Topline:
A report Friday from the Labor Department shows that employers cut 23,000 jobs last month, and job gains for May and June were revised sharply lower.
Why it matters: The unemployment rate dipped to 4.1%, but only because more than 260,000 people dropped out of the workforce.
Why now: It was the second month in a row that the monthly jobs tally came in weaker than forecasters had expected.
The U.S. job market unexpectedly stalled in July.
A report Friday from the Labor Department shows that employers cut 23,000 jobs last month, and job gains for May and June were revised sharply lower.
The unemployment rate dipped to 4.1%, but only because more than 260,000 people dropped out of the workforce.
It was the second month in a row that the monthly jobs tally came in weaker than forecasters had expected.
"We are increasingly hearing from workers that they are anxious about their job security and they are frustrated by the fact that they are stuck in roles that are not necessarily good for them," said Daniel Zhao, chief economist at the job search website Glassdoor. "And that's on top of workers who are not in a job right now and feel frozen out of the job market."
Glassdoor's worker confidence index slumped in July to a record low.
Restaurants and retailers cut thousands of jobs last month, and local government also saw large job losses. Healthcare continued to add workers, but at a more modest pace than earlier in the year.
The softening job market may complicate the Federal Reserve's job, since it's also battling stubborn inflation. The Fed may be more cautious about raising interest rates at a time when the labor market appears less stable.
For people who are working, average wages have risen 3.2% in the last 12 months. That's likely not enough to keep pace with inflation, however, so workers' paychecks don't stretch as far as they used to.
"Part of the reason that workers are feeling bad about today's job market," Zhao says, is that "a lot of those wage gains have been eaten up by rising energy prices."
Copyright 2026 NPR
Topline:
It’s time to vote in the California 2026 midterm election — which includes your chance to decide who’ll be the state’s next governor. If you’re unsure of how to fill that ballot or what to do if you’ve made a mistake on it, read on to learn how to fill out your ballot when it arrives, how important your signature is and your options if you need to start again with a fresh ballot.
If you make a mistake on your ballot: It’s important to note that each county is slightly different in how they’d prefer you to address a mistake on your ballot, and will often provide specific details about corrections on the ballot itself. If you have a specific question about your ballot that isn’t answered here, you can always contact your local registrar of voters for advice and instructions.
The importance of your signature: When you’re done filling out your ballot, you must sign the envelope. Avoid two big mistakes people make with their signatures: remember to sign your ballot entirely and that your signature matches the one you had when you registered to vote. If you’re really worried about the signature on your envelope not matching the signature you’re registered to vote with, there are two good solutions. One: If it’s on or before Oct. 19, you can reregister to vote with your current signature, to be sure that the state now has your most recent one on file. If you are reregistering after Oct. 19, you’d need to complete the same-day voter registration process (also known as “conditional voting”) and request your ballot in person at your county elections office or polling location. Another soultion: Go vote in person, if you’re able.
It’s time to vote in the California 2026 midterm election — which includes your chance to decide who’ll be the state’s next governor.
If you’re a registered California voter, your ballot is on its way in the next few days, if it hasn’t already arrived. Your last day to vote will be Election Day itself, Nov. 3.
But what if you’re unsure of how to fill that ballot out according to how you want to vote? Or what to do if you’ve made a mistake on it?
Read on to learn how to fill out your ballot when it arrives, how important your signature is, and your options if you need to start again with a fresh ballot.
The official deadline to register online to vote is Monday, Oct. 19.
So if you’re unsure whether you’re already registered to vote or can’t remember which party preference you already have, check your voter registration details ASAP.
Remember, if you’ve changed your name or want to change the political party choice you previously registered to vote with, or you’ve moved address, you’ll need to re-register.
Making sure you’re registered — and to the right address — is crucial for getting your ballot on time.
And if you miss the deadline to register, don’t panic: That’s the last day to do it online. After Oct. 19, you can still complete the same-day voter registration process (also known as “conditional voting”) and receive your ballot in person at your county elections office or polling location, all the way up to 8 p.m. on Election Day itself.
Depending on which county you live in, your California ballot will present you with a mix of races to vote on.
These will depend on your county or district. See the LAist Voter Guide for more information on what’s on your ballot this election season.
These drop boxes open by Oct. 5, and once submitted, your ballot will be taken straight to your local county elections office.
