Face of Long Beach Politics to Change

For a dozen years, Beverly O’Neill has been the face of Long Beach politics, a mayor so well known that she won her third term as a write-in candidate. O’Neill rallied the port city through tough years, when its shipyards and aerospace plants shrank or closed.

Now the feel-good mayor is stepping down, and five candidates are on the ballot to replace her Tuesday.

They include a councilman who sells real estate, an ex-councilman and ex-cop who writes detective novels, and the former head of a major utility.

Whether any of them can appeal to voters in the way O’Neill did remains a question

Bob Foster, 59, who was president of Southern California Edison until he quit to campaign, had raised $654,205 as of Wednesday, far more than the other candidates.

His campaign chest and influential endorsements from police and fire unions give Foster front-runner status, along with the second- and third-highest fundraisers, Councilman Frank Colonna, 62, and ex-Councilman Doug Drummond, 68, both former vice mayors.

The other candidates are Ronnie “Sidestreet” Rephan, 62, a retired Vietnam veteran; and repeat candidate John Stolpe, 49, a Long Beach police officer arrested Thursday at Griffith Park on suspicion of exposing himself in public, a misdemeanor for which police said Saturday he has not been formally charged.

Long Beach is the largest of 14 Los Angeles County cities holding elections Tuesday, along with the Long Beach Unified School District and Long Beach Community College District. Incumbent council members in heavily industrial Vernon face challengers for the first time in many years, and Malibu voters will decide whether to raise the number of terms its council members can serve from two to three.

Despite being more populous than Atlanta, Long Beach is often overshadowed by Los Angeles, in what urban planners call the “second-city syndrome.” Long Beach is home to 472,000 residents, the nation’s second-busiest seaport, a regional airport, and municipal gas and water companies. The city’s mayor has no vote but does have considerable influence -- and makes appointments to the powerful harbor commission that controls the Port of Long Beach.

The city’s fast-growing port, coupled with the adjacent Port of Los Angeles, is frequently cited as a major economic engine for the state -- but it also creates regional problems, including increased freeway traffic and pollution.

Long Beach has its share of big-city problems, including gang crime, an understaffed police force and constant budget woes -- which have forced the city to, among other things, cut the library hours.

All the candidates say they will tackle these big problems -- by taking such steps as boosting the police force, reducing port pollution, extending library hours and focusing on neighborhood concerns such as safety and potholes. All but Rephan oppose a proposed liquefied natural gas plant in the Port of Long Beach.

As of Wednesday, Foster had raised more money than the rest of the candidates combined. Many of his backers come from outside the city, among them Sacramento lobbyists and representatives of energy companies. Foster also has led the highest-profile campaign, hiring a political advisor who helped run the successful campaign of L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

Colonna came next in fund-raising, with $238,166, followed by Drummond, with $132,368. The city’s election finance law limits contributions to $650 from companies or individuals per campaign.

Foster received $600 donations from two of the three lobbying firms registered as Sacramento lobbyists for Sound Energy Solutions, a joint Mitsubishi-ConocoPhillips company. The firm hopes to build the gas terminal at the port and import gas from overseas. A lobbyist with the third firm also gave $600.

In his campaigning, Colonna has stressed the spending gap. “I am in a David-and-Goliath situation,” he said of Foster, who he has said lacks his local experience.

Foster was deputy director of the California Energy Commission before leaving in 1979 to become a lobbyist. For years, he installed carpet and linoleum on the side, but his wife took over the flooring business when he joined Edison in 1984. He became president of the utility in 2002.

He said of those who donated to him, “They are overwhelmingly individuals and people I’ve known most of my life.... There are people I’ve known for 35 years who want to see me in public life.... Anyone who supports me is signing on to my agenda. I’m not signing on to anyone else.”

That agenda, he said, includes using his leadership skills to help Long Beach as it attempts to fully recover from a deficit that at one time was more than $100 million. At the same time, he also has promised to hire 100 more police officers and fully restore library hours, and not push for a sales-tax increase to pay for it.

Foster has promised to protect airport-area residents from future growth. But he has been endorsed by the Greater Long Beach Area Chamber of Commerce, which has forcefully pushed for a substantially bigger airport improvement and has threatened to launch an initiative to accomplish that.

His effectiveness at Edison and his character impresses even some of his former adversaries, such as V. John White, head of the nonprofit Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies and a consultant for the Sierra Club, which has endorsed Colonna and Foster.

But some voters say Foster’s work for the utility concerns them.

Joan Greenwood, president of the Wrigley Assn., one of the city’s most active neighborhood groups, said that she supports Colonna because of his environmental record. She noted that he has a master’s degree in environmental science.

“I know he has the scientific background to truly understand the issues,” she said.

Greenwood praised Colonna for taking an early stand against the proposed LNG terminal and what she characterized as a leading role in creating the Rivers and Mountains Conservancy that is working to restore the watersheds of the Los Angeles and San Gabriel rivers. By contrast, she said, Foster could have been more forceful in improving Edison’s environmental record.

Colonna, who has been endorsed by the Long Beach Green Party and Long Beach City Council member Rae Gabelich, said he would hire 300 new police officers and find ways to keep libraries open longer.

Unlike the other campaigns, Colonna’s staff has employed a team of college students who are using the Internet for “e-campaigning,” with frequent “Frank” alerts about his solutions and neighborhood gatherings.

What makes him different from the other candidates, Colonna said, is that he has been on the council for eight years and runs a storefront real estate office in the coastal neighborhood of Belmont Shore.

“I walk down the street and people come and talk to me. They need help on some items. That’s the experience that I’m bringing to my office that’s significantly different than the others,” Colonna said. “When someone rolls down their window and says ‘Hey, Frank, I voted for you,’ that’s my greatest certificate of appreciation, because people don’t give that away easily.”

Drummond accuses both of his opponents with larger campaign chests of taking too much money from influential interests, and has claimed to have received more actual checks -- just smaller sums -- than any other candidate.

Drummond, who retired as a Long Beach police commander in 1988 and was raised in the city’s Carmelito housing project, said each City Council member could cut their own office expenses and save more than $600,000 that would “be a huge step to restore our needed library hours.”

He said he believes the Port of Long Beach should be charged with cleaning up the pollution it causes, and expressed displeasure with the big money flooding the campaign.

“I see the vested interests differently,” Drummond said. “In my mind, I am more concerned with the developer interests and the ties with redevelopment funds. I think that is a much bigger problem now.”

Stolpe, reached at his home Sunday, said: “I’m not guilty, and I haven’t withdrawn my name” from the mayor’s race.

He declined to comment further on what took place at Griffith Park. “On my attorney’s advice, I’ll have my day in court,” he said. “I don’t want to be tried in the press.”

Stolpe said he was released on $10,000 bail after being arrested, and has not been charged. Regarding the election, he said, “I wasn’t really way up in the numbers because I didn’t raise the money my competition did.” His arrest was “not a way to get publicity,” he said. “This was not part of the campaign strategy.”

Across the city’s 50 square miles, there are nine council districts of about 55,000 people each, and Drummond argues that they function like nine separate cities. He has promised to start every council meeting with a 30-minute video focused on one district’s problems so that people from all parts of the city will think about their shared concerns and start working as one.

To win the election, a candidate has to take 50% plus one vote. With five candidates running, and others who dropped out still on the ballot, a runoff election in June is likely.