While Long Beach Cuts Youth Programs, Why Does Belmont Shore Keep All Its Parking Money?

Michele Simon

— 3 min read
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Long Beach is facing a $58.2 million General Fund shortfall, forcing painful choices about jobs and basic public services. But as the City asks residents across Long Beach to sacrifice, one question deserves more attention: Is everyone sharing the pain equally?

Belmont Shore’s protected pot of money

Belmont Shore is projected to generate about $1.55 million in parking-meter revenue next fiscal year. Under a decades-old arrangement, 100% of that money stays in Belmont Shore.

Oddly, that is not how Long Beach treats parking revenue everywhere else. For example, Downtown shares 50% of its net meter revenue with City, as does Retro Row. Yet Belmont Shore keeps 100%.

Why?

When the fund was created in the 1980s, parking-meter revenue was dedicated to addressing the serious parking needs. But over the decades, that mission has expanded. Today parking-meter money pays for services including private security, cleaning, landscaping, and trash infrastructure, mostly serving area businesses.

Recently, Belmont Shore meter rates were raised from $2 to $3 an hour—a sharp 50% increase—with the additional revenues justified by the need for private security to benefit a few late-night bars creating the safety risks.

At some point, a fund created to address parking problems became something much broader: a protected revenue stream for Belmont Shore businesses.

How do other Long Beach commercial districts fund these services Downtown property owners assess themselves to fund its extensive "Clean & Safe" program, while Downtown still shares parking revenue with the City. Fourth Street businesses likewise pay assessments for district services while Retro Row shares its meter revenue with the City.

Belmont Shore has a business improvement district too. So why are parking customers increasingly funding these services while every dollar of Belmont Shore meter revenue remains protected for Belmont Shore businesses?

What does that privilege mean for everyone else?

While Belmont Shore's parking revenue remains protected, Long Beach is proposing cuts to programs and services residents actually use, for example:

  • WRAP after-school programs at seven public schools: $270,501
  • Be S.A.F.E. evening recreation programs at parks: $191,164
  • Lincoln Park programming: $141,398
  • Teen programming at Chavez Park: $71,681
  • Summer swimming at Jordan & Millikan: $50,298
  • Nature Center Tuesday hours: $35,694
  • Homeland Cultural Center classes: $25,000
  • Five neighborhood libraries—including Belmont Shore's own Bay Shore Library—would lose Monday service.

The first seven cuts would save the City about $786,000 combined.

Half of Belmont Shore's projected annual meter revenue is about $777,000.

In other words, roughly half of Belmont Shore's protected parking revenue is nearly enough to equal what the City hopes to save by cutting seven community programs combined.

That puts the question of shared sacrifice into stark terms: Why are programs for teens, children and families being cut while 100% of Belmont Shore's parking revenue remains protected?

And is the protected money being spent wisely?

Adding insult to injury, let's look at how some of that parking money is being wasted in Belmont Shore.

Bigbelly trash cans: The Parking Commission has spent tens of thousands of dollars on Bigbelly trash bins along Second Street—including $37,305 for bins approved in 2023 alone. Now all of the Bigbelly bins are slated to be replaced. Apparently they are not working properly and it turns out that maintaining them is very expensive. Why didn't the commissioners do their homework about this in the first place? This is not good stewardship.

The BSBA logo oops: Perhaps the most revealing example is also the most absurd. The area cleaning truck and crew have been displaying the Belmont Shore Business Association logo—giving BSBA visible credit for keeping Second Street clean. Except BSBA doesn't pay for the cleaning. Parking-meter revenue does. Now, after the City Attorney determined that the BSBA logo has to come off, correcting the branding is expected to cost at least another $2,000 in public money.

So parking customers paid for the cleaning, BSBA got the credit, and now parking customers get to pay again to remove BSBA's name.

Private security: Most concerning is the substantial amount of parking revenue being spent on private security, despite serious questions about whether that security has made Second Street any safer. In fact, the need for additional security was a major justification for raising meter rates from $2 to $3 an hour.

With serious late-night incidents continuing, it's fair to ask what measurable benefit the contract is delivering—and why parking customers are paying for private security in the first place. Enhanced security for a commercial district is an obvious expense for the businesses that benefit from it to help cover, as many businesses owners do.

None of these expenditures will make or break a $58 million City deficit. That's not the point. If Belmont Shore is going to enjoy the extraordinary privilege of keeping every dollar of its parking-meter revenue, shouldn't there be an extraordinarily good case for how that money is being spent?

At a time when Long Beach is cutting programs for kids and asking neighborhoods across the city to make do with less, why should Belmont Shore continue to receive a financial privilege that comparable commercial districts do not? The City Council should review this nearly 40-year-old arrangement and consider a revenue-sharing model similar to Downtown and Retro Row.

If Long Beach is going to share the pain, Belmont Shore should be part of that conversation too.

What exactly is the public getting for its money?

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