Some elections officials strongly recommend using these drop boxes over using USPS. “We’re not really encouraging people to use the USPS to get their ballot here,” said Evelyn Mendez, Sonoma County’s registrar of voters.
Instead, Mendez tells voters to use county collection boxes because they skip the Postal Service altogether.
The return postage is already paid for you. Keep in mind that the Postal Service must postmark your ballot envelope by the end of Election Day for your vote to count — and the last collection at many mailboxes is 5 p.m.
However, in the last two statewide elections, Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Attorney General Rob Bonta urged any voters planning to use USPS to mail in their ballots at least a week before Election Day — to account for changes in the way USPS is collected and postmarked in many areas.
And if you’re mailing your midterm ballot on Election Day itself, Weber’s office is recommending you “get a hand-stamped postmark from a postal employee inside a United States Post Office” rather than simply dropping it in a USPS collection box.
The first vote centers open Oct. 24 in certain counties, with more early voting locations opening Oct. 31.
This method is the top recommendation of Kim Alexander, president and founder of the nonpartisan California Voter Foundation. The option, known as “Sign, Scan and Go” voting, allows voters to bring their mail ballot to a vote center and sign a roster under penalty of perjury — just as you would for in-person voting.
Alexander said this approach sidesteps time-intensive signature verification — since your signature only goes on your ballot’s envelope, and the envelope isn’t necessary with Sign, Scan and Go — and late-arrival ballot rejections.
No. If you’re registered to vote, you’ll be receiving a mail-in ballot by default for the 2026 midterms, without requesting it. But voting by mail is still just one option that’s open to you.
You can still vote in person, either at an early voting location before Election Day or on Election Day, Nov. 3, itself. Early voting locations will open starting Oct. 24.
It’s important to note that each county is slightly different in how they’d prefer you to address a mistake on your ballot, and will often provide specific details about corrections on the ballot itself. If you have a specific question about your ballot that isn’t answered here, you can always contact your local registrar of voters for advice and instructions.
When you’re done filling out your ballot, you must sign the envelope. But two big mistakes people make with their signatures are:
Why wouldn’t your signature match the one on file? If you registered to vote at a young age, maybe your signature has changed over time. Or perhaps you registered to vote at the DMV and provided your signature on a screen with a stylus, which doesn’t quite replicate how you’d make your signature with a pen on paper.
If you registered this way, one simple way to avoid any signature problems is to take a quick glance at the signature that’s on your driver’s license or state ID — because that’s the one you want your ballot signature to match.
Even if you didn’t register at the DMV, that signature on your most recent license or state ID is still very likely the one to emulate. That’s because when you register to vote online, your county elections office electronically requests a copy of the signature the DMV currently has for you, and this information is regularly updated.
To further set your mind at rest, know that California isn’t an “exact match” state, and doesn’t demand voters’ signatures 100% replicate the signature that’s on file.
If you’re really worried about the signature on your envelope not matching the signature you’re registered to vote with, there are two good solutions.
One: If it’s on or before Oct. 19, you can re-register to vote with your current signature, to be sure that the state now has your most recent one on file. If you are re-registering after Oct. 19, you’d need to complete the same-day voter registration process (also known as “conditional voting”) and request your ballot in person at your county elections office or polling location.
In 2021, Kim Alexander, president of the nonpartisan California Voter Foundation, told us there’s another solution if you’re worried about your signature: Go vote in person, if you’re able.
That’s because the signature goes only on your ballot’s envelope — and if you’re voting in person, there’s no envelope, because that ballot then goes straight into the ballot box without needing that envelope at all.
“So if you want that satisfaction of seeing your ballot drop in the box and know that it’s not going to get held up because of some signature issue, you can go and vote in person,” said Alexander.
Rest assured: There’s a whole system in place to help you correct your mistake.
If your county’s election office detects a signature mismatch on your ballot, they’ll reach out to you via mail to verify and work with you to correct it, so that your ballot can be counted after all. It’s called “curing” a ballot.
This system is also applied when it looks like a member of a voter’s family might have signed their ballot, instead of the voter. This happens a surprising amount when one household has several voters who all receive a ballot in the mail.
One way to get peace of mind: Sign up to track your ballot, and you’ll find out about any issues with your ballot or your signature quickly.
First, don’t panic. People make mistakes on ballots and find good ways to correct them.
Counties give different directions to voters about what to do if they make a mistake (remember: Read the instructions!), but you can usually simply X out the choice you didn’t intend.
