LB Post Interviews Sixth District Candidates

In anticipation of the Citywide Forum for all Long Beach City Council candidates this Wednesday, the Post took the time to chat with the candidates of each district with seats up for election (districts two, six and eight). In Part II of Getting to Know your candidates, Stephanie Rivera talks to Sixth District candidates Josephine Villasenor, Erik Miller and Robert Harmon.  - Read the full article.

Sunday Safety Update: 02/21/2016 to 02/27/2016

The map above shows little change from early trends. There are thefts along PCH and Orange heading into the neighborhood and then up. There is a rise in assaults at the east end of the neighborhood, please be very careful as there was a shooting in that area recently.

02/09/2016: LBPD Public Information Officer Sgt. Bradley Johnson says that at about 12:25 a.m. on Feb. 9, officers were dispatched to a shooting in the 2200 block of Spaulding St. and found a man shot. Sgt. Johnson says the victim was uncooperative with police; LBFD transported him to a hospital with non-life-threatening wounds. 

There is a trend of auto thefts and property crime, just south of us at the west end of the AOC7 heading north towards the neighborhood. The property crime tends to foreshadow worse things to come, so be cautious around 11th/ 10th between Orange and Gundry. There is also a week trend of auto thefts along Rotary Centennial Park. Auto theft is down here overall. We still have two wheel clubs ready for one Wrigley and one MacArthur Park resident willing to take the Neighborhood Pledge. It's a nice gift for agreeing to keep your neighborhood clean.

Break in the  Alicia Faith Todd Case

I am also grateful to announce there was an arrest made in the shooting of Alicia Faith Todd of Signal Hill. Police say they've arrested a man in connection to the case of a young woman shot dead in an alley in Long Beach last summer. Following an investigation, police arrested Tremaine Lewis, 24, of Long Beach, last Thursday. Police said Lewis was in a domestic relationship with Todd and the two were together on the night of the murder. If you have any information about this case, you're urged to contact Long Beach Police Department homicide detectives at (562) 570-7244.

Take the Neighborhood Pledge

There was also an arrest in the December shooting of North Long Beach resident on 02/22/2016. Keonte Runell Jones, 23, who is also known as “Blue Dawg,” pleaded not guilty Jan. 22 to one count of murder with allegations that he used a handgun and committed the crime in association with a street gang, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office. He is accused of shooting Roosevelt Newton at Orange Avenue and East Washington Street in Long Beach on Dec. 10.

Washington Neighborhood Shooting

There was another shooting on Thursday in the Washington Neighborhood.Officers were dispatched to the 300 block of West 14th Street at 11:05PM on Thursday, February 25 regarding a possible shooting, Long Beach Police Department (LBPD) spokesman Brad Johnson said. “Upon arrival, officers found evidence that a bullet had struck the house but did not enter and no one was injured,” he added. We already attacked the gang element by doing a Go Long Beach Run and reporting all gang related tagging on Cedar, We'll do it again ASAP..

West Division Leadership Forum: Recap

The LBPD held its West Division Leadership Forum yesterday. The topic was primarily auto theft. Auto theft is on the rise. In order to combat it, police recommend a common sense approach to keeping your belongings safe. Keep your car locked, windows rolled up and valuables out of site. The Long Beach PD also recommended that you think carefully about how you define valuables. For someone who is down and out, who sees a car with a window rolled down and a few dimes in the cup holder, that may be enough to spark a crime of opportunity. For more detailed information on keeping your car safe, please read this blog entry.

 

The second lecture was about the mobile apps the police use in crime and crime prevention. Go LBPD, provides "one stop shopping" access to The Long Beach Police Department - information relating to news, crime prevention, alerts, events, videos, and photos, through social media feeds such as Nixle, Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, and Flickr, along with the ability to submit crime tips, all with the tap of a finger.

The Go Long Beach PH is part of a slew of apps Long Beach Residents can use to work towards a safer, cleaner city. Those other apps include Go Long Beach, Nixle, iWatch, Pulse Point and Crime Reports.

There was also a presentation by the police volunteer unit, a West Division Crime Statistician and a lot of success stories. One success story was of the nosy neighbor who stops a burglary in progress by recognizing what's out of place for her Wrigley Neighborhood. Six District resident Josephine Villasenor also chimed in with a success story where a homeless encampment reported that was selling drugs to minors was closed down within hours of sending in the photos to the LBPD.

