The Brief

The city of Long Beach plans to dip into its emergency reserves to balance its books this year as lagging tax revenue and rising expenses worsen its financial position ahead of the budget’s close on Sept. 30.

The city says it will pull $27 million from a total of four reserve accounts, exhausting its operating reserves and taking out $16.5 million from its $50.1 million emergency reserve — money set aside specifically for natural disasters and unforeseen crises.

The city last tapped that reserve during fiscal years 2020 and 2021, as officials awaited COVID-19 federal relief money while stay-at-home orders shuttered businesses and forced the city into furloughs.

While not in the midst of a natural disaster, city administrators say Long Beach’s financial picture demands the use of these funds. “I don’t think it’s a secret that we have been hit pretty hard by the economic conditions that are out there,” City Manager Tom Modica said in an interview Wednesday.

City revenues are projected to come in about $21 million below expectations this year, while expenses are set to run $20.8 million over. The city’s utility tax alone is down nearly $14.7 million as residents use less electricity and gas. Airport revenue has stayed flat even as passenger traffic at Long Beach Airport fell 11%, its second straight yearly decline. And Measure LB, a tax on power plants that voters approved in 2024, has fallen well short of projections, prompting the city auditor to request documents and open a review, Modica said.

Interest earnings have also slipped as low rates and heavy infrastructure spending leave less cash to invest, said city Financial Management Director Kevin Riper.

The city’s Health Department, meanwhile, needs an $11 million bailout from the city’s general fund after losing about $18 million in federal grant funding — its second consecutive deficit as stagnant state money fails to keep pace with rising costs in its $254 million budget.

Adding to the strain: Labor agreements with city unions have layered on $38.3 million in new structural costs over three years, insurance costs are booming, and a hiring push that cut the police vacancy rate from 26% to 13% and lowered firefighter vacancies to 3.2% means the city is now paying salaries it had budgeted to save on through unfilled positions — a $10.6 million underestimate in the citywide activities budget.

City departments began cutting costs last fall in anticipation of the gap when Modica asked them to find 3% savings through hiring delays and paused capital projects. Most hit between 2% and 7%, though Economic Development and the Health Department both ran about 11% over budget.

The Police Department cut the most of any department — nearly $11 million — by trimming overtime, deferring its next recruit academy to the next fiscal year, freezing professional-staff hiring and scaling back non-critical purchases.

The city also found $16 million in savings by leasing or financing new vehicles instead of buying them outright, though Riper cautioned the move is effectively irreversible without the city eventually having to “double collect” to rebuild cash for future fleet purchases.

Despite those steps, they weren’t enough to close the gap without dipping into reserves for the second year running.

The city now heads into its next budget cycle with its reserves at their lowest level in years and little cushion to absorb another bad year. Modica is set to unveil a proposed fiscal year 2027 budget on July 30 that he says will require “very difficult changes” for both residents and city staff, though he has offered few specifics beyond warning that service reductions are coming.

“My goal with the Proposed Budget, which will include very difficult changes for both the community and our organization, will be to outline a path to fiscal sustainability and create a plan to replenish our reserves,” Modica wrote in an email to city staff this week.

The city has pledged to prioritize rebuilding the emergency reserve as part of that process — but with revenues still soft and costs still climbing, officials have offered no guarantee the city won’t be back in the same position next year.

Municipalities across the region, including Santa Ana, Fullerton, Anaheim, Orange and Riverside County, have faced similar pressures to draw on reserves, blaming culprits like soft sales and hotel tax revenues, rising pension and labor costs, and federal and state aid that has either flattened or rescinded.

The city of Los Angeles pulled $358 million from its general fund reserves last year, and San Diego has repeatedly drawn down its savings, a trend officials there expect to continue.

After Modica presents his budget and the mayor recommends his changes, the Long Beach City Council must discuss, adjust and approve it by the end of September.

Cleanup is just beginning for a contaminated industrial site in South Gate, according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials who are leading the effort.

The small southeast L.A. city was built on industry — in the early 20th century it boomed with auto, chemical and other manufacturers.

That legacy also left it with three Superfund sites, areas designated by the federal government as highly contaminated with hazardous waste.

The three sites are all clustered on a large lot framed by Southern and Rayo avenues. A residential neighborhood is nearby.

“This site is less than 50 yards away from a home, so we want to make sure that we clean it to a point where we can feel confident,” said South Gate Mayor Joshua Barron.

South Gate is home to about 90,000 people, the majority of whom are Latino. The median household income is about $74,500 and the state has identified the city and surrounding communities to be disproportionately burdened by pollution and its health effects.

This site, dubbed the Southern Avenue Industrial Area, housed a screw manufacturing business for 30 years, then a carpet adhesive plant. Both businesses are now defunct and the site was designated by the federal government as a Superfund site in 2012.

The pollution at this property was compounded by pollution from companies next door.

One of the two adjacent Superfund sites was used by Cooper Drum Co., a steel drum recycling plant. A group of Cooper Drum’s former customers, including chemical manufacturers and oil companies, are paying for part of that cleanup. The other site, previously operated by an aircraft rivet and conveyor belt manufacturer, is still in the analysis and planning stages.

At the Southern Avenue site where the EPA broke ground Tuesday, analyses commissioned by the agency found widespread lead and other toxic contamination in the soil, as well as a plume of trichloroethylene, a carcinogen, in the groundwater.

Officials say the plume has not affected the deeper aquifer South Gate and other southeast L.A. cities rely on for drinking water.

In 1986, the city closed water wells contaminated by the neighboring Cooper Drum site.

EPA project manager Kelia Liang explains the cleanup effort in South Gate on Tuesday.