The job of county elections officials — once they’ve verified your signature — is to make sure your ballot can be read correctly. If that means that your corrections on your ballot have resulted in readability issues, officials working in teams of two will actually remake it for you according to the intent you’ve signaled with your corrections.
Some counties, like Alameda, ask that you actually contact them first if you make a serious mistake — including voting for the wrong candidate — so they can send you a replacement ballot. So, wherever you live, it’s a good idea to check with your local elections office first to see what they recommend if you made a mistake.
And remember, there’s always this option …
If you’ve made a big mistake on your ballot — too big to fix — your best plan of action may be to focus on getting a new one. And that’s totally OK. You can:
You can also do this if you’ve accidentally damaged your ballot in some way (coffee spills happen).
First off, that date should be the date you signed your envelope — not your date of birth.
But if you’re worried you messed up the date, don’t worry. Elections officials say that the date they’re really looking for is the date that the ballot is postmarked, to make sure it was submitted on time.
Election officials will only truly scrutinize the date you’ve written if they receive your ballot after Election Day.
“Like maybe you mailed it Monday before Election Day,” John Gardner, assistant registrar of voters for Solano County, told us in 2020. “That’s when we have to start looking at postmarks on the ballot, or date that the voter signed the envelope, to determine if we can count the ballot or not.”
And if you haven’t mailed your envelope yet, it’s an easy fix: Just clearly cross out the incorrect date on the envelope and write in the correct one above it.
Getting physical assistance with filling out your ballot from someone you trust is always fine, whether you’re voting at home or at a voting site.
You just need to make sure your signature is your own and matches the one you’re registered to vote with.
Disabled voters can also choose to use the Remote Accessible Vote-by-Mail system to vote privately and independently at home, using their usual assistive device on their home computer to fill out the ballot on their screen and then print and mail it.
Every voting location in California is also equipped with an accessible voting unit. Here, voters with blindness or low vision or who have a disability that limits their dexterity, will be able to use the assistive device of their choice that allows them to vote privately and independently.
Remember, one big reason that ballots get disqualified in elections is that voters mail them too late: either too late on Election Day itself (after U.S. Postal Service mailboxes have already been collected), or after Election Day.
To be counted in this election, your ballot must be postmarked on Election Day, Nov. 3, at the latest. Your ballot has seven days to reach your county elections office.
So in this election, it’s as crucial as ever to make sure you have a plan for voting on time. And if you’re not voting in person, that means making sure you get your ballot into a USPS mailbox or into a secure voting drop box, at a polling location or your county elections office, by the time polls close on Nov. 3.
Read more about why California election officials are urging voters to make sure their ballot arrives on time — and why they’re urging caution around using USPS too close to Election Day.
It’s common to see partners or roommates accidentally mix up their ballots. So make sure you’re signing the document that bears your name.
It reads better, and it doesn’t slow workers down when they have to check to see what voter intent was. (Don’t use a felt-tip or a Sharpie that bleeds through the paper and marks other pages on your ballot.)
It does happen. Keeping your envelope and your ballot together in your home might be a helpful way of avoiding this problem. And of course, when you’re ready to mail your ballot, make sure it’s actually inside the envelope before you seal it.
Your ballot envelope is postage-paid. You don’t need it.
If you’re reading this and you’re worried that your ballot hasn’t arrived yet, make sure you’re not worrying too early, as the deadline for counties to start sending out ballots is only Oct. 5.
But if it gets to late October and your ballot still hasn’t materialized, don’t panic: You have options. Here’s what to do:
Input your details on the secretary of state’s voter status page to check your registration status. This will show whether you’re actually registered to vote, and to which address. It should also show whether your ballot was mailed out.
You can also use the Where’s My Ballot? tool to check whether your ballot has been sent.
If you update your voter registration and address using the secretary of state’s voter status page before the Oct. 19 deadline to register online, your county will cancel the ballot that went to your old address and send you a new one.
And if it turns out your ballot was missing because your voter registration wasn’t updated, don’t feel bad — people move all the time and forget to update their registrations accordingly.
The California Voter Foundation’s Alexander confirmed to KQED in 2021 that updating your address at the post office doesn’t, in fact, update your voter registration. The DMV, on the other hand, will update your voter registration details if you update your address with them.
If it’s more than six days before Election Day, you can call your county elections office and ask them to send a new ballot. Find your county elections office in our contact list (below).
