Politics & Government

Online Punches by Council's Schipske and DeLong

Schipske blogs that Gary DeLong skips out of meetings, hurt local business with the bag ban and is running for Congress for the money. DeLong e-mails that Schipske's anti-business and fit for Sacramento.

The first civic cannon ball landed Wednesday, and these two aren't even running against each other.

Long Beach 5th District Council member Gerrie Schipske blogged that Long Beach 3rd District Councilman Gary DeLong had been rude and arrogant toward business professionals at the Council meeting the night before.

On February 8th, Long Beach Councilman Gary DeLong sent an email response to constituents in his 50,000-person Third District, which includes greater Belmont Shore, Naples, Belmont Heights on up to the Cal State Long Beach neighborhoods. It claimed Schipske was not popular with Long Beach Chamber of Commerce leaders, and she belonged in Sacramento. The latter was useful politically, in that it tarred Schipske but also California State Senator Alan Lowenthal--his Democractic opponent for the newly created U.S. 47th Congressional District.

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On Saturday, Councilwoman Schipske responded to the email in a post on her blog.

The following are the exchanges in their entirety. Tell us what you think about the exchange in the comments.

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Not Being Very Business Friendly

Last night in City Council, Councilman Gary DeLong displayed (again) the type of arrogance and ignorance that has sent the message to the business community that they need not to come to Long Beach.

A scheduled agenda item was brought forth to provide the Council a briefing from several marketing professionals on how robust the demographics are in Long Beach for attracting top retailers and how the City could leverage this advantage and seek corporate sponsors which would raise revenues.

Instead of welcoming (and thanking) these professionals and engaging with them about the information being presented, DeLong who has a very small business, interrupted and inquired why we were even taking this issue up.

It is not coincidence that the agenda item was one I brought forth. DeLong is contemptuous  of two of the three women on the Council and doesn't even try to hide it anymore. I responded that he could go to the council lounge (as he often does) if he didn't want to sit and listen to professionals who had taken time to provide important information for the City.

The presentation was excellent and helpful. Sadly, because of DeLong's rudeness, the presenters cut their talk short. How embarrassing for Long Beach.

Click here to read their presentation. The news is good."

 

Gerrie Schipske is not Business Friendly
By Gary DeLong, Councilman, 3rd District

Earlier today Councilmember Schipske sent out an email regarding an item on last night's City Council agenda stating "I had to apologize to the presenters because of the arrogance and rudeness of the councilman from the 3rd District" and also offered a headline on her blog suggesting I was "Not Being Very Business Friendly."           

Apparently I need to remind Gerrie that I am the only member of the Long Beach City Council who owns a small business and is involved in its day to day operations.  Additionally, just this week I began a process of visiting 100 businesses over the next 100 days.  Why?  Because I'm interested in meeting with business owners, listening to their concerns and ideas, and discussing how government can best support the business community in an effort to improve our economy and create jobs for our citizens. 

What set Gerrie off?  After watching the video, apparently it was because I asked what the purpose of the agenda item was since her "recommendation" for the agenda item was to Receive & File, which often means the item gets filed in the waste basket, never to see the light of day.

After hearing the presentation and being advised of Gerrie's comments, I now know the purpose of the item.  It is so she can pretend to be business friendly, even though she routinely votes against the business community and has a poor reputation among our Chamber of Commerce leadership and other business leaders in our community. 

Perhaps we should send Gerrie to Sacramento.  It sounds like she would fit right in with the current group of State legislators who are destroying our economy, slashing the budgets of our schools and releasing prisoners early to create havoc in our communities.

Sincerely,

Gary DeLong
Councilmember, 3rd District

 

DeLong Really Needs a Hug
By Gerrie Schipske, Councilwoman, 5th District, Feb. 11, 2012

Several people in the community have sent me another funny email authored by

Gary DeLong, titled “What was Gerrie Schipske Thinking?”

You ask, who is Gary DeLong and just what is his fixation with me?  

Well, Gary is that tall, dapper councilmember you see walking out of the council meeting many Tuesdays cause he just can’t bear to sit and listen to the people who come to talk to council. Sometimes he just leaves council meetings all together. Take the night we were deadlocked on the vote to ban plastic bags and to assess a fee on shoppers who want to use paper bags. Gary left thinking it was in the bag but was summoned back because the vote was about to go the “wrong way” for its supporters. Whew. It was nip and tuck there for a minute. Suddenly, Gary came back in time to be a deciding vote to pass the ban on plastic bags and assess a fee. What a sense of humor that Gary has. Long Beach is experiencing the worse economic downturn in years and there he was laughing about how he made it back in time from wherever he had been to vote for one of the most anti-business measures Long Beach has enacted.

Yes, Gary did send out an email with me as the focus because I called him out for one of his ego tantrums during City Council while I was trying to introduce guess speakers. How thoughtless of me to again point out Gary’s arrogance and rudeness,  especially since it is so obvious how hard he has worked these past five years to perfect his “I’m the man” routine. 

I have to admit that Gary isn’t just fixated on me. I often have to share his attention with Councilwoman Rae Gabelich.  Some of our council meetings are a riot with Gary practicing his latest insult or jab at Rae or me. He does it so cooly. Acting like he’s not listening at council while he is busy on his IPAD. Then wack! Rae or I will be asking questions about an agenda item and Gary presses the button on his microphone and delivers his personal attacks and then goes back to his IPAD or frantically tries to “call for the question” so he doesn’t have to hear us talk. Luck for Gary he doesn’t leave his microphone on because otherwise the public would hear the nasty side of Gary that I am sure he battles daily to hide.

It’s not that Rae and I haven’t tried to be friendly with Gary. Why just the other day we were having dinner in the Council lounge together and Rae asked him why in the world would he want to leave his council duties before he finishes his term, to run for the US Congress. Why would someone who disdains government so much risk his reputation and run for the most disdained level of government – Congress?

Gary, in his usual matter of fact style responded “because of economics. I have daughters that need to get through college and I need to make more money.” It was one of those rare moments when you want to reach out and give a hug and say “that’s okay big guy. It’s not your fault and you’re not alone. If your ‘successful’ small business isn’t making as much as a Congressman’s salary of $174,000, then go for it!”

So if you get a copy of Gary’s latest email, be kind and be gentle on how you respond to him. Forget that Gary uses the email to attack me again. The most important message in that email is his cry for attention and approval about his announcement that he is going to visit ‘100 businesses in 100 days.’ Give the big guy kudos. It only took him five years on the City Council to get the nerve to go out there and show some concern for local business. Besides it’s a wonderful campaign gimmick he can use to hit up business for campaign contributions -- just as he just did with the medical marijuana collections. He cleaned up with $6100 for that 'visit'. Got to admit he is a clever little devil.


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