Tuesday, June 24, 2003 Mayor chooses not to choose   By Tom Hennessy Staff columnnist Were I a cartoonist, I would depict her as a taciturn Queen Victoria uttering her famous phrase, "We are not amused." But she was not Queen Victoria, she was Queen ... Well, she was Long Beach Mayor Beverly O'Neill. The occasion was last week's meeting of the mayor and council, an agency seemingly dedicated to proving that nothing is done easily. Case in point: After announcing appointments to four vacant posts on the city's Redevelopment Agency Board, "O'Neill passed up the opportunity to fill another seat on the Central Project Area Committee." You would think this kind of appointment would be routine. But not in Long Beach. Dumb and dumberer First, some background. To stimulate new construction, as our City Hall reporter Jason Gewirtz has explained, project areas were created to channel property tax increases back to the areas from which they originate. The Project Area Committees, known popularly as PACs, help oversee the distribution of those funds. Last week, with each PAC required to nominate at least two people to fill Redevelopment Board seats, the Central PAC offered two names: Don Darnauer and Alan Burks. That wasn't good enough. The mayor wanted three. Apparently assuming the game was being played under democratic rules, the Central PAC held firm. Chairman Andrew Kincaid said, quite correctly, that the committee had done all it was required to do. There were the nominations, Madam Mayor. You choose. She chose not to choose. Instead, by mail, she rejected Darnauer and Burks, leaving the Central PAC to worry their seat might go to another PAC member. Meanwhile, she says she is waiting for a third nominee from the group. So why, in the meantime, had she sent rejection letters to Darnauer and Burks? Well, hey, that was a mistake, the mayor explained. "It had nothing to do with the people," she said. "It had to do with the number." Having fun yet? It is difficult to tell whether all this was intended to be serious or whether the mayor is dabbling in a little mirth patterned after the Chuckles the Clown segment of the old "Mary Tyler Moore Show." You know, a little song, a little dance, a little redevelopment down the pants. The mayor wanted to amend the law to require PACs to submit four names each. She wanted to amend it retroactively. And she did not want the Central Area PAC, or presumably any PAC, to be nominating white members only. Made under the guise of promoting diversity, the latter was a stunning announcement. In Monday's P-T, letter writer Gary Shelton wondered if forced diversity is being thrust upon the people of Long Beach. "We'd progressed beyond that in Long Beach until this shameful moment," wrote Shelton. Tonia Reyes-Uranga, the council's only Latina, had a similar reaction, and also noted that the Central Project Area is being singled out at a time when a merger of all the PACs is under consideration. The mayor carried the day with six of the three council members approving. Uranga did not. Nor did members Val Lerch and Rob Webb. Tom Hennessy's viewpoint appears Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. He can be reached at (562) 499-1270 or by e-mail at Scribe17@aol.com