Your county elections office won’t mail you a ballot six days or less before Election Day, because it can’t be sure it’ll reach you in time. So if you’re trying to get a ballot in the immediate run-up to Election Day, go to your county elections office in person and request one at the counter.
From Oct. 5, your county elections office will be open for early voting through Nov. 3, so you could also go there in person during opening hours and vote right there at the counter. More early voting locations will be opening throughout October.
And remember, if you’re not actually registered to vote, you always have the option of same-day voter registration, also known as conditional voter registration, at a voting location, where you can then fill out and submit your ballot, too.
Topline:
California community colleges are trying to discourage immigration enforcement on campuses, but they can’t do much to bar ICE agents from public spaces.
ICE arrests: Immigration enforcement agents are inciting panic at California’s community colleges. Santa Monica College said that one of its students was arrested and deported last May. Then in December, Santa Barbara City College said that federal immigration officers used their campus parking lot as a staging ground, prompting an uproar from community activists. Last month, the San Diego Community College District said ICE agents arrested a student on a public street that cuts through the urban campus and proceeded to chase another student up the steps of the school’s Arts and Humanities building. Last Monday, federal agents arrested the father of a student in a campus parking lot at Allan Hancock College in Santa Maria, south of San Luis Obispo.
Public areas: State laws require colleges to notify students if immigration enforcement agents are on campus and agents must present a warrant before entering a “nonpublic” area in a school, such as a classroom or office building. But parking lots, quads and many other outdoor spaces are considered public.
Read on... for more on how community colleges are responding.
This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.
Immigration enforcement agents are inciting panic at California’s community colleges.
Santa Monica College said that one of its students was arrested and deported last May. Then in December, Santa Barbara City College said that federal immigration officers used their campus parking lot as a staging ground, prompting an uproar from community activists.
Last month, the San Diego Community College District said ICE agents arrested a student on a public street that cuts through the urban campus and proceeded to chase another student up the steps of the school’s Arts and Humanities building.
Last Monday, federal agents arrested the father of a student in a campus parking lot at Allan Hancock College in Santa Maria, south of San Luis Obispo.
College presidents say they’re doing everything in their power to keep students safe and prevent federal immigration enforcement officers from coming on campus. But they admit that they have limited power in these situations.
“If ICE agents want to come and walk in the middle of campus, they can do that,” said Kevin Walthers, the president of Allan Hancock College.
State laws require colleges to notify students if immigration enforcement agents are on campus and agents must present a warrant before entering a "nonpublic” area in a school, such as a classroom or office building. But parking lots, quads and many other outdoor spaces are considered public.
By the time Walthers learned ICE agents had arrived at the campus parking lot, they were gone — the arrest happened in a matter of minutes. He said he never received a warrant and was only able to issue a notification to students and faculty after the arrest. The same was true in San Diego, said district Chancellor Gregory Smith.
President Donald Trump rescinded a longstanding policy that prevented immigration enforcement in “sensitive” locations, such as schools. The California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office, which oversees the state’s 116 colleges, has been outspoken about protecting students without legal status and offered guidance to schools on dealing with immigration agents. Attorney General Rob Bonta released his own, more detailed guide last month.
Chandler Rebel, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees immigration enforcement, said “ICE does not target schools” and denied arresting anyone on the Allan Hancock campus, despite witness testimony and photographs. Rebel did not respond to questions about the officer who chased a San Diego City College student on campus.
After their interactions with immigration agents, Santa Barbara and San Diego city colleges put up or are in the process of installing signs in parking lots, sidewalks or at the entrances to classrooms and buildings, telling agents they need approval to enter.
In practice, these messages may not prevent immigration agents from coming onto their campuses, college presidents say. “It's kind of our district putting every effort that we can think of, and hopefully it is a deterrent,” Smith said.
Last Monday morning, Mayrin, 18, said she was sitting in the passenger seat while her father drove her to Allan Hancock College, where she had statistics class that day. As they drove by the Olive Garden just outside of campus, she said she saw a large black car follow them down the road.
Mayrin and her father parked in the campus lot, she said, where a masked man approached the window and asked for their identification. CalMatters agreed to withhold her full name because she fears drawing attention to her family’s legal status.
“I was calling people. I was crying. It was a mix of emotions, mostly just worried about my dad,” she said. Maryrin gave the officer her state ID and told him that she’s a U.S. citizen. Her father, who immigrated from Mexico and has lived in the U.S. for about two decades, did not have identification on him and the officer pulled him into his car, she said.
