Sunday, April 13, 2003 Council should reconsider its vote on convention bureau   By Bry Myown The City Council vote to exempt the Convention and Visitors' Bureau from conflict-of- interest filings may strike most as ho-hum policy wonk stuff. It shouldn't. It is a porthole through which we ought to examine both how the city conducts our business and the business on which it has planned our future. Our beach is our big business. It has been a source of fishing, home to the Navy, port for the nation's cargo and a natural attraction. It is also why many of us live here, and therein lies the rub. Beaches make for complicated government because their use is subject to tidelands trust law, under which the federal and state governments vest their commerce, navigation, fishing and public recreation interests in municipal bodies. When we benefit from the beach's natural and economic advantages, balancing those uses is tricky. Equalizing their impacts in hard times is traumatic. In the 1960s, Long Beach began aggressively promoting itself as a tourist destination. Not surprisingly, this involved promoting our beach. It also required a lot of money. First came a hotel bed tax, followed by the Queen Mary, a convention center, hotels, the aquarium, Rainbow Harbor and the Pike. The logic lay in parlaying our beach attraction into a robust local economy and general fund. The plan seemed so promising that the city sometimes incurred extraordinary debt, guaranteed development with tidelands funds (earmarked for, among other things, maintaining our beach) or traded away beach land altogether. It seemed such a sure thing that the city occasionally used redevelopment funds that might have built parks and libraries or pledged block grants that might have created jobs and eliminated blight. It also obligated taxpayers for bond payments. These decisions were complex; most required hearings by multiple agencies and the State Lands Commission. They sometimes pitted businesses against residents and both against the government. Decision-makers must have often wished they could simply skip the democratic process and retire to a back room. Sometimes they did. They purchased the Queen Mary in 1967 without holding a single public meeting to authorize the deal. An almost identical scenario unfolded with the 2001 Queensway Bay land swap, and only by aggressively using Brown Act open meeting and Public Record right-to- know laws did citizens enjoy due process. This is not to suggest that we are not proud of our shoreline and the city's reputation. We merely want to safeguard our investments. The volatile tourist market has not yet yielded the expected return. Nearly half our population qualifies as low income and can't afford to use the new amenities, we have darn little beach left for residents' enjoyment, we still have seriously blighted neighborhoods, and the general fund is anything but robust. We must make sure the plan pays off. It's our beach, our money, and our right to know. For 40 years, half the city's bed tax has been dedicated to promoting tourism through a variety of quasi-public bodies. The current private corporation was initially capitalized by a city contract not put out to bid, and it remains largely dependent on public funding. It narrowly escapes the Brown Act by what appears to be a minor loophole, and its small private dues revenue exempts it from the Public Records Act. "Conflict-of-interest' provisions of the Political Reform Act are the only means by which we might learn anything about it. The Brown, Public Records and Political Reform acts are "sunshine laws' that keep the public's business public. I think the city should stop splitting legal hairs on all of the above and make doing business openly a condition of the contract. The conflict-of-interest law is regulated by the Fair Political Practices Commission, which has developed four tests to determine when private corporations qualify as public agencies. No one has argued two tests that I think are beyond question: non-profit status and 85 percent annual bed tax revenue means the bureau is treated like a public agency under other laws and its primary source of funds is public. The city and bureau's attorneys say that since its board elected itself, the impetus for its formation was independent. I think arguing whether a group that came into existence solely through public funding that served a public need makes arguing the meaning of "impetus' akin to arguing what the meaning of "is' is. But even if that point can be conceded, meeting three of the four guidelines qualifies the bureau as a public agency; to resist filing, a fourth test must also be evaded. That is dangerous ground. The test is whether one of the bureau's principal purposes undertakes a traditional government function. The bureau cannot argue this point without admitting contractual nonperformance, and the city cannot argue it to one state agency without admitting bad faith to another. The bureau was formed to promote tourism and to "actively solicit tenants, exhibitors and trade, shipping and commercial associations, whose activities and use of the Long Beach Convention and Entertainment Center promote or accommodate commerce, navigation, fisheries, and marine or aquatic recreational activities." That phrase may only be meaningful to policy wonks, but it should have been recognized by the bureau, its attorneys and the council. It summarizes the city's obligation under its tidelands trust, goes to the bureau's formation, and it is what the city has represented to the State Lands Commission is performed by the Convention and Visitors Bureau. I think it might be best for the council to reverse its vote, add bureau filings to its code and make the necessary contract changes to ensure that Brown and Public Records Act compliance follow. How can sunshine hurt the tourism business, after all? Bringing residents to the table can only supplement the bureau's industry expertise. We know what is affordable and appealing in the current economy, and we are expert on what is authentic and unique about Long Beach that makes people love to be here. Bry Myown lives in Long Beach.