Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia talks to Pine Avenue business owners on his first week leaving City Hall, he said, ÒI am literally not going to be in City Hall, except for council meetings, for nine weeks.Ó in Long Beach Monday, May 7, 2018. Garcia is hitting the bricks in every part of his city, one week per district, numerically, starting in his home district downtown in the nine weeks leading up to the official start of his second term as mayor in July. (Photo by Thomas R. Cordova/Press-Telegram)

Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia talks to Pine Avenue business owners on his first week leaving City Hall, he said, ÒI am literally literally not going to be in City Hall, except for council meetings, for nine weeks.Ó in Long Beach Monday, May 7, 2018. Garcia is hitting the bricks in every part of his city, one week per district, numerically, starting in his home district downtown in the nine weeks leading up to the official start of his second term as mayor in July. (Photo by Thomas R. Cordova/Press-Telegram)

Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia with a group of community residents from District 1 after a meeting with them as he starts his first week of leaving City Hall, he said, ÒI am literally literally not going to be in City Hall, except for council meetings, for nine weeks.Ó in Long Beach Monday, May 7, 2018. Garcia is hitting the bricks in every part of his city, one week per district, numerically, starting in his home district downtown in the nine weeks leading up to the official start of his second term as mayor in July. (Photo by Thomas R. Cordova/Press-Telegram)

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Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia meets and talk to a group of community residents from District 1 as he starts his first week of leaving City Hall, he said,Ò I am literally literally not going to be in City Hall, except for council meetings, for nine weeks.Ó in Long Beach Monday, May 7, 2018. Garcia is hitting the bricks in every part of his city, one week per district, numerically, starting in his home district downtown in the nine weeks leading up to the official start of his second term as mayor in July. (Photo by Thomas R. Cordova/Press-Telegram)

Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia is greeted at a home as he meets community residents from District 1 as he starts his first week of leaving City Hall, he said,Ò I am literally literally not going to be in City Hall, except for council meetings, for nine weeks.Ó in Long Beach Monday, May 7, 2018. Garcia is hitting the bricks in every part of his city, one week per district, numerically, starting in his home district downtown in the nine weeks leading up to the official start of his second term as mayor in July. Photo by Thomas R. Cordova/Press-Telegram)



While walking to a community meet-up Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia runs into a Long Beach Clean Team crew during his intention of leaving City Hall, he said, ÒI am literally literally not going to be in City Hall, except for council meetings, for nine weeks.Ó in Long Beach Monday, May 7, 2018. Garcia is hitting the bricks in every part of his city, one week per district, numerically, starting in his home district downtown in the nine weeks leading up to the official start of his second term as mayor in July. (Photo by Thomas R. Cordova/Press-Telegram)

Robert Garcia is beginning his second and likely final term as mayor of Long Beach by getting to know his city better. He embarked Monday on an ambitious nine-week journey through Long Beach’s nine council districts, staying out of his City Hall office for the entire time while visiting residents, business districts, churches, manufacturing plants, schools, parks, hospitals, restaurants, fire houses and police stations.

He started where his political journey began, at the Willmore Historic District home of Ernie Villa where he launched his successful campaign for 1st District city councilman in 2009.

Villa has lived in his home—one of those beautiful two-story homes with lots of exposed mahogany that dot the district—since 1977, and most of the 10 residents who came to the house to visit the mayor on his first stop on what he calls the Go Long Beach Tour, have lived in the area for at least 30 years. “First, we’re neighbors, then we’re human beings,” said one visitor and the others nodded while sipping coffee.

It’s a quiet start for the mayor. Willmore residents have few complaints and lots of praise for Garcia. Yeah, they maybe could use a speed bump or two, and there are still problems with people dumping old mattresses and broken furniture in their alleyways, mostly because people know it will be picked up by city clean-up crews. One person talked about how trash bins are full of needles and drugs and bags of feces. A woman suggested that the bags might be from dog-owners, which launched a short but still overly lengthy discussion on the bags’ heft and size. Moving on.

Garcia gave an abbreviated mobile state-of-the-city speech: Crime is lowest in decades, poverty is down, unemployment is down, more housing being built.