Mayrin spent the next 20 minutes alone in her father’s car, crying and calling family, before college staff, including campus police officers and the dean of counseling, brought her into a conference room to ask what happened and provide support.
Mayrin’s father was one of at least 17 people who were arrested last Monday by immigration enforcement agents in the Santa Maria area, said Assemblymember Gregg Hart, a Santa Barbara Democrat, in an emailed statement. “Mass enforcement sweeps like this are designed to send a message of fear and intimidation – one straight from President Trump.”
The largely Latino towns in California's Central Coast region, which include Santa Maria, have experienced waves of immigration enforcement since Trump took office.
In April, Walthers said the college’s police chief had a meeting with other local police chiefs, the FBI and ICE officers who oversee the Central Coast. The college’s police chief asked immigration officials to provide advance notice before coming on campus. “The response was that ICE would not be coming to campus,” Walthers said. In retrospect, he said he wished the agreement was more formal.
After the arrest last week, Walthers said he got in touch with a federal immigration officer in Los Angeles and said he felt “optimistic” after the conversation that it wouldn’t happen again.
In December, a local organization that advocates for immigrants, 805 UndocuFund, alerted Santa Barbara City College officials that ICE agents were at a campus parking lot and appeared to be using it as a staging area, according to Jordan Killebrew, the executive director of public affairs for the college.
Killebrew said agents were “occupying our parking lots without us knowing or without any previous approval.”
The college has since signed an agreement with 805 UndocuFund to help alert the college of the presence of federal law enforcement agents. The group will also provide college students and staff with resources and referrals including legal, financial, mental health and emergency support services for immigration-related matters.
Killebrew said the college spent about $1,200 on 12 signs, which say its campuses “may not be used for civil immigration enforcement staging areas, processing locations, or operations bases.”
The San Diego college district was already in the process of putting up similar signs when ICE appeared on campus last month. District spokesperson Jack Beresford said the four-college district spent $71,000 on 68 signs, including the cost of the labor to install them. The district also created a new policy requiring any entity, including law enforcement, to get prior approval before conducting “official business” on campus.
“We don't let a bank just come and set up a booth,” said Smith, the chancellor of the San Diego district. He said immigration enforcement agents would need approval before conducting their business, including arrests.
Whether the policy will actually work is less clear. “By the time I know that they're here and get down there to tell them they're not allowed to be here, they're going to be gone,” Smith said. “What I'm hoping that we have set up with this is a legal argument that it's an illegal seizure, the same as if they just broke into somebody's home.”
The policy has never been tested in court. He said he hopes it never gets there.
This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.
Topline:
Incumbent Mayor Karen Bass and her challenger, City Councilmember Nithya Raman, are scheduled to face off in their only live televised debate Tuesday night. It will be broadcast on NBC4 and Telemundo 52.
The topics: Homelessness, housing affordability, public safety, economic development and the city’s preparation for the 2028 Olympics are expected to be among the topics discussed by the candidates.
Timing: The debate comes as voters have already received their mail-in ballots and just three weeks before Election Day.
The backstory: Bass and Raman were longtime allies until Raman jumped into the race on the last day to file in February. The two have been locked in a bitter contest ever since.
The polls: The latest polls by UC Berkeley and the Los Angeles Times show Raman leading Bass by 11 points, but one-third of voters remain undecided.
Broadcast: NBC4 and Telemundo 52 will broadcast the debate live at 7 p.m. LAist will also broadcast the debate live.
Topline:
Tropical Storm Rachel brought dangerous surf to Long Beach’s oceanfront but little of the rain forecasters had warned about, as conditions are expected to gradually improve through Tuesday. While relieved, city officials reiterate that the Peninsula is far from in the clear, with major cleanup and emergency repairs underway as several seaside homes are still too dangerous to reenter.
Why it matters: Monday morning tides are expected near 7 to 7.5 feet, with surf of 4 to 6 feet. Water levels were still 1 to 1.8 feet above predicted tides, driven by El Niño-related thermal expansion, a Kelvin wave and elevated astronomical tides. Kristan Lund, a National Weather Service meteorologist, said a lingering southerly swell may shift westerly, putting west-facing beaches at some risk of coastal flooding.
Evacuation order: A mandatory evacuation order covering homes between 64th and 66th places runs through noon Tuesday, and 39 more residences are under an evacuation warning. Residents are not being allowed back inside. Assistant Fire Chief Jake Heflin said many have asked to retrieve belongings. “That’s the emotional side of it,” he said, but firefighters cannot send anyone into a building that could be on the verge of collapse.
