By Suzie Price, Third District Councilwoman
I am so glad to be writing this article for you, the Belmont Heights community. Although there are a lot of difficulties and uncertainty that we all face, I deeply believe there is much more reason for optimism about the future. At the time of writing this article, the City of Long Beach had just announced that the State would be allowing us to move from the red tier to the orange tier of the COVID-19 restrictions. This means the loosening of a number of COVID-19 restrictions and business re-openings. We are able to loosen restrictions as a
result of decreasing infection rates and improving hospital capacity throughout the county. Locally, we have seen incredible effort from our City staff to get Long Beach residents vaccinated. To date over 150,000 Long Beach residents have been vaccinated. However, despite the COVID-19 emergency, work continues throughout the District on important
projects, including street repairs, traffic safety improvements, investments in parks, and repairs to city infrastructure
In Belmont Heights in particular I am very glad to see a number of great improvements. One being the recent repaving of Colorado St. which included not only new street surfaces, but also new sidewalks, curbs, gutters, and ADA curb ramps. A repaved street can really help improve the neighborhood and make getting around town a more enjoyable experience. In fact, if you haven’t driven, walked, biked or even roller-skated Colorado recently, I encourage you to do so. And while you’re out, stop by Ma n’ Pa Grocery to wish them a happy 100th year in business!
Next, I want to highlight the progress being made on the Colorado Lagoon’s open channel project. This will connect the lagoon with Marine Stadium and create long-term water quality improvements for the lagoon. If you haven’t heard about this project, I encourage you to contact my office and my staff would be happy to fill you in with the details. We have seen great improvements to the Colorado Lagoon in recent years and this next chapter will make sure those improvements are sustained with increased water circulation throughout the lagoon, as well as create new native wetlands habitat in the channel that will run through Marina Vista Park. It is a big project, but one that will ensure the Colorado Lagoon remains the amazing hidden gem it is for generations to come.
I also want to highlight some wonderful new play areas that have been completed at the Junipero Beach concession stand and at the Granada Beach concession stand. Both locations have seen fun and novel investments in the concession stands to make them more attractive and usable spaces from which vendors can operate. In addition to the building upgrades, there is a new kids play area at Granada Beach, including an interactive water/sand attraction. For the older children, the amazing new playground at Junipero Beach has swings and a huge jungle gym.
Lastly, back in February of 2020, I hosted the first community visioning meeting to discuss the future of the Belmont Veterans Memorial Pier. Then, this March 2021, I held a follow up community meeting on this topic and provided a number of fantastic images and ideas for how the pier could be redesigned. This meeting included a lot of creative input and questions from residents on how the pier could be improved and what new amenities or designs residents are interested in having at this large City asset. I look forward to the next steps in this process as City staff continues to develop designs and proposals for a new Belmont Pier.
As always, these are only a few of the important updates I can provide to you as my whole staff and I are working every day to help make sure our community is its very best. Please feel free to reach out to my office any time at district3@longbeach.gov or by phone at (562)570-6300 if you have any questions or if we can help in any way. Additionally, please sign up for my monthly email newsletter if you want to stay informed on everything going on at the City Council as well as in the community. I look forward to seeing you soon!