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Erin Stone

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LAist

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“ The water is safe to drink,” said Mike Montgomery, superfund director for the EPA. “What we're trying to do is prevent it from becoming impacted.”

EPA officials estimate soil cleanup will take about two months. Groundwater cleanup planning will start in 2027 and could take a year or more. The whole effort is estimated to cost between $45 million and $60 million, primarily through federal dollars.

The summer heat may be sweltering at the moment in Southern California, but predictions about this winter’s El Niño show it could be the strongest on record.

So the LAist newsroom wants to know: What questions do you have? (You can submit below.)

We can tell you now that El Niño is a climate pattern that happens roughly every two to seven years, and is one of the most powerful drivers of the Earth’s weather.

During an El Niño event, the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean off the coast of South America warms to above normal temperatures. The warm ocean adds moisture and heat to the atmosphere, influencing atmospheric circulation, temperatures and precipitation on a massive scale.

El Niño typically results in mild weather in the northern United States and wetter conditions in the southern part of the country.

In Southern California, we could start to see the effects of El Niño in the late fall or early winter. Generally, those effects include significant rain and high sea levels and the consequences that come with them, such as flooding, mudslides and coastal erosion.

Forecasters say there is a more than 90% chance of a powerful El Niño event this year, and a 70% chance that it’s record-setting.

That said, uncertainty remains around how exactly this winter’s El Niño will play out here.

So as you gear up for an El Niño winter, ask us your questions and we’ll do our best to get answers in the months ahead.

The company behind the Garden Grove hazardous waste scare earlier this year is planning to resume full operations in late September, subject to an independently monitored, court-approved safety plan.

GKN Aerospace employs 500 people at its Garden Grove facility.

What happened?

GKN Aerospace said in a news release that it had permanently decommissioned the tank that set off the hazmat scare in May and forced some 50,000 nearby residents to evacuate.

Removal of the tank is pending review and approval from state regulatory agencies, according to an emailed response from Salma Elshakre, a spokesperson for the Orange County Health Care Agency, which is overseeing the cleanup.

All of the toxic chemical, methyl methacrylate (also known as MMA), has been removed from nearby tanks as well, Elshakre said.

What about the compensation fund?

This week, the company also announced a forthcoming $100 million compensation fund for affected residents and businesses. GKN expects to release details on how to apply in the coming months.

What's next?

At least 39 lawsuits have been filed against the company in conjunction with the hazmat incident, according to a GKN webpage set up to track the fallout. The company pledged to explain the legal effect of participating in the compensation fund before it is launched.

What's the community reaction?

Garden Grove Mayor Stephanie Klopfenstein said in a statement that the city “welcome[s] this progress and will continue to expect GKN to address the broader effects on our community.”

A coalition of community groups called GKN Out of Garden Grove Coalition wants the city to shut down the GKN plant completely. The coalition plans to release a report documenting the company’s alleged history of hazardous waste failures at a news conference Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. at 11300 Stanford Ave. in Garden Grove.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is preparing to revoke the business and tourism visas of up to 200,000 foreigners who have applied for or are currently seeking asylum status in the United States. If it happens, the move would be the largest single mass revocation of visas in U.S. history and would likely face legal challenges.

Unless challenged or revised, the State Department is expected to announce in the coming weeks the revocation of so-called B1 and B2 visas issued between 2016 and 2026 whose holders have sought asylum or are now seeking asylum, according to State Department documents obtained by The Associated Press and two U.S. officials. The action will be taken in coordination with the Department of Homeland Security.

“We are coordinating with DHS to identify and revoke the nonimmigrant visas of foreigners who have come to the United States claiming to be short-term visitors, but then file for asylum to stay here permanently,” said State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott.

He declined to comment on the number of visas that might be revoked, saying “as the process will be ongoing, the number of revocations remains dynamic and will be done on a rolling basis.”

The revocations would not necessarily result in their immediate deportation, the officials said. Most of those with asylum cases currently pending would be recategorized but would lose their status as business or tourism travelers, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the revocations are not final yet.

Since President Donald Trump took office for his second term last year, his administration has steadily ramped up restrictions on visa applicants — demanding more information about their social media histories, requiring the posting of expensive bonds for the processing of visas, and outright banning the issuance of visas to citizens of certain countries.

In a social media post on Monday, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau called out people who he said try to use tourist and business visas to get into the United States and then apply for asylum.

“People in the US and all over the world are fed up with bogus asylum claims,” Landau wrote on X. “Asylum isn’t supposed to be a loophole to circumvent immigration law.” Landau cited the case of a Colombian citizen who came to the U.S. in 2015 on a tourist visa and then applied for asylum.

B1 visas are generally issued for business trips and B2 visas are generally issued for tourism, family visits or medical care. It was not immediately clear from the documents or the officials how many of these visa holders are seeking or have sought asylum in the United States and would be affected by the revocations.

Current applicants for B1 and B2 visas are asked to affirm that they will not apply for asylum in the United States and prove that they intend to return to their home countries.

In the past 18 months, the State Department has revoked about 175,000 visas for people who have been convicted or accused of crimes ranging from drunken driving to rape and robbery, as well as for people who have spoken out publicly against U.S. policies, particularly in the Middle East.

The administration has also moved to crack down on so-called birth tourism, a practice the administration claims is used by foreign pregnant women to come to the United States to give birth so that their child will benefit from birthright citizenship. Trump has tried several times to end birthright citizenship, but those challenges have been rejected by courts, including the Supreme Court.

The State Department documents obtained by the AP suggest screening of current B1 and B2 visa holders began after the State Department received information about asylum requests from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.