Read on... for more on what the extensive damages means for the Peninsula.
Tropical Storm Rachel brought dangerous surf to Long Beach’s oceanfront but little of the rain forecasters had warned about, as conditions are expected to gradually improve through Tuesday. While relieved, city officials reiterate that the Peninsula is far from in the clear, with major cleanup and emergency repairs underway as several seaside homes are still too dangerous to reenter.
The Peninsula was inundated with mud, sand and plenty of cameras, as onlookers and national news outlets clustered in tight side streets to get a good angle at the wave-damaged homes, as well as the splintered timber bulkhead and boardwalk. With waves and tides high but not quite at levels seen Saturday, crews pumped out excess water in the streets and shoveled sand and debris out of the storm drains.
Kristan Lund, a National Weather Service meteorologist, said Rachel moved through Southern California faster than anticipated, limiting the amount of time Long Beach and nearby cities were exposed to its rainfall.
The center of the storm moved onshore in northern Baja California on Saturday night, according to the National Hurricane Center. Forecast tracks shifted south in recent days, but the storm then veered north-northeast toward Las Vegas, widening the gap between Long Beach and its reach.
Expected to get up to half an inch of rain starting as early as Saturday, Lund said the city shouldn’t expect more than a tenth of an inch through Monday, though a weather pattern Sunday evening may bring drizzles through the night.
The worst-case scenario also failed to materialize. Lund said peak swell, high tide and wind direction never lined up. “The high surf, you know, we were expecting it to come up on the backside of the high tides,” she said. “And thankfully, it ended up being a little too late.”
Monday morning tides are expected near 7 to 7.5 feet, with surf of 4 to 6 feet. Water levels were still 1 to 1.8 feet above predicted tides, driven by El Niño-related thermal expansion, a Kelvin wave and elevated astronomical tides. Lund said a lingering southerly swell may shift westerly, putting west-facing beaches at some risk of coastal flooding.
The NWS said a coastal flood warning for Los Angeles and Catalina Island areas — which include Long Beach — was scheduled to drop to an advisory at 3 p.m. Sunday. Minor to moderate flooding is still possible through Tuesday afternoon, though it’s expected to be less severe than on Friday and Saturday.
Even so, the damage along the Peninsula’s Seaside Walk is extensive. Waves topped the boardwalk’s protective bulkhead and sent water into homes and streets. Inspectors have red-tagged nine buildings across 13 addresses, a designation meaning they are unsafe to enter. One building has a yellow tag, which restricts use.
A mandatory evacuation order covering homes between 64th and 66th places runs through noon Tuesday, and 39 more residences are under an evacuation warning.
Residents are not being allowed back inside. Assistant Fire Chief Jake Heflin said many have asked to retrieve belongings. “That’s the emotional side of it,” he said, but firefighters cannot send anyone into a building that could be on the verge of collapse.
At a control post they set up in the Claremont parking lot, firefighters gathered in front of a screen reviewing drone footage from the day that looked at the cracking and shifting homes.
Several of them pointed while others took note, looking for signs to suggest which building is closest to collapse and comparing their worsening conditions over the past couple of days.
If one falls, Heflin said, responders have bullhorns to sound off, then seal the area and conduct searches.
Crews are reinforcing the bulkhead and boardwalk with lumber beams and plan to place about 30 heavy-duty sandbags, each about 3,000 pounds, with a crane on 65th Place. City Spokesman Laath Martin said life safety remains the city’s top priority.
In response to the storm, the city has spent more than $1 million on one-time costs from its Tidelands emergency reserves, which are set aside for only coastal uses. Long Beach has also fast-tracked a multimillion-dollar plan to rebuild the Peninsula’s beach.
Over this week and the next, city officials say, they hope to start trucking in 50,000 to 100,000 cubic yards of sand, followed by a $11.4 million dredging project that could add another 415,000 cubic yards of sand — the most moved in decades.
Officials are pursuing outside funding aggressively and are in talks with the governor’s Office of Emergency Services for reimbursement to public projects, sand restoration, coastal work and emergency bulkhead repairs.
“We will be working with the state closely to identify any kind of reimbursement,” Martin said.
For private homes, the city is urging owners to contact their insurers right away. Long-term demolition and cleanup are the property owners’ responsibility, they say.
