Mayor Kell Will Pull the Plug on ‘Keys to the City’ : Budget: He says he’s dropping program to save Long Beach money in what will be a tough year.

Mayor Ernie Kell said this week that he will discontinue “Keys to the City,” a publicly funded cable television show that he hosts and which has been criticized by some councilmen as an expensive piece of puffery.

“This can be cut without too much adverse effect,” Kell conceded, saying that he is dropping the monthly show not because of criticism, but to save money in a time of growing budget troubles.

Kell announced the demise of the show Tuesday during his annual State of the City speech. Taking note of the city’s looming budget deficit of $10 million and its ongoing crime and Police Department problems, Kell’s address was more somber than in past years.

“Our city government is not immune from recession. . . . The plain truth is, 1991 will not be easy for the city of Long Beach economically.”

He endorsed the 5% cuts in department budgets and a hiring freeze already ordered by City Manager James Hankla and said he would also reduce spending in his office by 5%. Furthermore, Kell said he will recommend that the cutbacks be continued in next year’s budget.

Canceling “Keys to the City” will save about $290,000 a year, Kell estimated. But he added in an interview that he expected city departments to also stop producing spot promotions for cable broadcast, further reducing the city’s $1.1-million telecommunications budget. The programming has been financed with cable franchise fees to the city, and any savings will revert to the General Fund, which pays for basic city services.

In his slickly produced cable series, Kell discussed various aspects of Long Beach, ranging from the port to crime, and was often filmed on location. For instance, in one show he rode a tugboat; in another he visited the Police Department.

While Kell has in the past lauded the show as “a good public service,” some councilmen have attacked the series as the mayor’s extravagant self-promotion and complained that they too, should be given money to air shows. In response, Kell last month said he would trim the costs of the program and also set aside funds for council members to broadcast their own mini-shows.

But now that Kell has decided to go off the air, it seems that nobody else is going to be on the air, either. Kell maintained that because the City Charter designates the mayor as the city’s chief spokesman, it would violate the charter if council members had their own shows and he didn’t.

In other matters, Kell noted that the Police Department in 1989 had the worst record of solving crimes of any major department in the state, along with one of the highest rates of disability claims by its officers.

“This is not acceptable to me and is not acceptable to the people of Long Beach. And I pledge that significant improvements in these areas soon will be realized.

“Toward that end, I am proposing today that the City Council adopt a policy requiring that all disability claims by police personnel be evaluated at least once every three years,” Kell told the council.

He later explained that he believes police on long-term disability should be periodically re-examined and their activities monitored to determine if they remain disabled. “If they’re logging . . . or skiing, we need to find them out.”