An Annual Event ‘You Never Want to Miss’

If you do business in Long Beach and missed Tuesday’s State of the City address, start kicking yourself.

This luncheon, sponsored by the largest chamber of commerce south of San Francisco and attended by 1,500 people, sold out months ago. In this town, it is the business event of the year.

Gathered in one ballroom were Long Beach’s establishment, from university presidents to titans of transportation, port to airport--all expecting your business card pressed into their hands.

Mayor Beverly O’Neill, considered a sophisticated politician with a breezy wit, quoted “the philosopher Mae West” four times--reportedly down from eight times last year.

Recovering from a flub in which she referred to John F. Kennedy as “John Clinton,” the unflappable O’Neill paused, her comic timing perfect:

“It reminds me of another Mae West line,” she said, waiting a beat. “ ‘I used to be Snow White, then I drifted.’ ”

To which this giant civic pep rally burst into applause.

If one was looking for the downside, the nitty of the gritty problems in this very urban city of 461,500, California’s fifth-largest, one was clearly in the wrong room.

“I’m here because our local supports the city,” said a United Auto Workers training rep from the aerospace giant, the Boeing Corp., which has a huge expansion underway near Long Beach Airport. “You never want to miss this,” said Clare Dellemann, an Edward Jones Investments rep wearing a brace around her broken neck.

Much like the nation’s State of the Union address, in which even the president’s detractors smile and applaud ever-so politely, the mayor’s ode to the city was greeted with enthusiasm.

In the ballroom audience were at least two O’Neill opponents in this April’s mayoral election. (Because she has served the city’s two-term limit, O’Neill is running as a write-in candidate.)

But the room was clearly hers. O’Neill was credited for what she noted as city strides. They included a 28% hike in retail sales since 1999; a $300-million expansion of the port; the new Carnival Cruise ship dock under construction near the Queen Mary; and the bread-and-butter civic job of filling potholes and repaving streets.

The event was sponsored by the Long Beach Area Chamber of Commerce, which has 2,000 members. Sounding vaguely like an Academy Award winner, the chamber’s board chairman, Jay Davis, said, “I’d like to recognize my Dad” for founding a local company “and I’d like to thank my wife for putting up with me all these years.”

The theme of the lunch was a tribute to Long Beach City College’s 75th anniversary and its significance to the area for having graduated 2 million students.

Lending humor to the potentially dry subject of civic affairs was the introduction of O’Neill. She was described not only as a teacher who rose to become college president, but also as a singer who played the lead, Yum-Yum, in her Polytechnic High School production of “The Mikado.” And . . . she likes chocolate and white daisies.

To which O’Neill replied, “For a while there I was thinking ‘This Is Your Life.’ You know more about me than I want you to.”