“You’re going to see a lot of activity in the Washington neighborhood,” he told his listeners. “We’ve bought property on 14th Street and Long Beach Boulevard, where homes and apartments are going to be built. Habitat for Humanity is building more homes in this area, more than 200 by the time they finish, than anywhere else in the West. We’re putting more roundabouts on Daisy Avenue to slow traffic so that Daisy/Magnolia can be a bike boulevard from Downtown all the way to the top of North Long Beach,”

Gentrification came up as a subject. Garcia said, “How do we make the city better? We drop crime, we lower poverty, we make the city more desirable. But on the other hand we want to keep it affordable so that the people who work here as cooks and shop workers and teachers can afford to live here, which is what makes Long Beach special. How to balance those things is a problem that gnaws at me every day.”

As we walk toward Pine Avenue for the next stop, I asked Garcia about some folks calling this tour of the town nothing more than a tax-funded campaign stunt for higher office.

“Um, that’d be a ‘no,’” he said. “It’s a chance for me to meet people I wouldn’t normally meet. It’s easy to spend the whole day in City Hall, having a meeting with the city manager, then having a meeting with the police chief, and one with the fire chief and another with public works and the next thing you know the day is done.”

Along the way, he stopped to talk to a Clean Long Beach crew who were happy to see the mayor out on the street. Farther down the road, he stopped to use his phone’s GO Long Beach app to report a pile of trash left in front of a business and an overgrown bougainvillea plant blocking the sidewalk. On Seventh Street a man was putting up a sign for a studio apartment for rent for $1,295. “Must be a really nice studio for that,” Garcia commented.

At Saints & Sinners Bakehouse at 595 Pine Ave., Garcia met with about a dozen North Pine Avenue business owners from fitness centers, dry cleaners, a real-estate brokerage and the Pie Bar, Romeo Chocolates and the soon-to-open Pinot’s Palette, a wine-and-painting shop for adults.

Again: Crime down, poverty down, unemployment down, condos and apartments springing up everywhere, soon to be packed with new customers.

“I know there have been many fits and starts on Pine in the past decades,” said Garcia, who was joined at this stop by John Keisler, director of economic development in Long Beach. “But I feel it’s real this time. “There will be 4,000 to 5,000 new homes here soon, a mix of market-value and affordable housing. We’ve repaved Broadway and Third Street all the way to Alamitos, and we’re going to be doing the adjacent streets soon.”

Business owners voiced the usual problems, with the chief gripe being that people in other parts of the city, especially in the eastern parts, simply won’t go Downtown. “That is a problem,” said Garcia. “We have to market downtown to our own city. I’m always hearing people say they haven’t been down here in 20 years.”

“And when they do come, they’re full of anxiety,” said one businessman. “They don’t know where to go, how to park, how to navigate downtown.

“We’re going to make things easier,” Garcia promised. “Our parking lots are going to be automated very soon, with displays showing how many spaces are available. We’re looking into acquiring electric scooters for people to rent, like they have in San Diego and Westwood. We have The Free Ride where you can use The Free Ride app to pick you up and shuttle you around downtown.

“The Blue Line is going to be fantastic. It’s much safer now. Matt (the mayor’s fiance) hates to drive and he loves the Blue Line.”

He noted that the line will be out of commission for the first eight months of 2019, but an express shuttle will operate between downtown Long Beach and downtown L.A. in the interim. “We’re putting in new track. We’re going to shorten the trip to LA by 10 minutes, we’re buying new trains. And it will be amazing when it comes back. We’ll have a chance to do a good job of re-selling the Blue Line.”

The field trip continued to Fire Station No. 3 on Daisy near 12th Street. On the way, Garcia talked a bit about the eternal homeless problem. Not every facet—it was a short trip—but he noted that the city spends $60 million a year in housing assistance. “There are so many families that are just one paycheck away from becoming homeless. It’s less expensive to help those people keep their homes than to pay for services for them as homeless people.”

And the day ended quickly. Garcia delivered a couple of boxes of pastries to the firefighters. Garcia asked what the majority of that station’s calls were for. “Eighty percent of our calls are for homeless,” a firefighter told him. “We don’t even go into residences. We just take care of them on the street or wherever they are.” And an alarm came in. A homeless person needing medical assistance. It never ends. But the day was over for the mayor, except for a little walk knocking on random doors just to talk to people and hear their problems.

The next day, he planned to visit an industrial section along Magnolia Avenue, talk to more business owners, visit a local high school. The kinds of things you’d do if you were either seeking a higher office, or just getting to know your city a lot better.