face painting, and other activities throughout the afternoon. Thank you to everyone who came out to celebrate and welcome the park back to the community.

IMPORTANT NOTE ON UPCOMING WORK AND IMPACTS:  

As provided in prior week updates, SCE is expected to begin deenergizing overhead powerlines along Colorado Street (transmission line outage, which is different from a customer power outage). This is expected to occur nightly beginning Sunday, August 23 to Friday, August 28 to support worker safety during crane operations for pile removals. The latest weekly update on the Open Channel Project is included below.

Eliot Street and Colorado Street are expected to reopen in September 2026.

Congratulations to Prism Boutique for organizing another great Summer Fest at 4th and Termino. The event brought together Belmont Heights businesses, live music, and local pop-ups, giving neighbors a fun way to support and discover businesses in the community.

Check out our traffic & parking advisory in CD3 neighborhoods. Residents should plan ahead as several upcoming events may impact parking availability and traffic flow in our neighborhoods.

We encourage residents to allow extra travel time, anticipate parking impacts, and use alternate routes when possible.