The LBPD also generously gave out clubs for car steering wheels. We will be giving those away, but only to someone who takes the Neighborhood Pledge to keep their neighborhood clean and safe. The next West Division Leadership forum will take place n two months at St. Luke's Church. The topic will be gangs.

Neighborhood Expansion: Early Crime Trends for the 6th District. Wrigley. 20th to 21st on Cedar and Chestnut: Theft/ Property Crime. Property crime often precedes something worse. Pacific and Willow. Assault/ Theft. Washington Neighborhood: Auto Theft: Auto theft. Pacific and 16th. MacArthur Park Neighborhood: Auto thefts on PCH from Cherry to MLK. Also violent crime matches up with earlier trends on Junipero and Spaulding.

Drop of Points: The ACO7's Next Literacy Fair

Spread the GIFT of LITERACY! We're going strong in our #aoc7bookdrive and we'd love you to be part of this! #readtolead #bookstokids #eachoneteachone There's 4 book drop off locations for your convenience.

Lincoln Elementary
1175 E. 11th Street

Neighborhood Resource Center
100 Broadway, Ste. 550

The Center Long Beach
2701 E. 4th Street

Mark Twain Neighborhood Library
1401 E. Anaheim Street

Thank you in advance!

Tonight we attended the West Division Leadership Forum. The topic was auto theft. LBPD is giving away the club for the wheel. Both the MacArthur Park Community Association & the Wrigley Community Neighborhood Group​ will be giving away one of the two you see in the picture soon. Not sure how yet, but I am leaning to giving it to someone willing to take the pledge to keep the neighborhood safe and clean. 

Follow this link for details:  
http://macarthurparklbc.blogspot.com/2015/04/macarthur-park-neighborhood-pledge.html

West Division Leadership Forum: Car Theft/ Mobile Apps/ Crime Analysis/ Success Stories

WE Labs: Pitch a Solution for Homelessness

On Tuesday. Josephine Villaseñor and I attended WE Lab's event Pitch A Solution for Homelessness. What stood out about the meeting, was it wasn't a group of residents complaining about the problem, it was concerned citizens actually attempting to pitch solutions to it. 

Homelessness is a growing problem in Long Beach. The Police Department has two Quality of Life Officers that work in tandem with Health and Human Services and are dedicated to helping the homeless get back on their feet and find shelter. However, for the growing homeless population a better solution is needed. 

Here were some of the pitches that were made. 

The ideas pitched included the need for a central tree of information, that would branch out from a single number such as 211. 211 LA County, a 501(c)3 organization, is one of the largest and most effective resource lines in the nation providing access to comprehensive social services and disaster support for L.A. County residents.

A second idea was the use of port containers in the creation of housing campuses for the homeless. Shipping container homes were okayed for the Wrigley area in 2011. You can also find one at the intersection of Ocean and Temple. Each shelter would be called a campus. Each campus would serve a specific need. For instance, one campus may be devoted to drug recovery. One campus might be reserved for families getting back on their feet. 

The containers are strong enough to resist weathering. They could also be easily stacked. Each campus could be built for around $30 a square foot, before factoring in landscaping, health services and security. There would be some challenges in finding suitable land that was hooked up to the sewer system. There are currently a lot of these crates at the port going to waste. In many cases  they are just given away.

Additional ideas included an app that would allow residents to donate their recycle goods as a source of funding for homeless related issues. The idea pitched through the organization Ashla and Monday Night Mission would create a map of those residents who agreed to donate their recyclables which would then be picked up by the homeless as a $15 an hour minimum wage job. The obvious issue is thatvtaking those recycle goods, if the idea were to take money out of the city's budget, which will already experience a deficit next year.

The final idea was the creation of a database of shelters that would remove those shelters temporarily from the listing when beds are not available. The website would also allow homeless users to make reservations through the website and screen out those shelters that could not meet their needs. The link above would require shelter buy in before it could be of anyuse. There was an issue with making too much of the shelter's information public, but in the end most in attendance agreed the app would be very beneficial to social workers, police and community service workers trying to find a path off the street

What a prefabricated container house looks like, from the Mojave Desert.

The Big Vision Board

Using the Vision Boards We Love Long Beach provided for the 2nd annual City Wide Breakfast, we wanted to compile a graphic of all the suggestions that various neighborhoods gave more creating more of a community bond between neighbors. The fonts/ colors represent the various neighborhoods that took pictures of their vision boards. Please let us know anything they left out in the comments below.