Juan Ovalle is the candidate next door in an unassuming polo-tucked-into-jeans kind of way. And boy, does he have a mouthful for City Hall.

“There is a culture of unethical politicians in our city that are beholden to special interests and are not really concerned about residents at all,” Ovalle says during our interview at Bixby Joe Coffee and Tea near Atlantic Avenue and Carson Street in Bixby Knolls.

He’s lived in Long Beach for over 50 years, and 20 years in the Eighth District. The 54-year-old candidate grew up in the Wrigley neighborhood and owns a home with his wife in Bixby Knolls. He worked at the Long Beach Water Department for 15 years and received an undergraduate degree in political science and public administration from Cal State Long Beach before pursuing a career in real estate brokerage. He currently owns and manages several properties in the area.

While the two other candidates in the race have marshaled endorsements and funding from high-ranking officials and deep-pocketed interests, Ovalle is funded by individual donors and endorsed by neighborhood organizations (though there is a group of former elected officials, also wary of the city’s current leadership, that are backing him). 

It’s critical to Ovalle’s appeal for office. 

Juan and his brother, Carlos, started the community advocacy group People of Long Beach two years ago. PoLB is best known for its opposition to the mayor-endorsed measures passed by Long Beach voters in 2018. They were especially against Measure BBB, which changed the rules regarding term limits for city officials from two with the option of limitless write-ins to a hard cap of three terms. Had this not passed, the incumbent in this race, Al Austin, would have been termed out and would have had to run as a write-in candidate.

PoLB has since aimed a steady stream of criticism at City Hall on multiple fronts ranging from increased water rates to the closing of a fire station in Bixby Knolls.

Many of those criticisms are central to Ovalle’s pitch. He opposes Measure A, which will be on the ballot next week. If passed, a 1% sales tax increase that went into effect in 2016 will be made permanent. Its backers say the tax revenue would go toward infrastructure and public safety spending but, as a general tax, it can technically be used for anything.

His outspokenness has garnered an audience, but also criticism from the incumbent he’s up against.

Councilmember Al Austin said at a forum hosted by the Los Cerritos Neighborhood Association that Ovalle’s position on Measure A doesn’t add up: Ovalle wants to cut a tax that funds the police while also saying he will restore police officers to pre-recession levels. Ovalle sees it as a matter of management priorities. 

“This city is not lacking in money. It’s not like we don’t have revenue sources,” he said. “We have a port, we have infrastructure. We have trucks that come up and down this freeway every single day. We have the beach, we have oil, we have the largest Cal State university in the system.” 

Ovalle doubled down on his position during the forum, arguing that cutting taxes would also spur economic development. 

“Instead of taxing you more, we should be giving you checks back,” he said to cheers from the audience.

Apart from scolding City Hall for its spending habits, Ovalle also worries about the environment.

It might surprise some to know that PoLB was formed to oppose a planned housing development on land formerly used to dump wastewater from oil drilling. The group’s environmental origins are reflected in Ovalle’s platform, which includes beefing up the city’s response to the high levels of airborne toxins in areas surrounding the 710 Freeway and lobbying to discontinue dangerous refinery practices. He has been endorse by the Sierra Club at both the local and national level.

Ovalle has also called for more police transparency, saying that the department’s “integrity” needs to be restored following costly lawsuits stemming from improper use of force by officers and revelations that the department was using a self-deleting messaging app, possibly preventing the communications from being disclosed in legal proceedings.

Ovalle sees these issues, more often associated with the left, as ultimately inextricable from his anti-tax stances that serve as red meat for his more conservative homeowner base of support because in the long-run he believes they save the city money. 

Ultimately, Ovalle thinks many of the city’s woes are rooted in a crisis of ethics among elected officials, who he sees as acting solely in their own interests rather than those of the residents.

“City Hall is not thinking about any one of us because they’re already thinking about that next position,” he said. “(Electing new officials) is the only way we’re gonna start cleaning up the air, that’s the only way we’re really gonna start addressing the issue of affordability, over-taxation, the issue of fiscal irresponsibility.”

Ovalle is a member of the Long Beach Reform coalition and has signed a pledge committing to supporting a robust list of proposals to tighten campaign finance regulations, increase government transparency, and reform rules around civic participation, including allowing the public the right to agendize City Council items.

Questions

Why are you running for office?

I grew up in Long Beach. I grew up here in the Wrigley area, like I mentioned before. And so I’ve seen a lot of issues in my community related to not only crime but related to the issues of the environment. I’ve had neighbors that have succumbed to illnesses of different types, the oddest of illnesses: adult cancer, leukemia and other really strange illnesses that are oftentimes attributable to pollution. 

Just in our family both of my parents passed away at a much younger age than they probably should have. Their brothers and sisters are still doing well—they don’t live in this area. My dad passed away from a lung disease caused by breathing in heavy metals, which is something that we all breathe, living here in this area, and my mom passed away from another illness related to smoking and she was not a smoker. And so that’s one of those issues that has really intensified my desire to run and make some type of change or make sure that what we are doing proceeds forward in terms of our clean air action plans and making sure that that we continue to work with our local, state, and federal officials, as well as the regulating agencies. 

In the last few years—starting in 2016, when Measure A passed—we still don’t have the adequate resources for safety issues. We still are below the number of police officers that (elected officials) have promised. So in the propaganda that was sent to us they said well, this is going to be to restore the police to pre-recession levels and they haven’t been restored to pre-recession levels.

Measure A and Measure M are really hurting and nickel-and-diming the hardworking residents of the City of Long Beach and it hurts more those that are working-class people. The people on fixed-income and disabled. 

So those are some of the issues that have now really brought me to this point that I believe wholeheartedly that we can do better and that we must do better. But we need to start addressing those issues that I just mentioned to you. The inconsistencies are the lack of transparency, the lack of accountability, and the lack of fiscal responsibility. 

How would you assess Councilmember Al Austin’s tenure? What aspects do you think he did well on and what would you have done differently?

I think that we can do better. This district—from walking thousands of homes in the district and speaking with thousands of people in the district—many of us are concerned that our district, rather than feeling more like a united organization of different neighborhoods, oftentimes feels like it’s becoming more divided. When people in the north side of our district feel disenfranchised, when people even in the southern part of our district feel like their issues aren’t being addressed as well, then I think there’s something that isn’t working. 

We need a new direction. We need a direction that will help unite people, help people feel that they are all welcomed, that they are all part of the solution, but we cannot ignore them and put them aside, because then people feel, “What should I do? Why should I even try? Why should I even get involved when we’re being ignored?” And that’s many times what I hear from our constituents. They want to be listened to. They want to see action. They don’t want to just see promises and without actual actions.

Is there anything specifically that Austin has done that you oppose?

Well let’s start backwards. He was in favor of the relocation ordinance, which eventually—after AB 1482—the city rescinded. So the relocation ordinance was basically the start of rent control in Long Beach. This is affecting or could have or will affect many small property owners in the City of Long Beach. Long Beach has many small operators like myself and my wife. Rent  control hasn’t worked anywhere. There is no proof that has ever worked in Santa Monica, San Francisco, Los Angeles. As small mom-and-pop property operators, we have had affordable rent for many residents for decades here in the City of Long Beach. The city was known as one of the most affordable cities of all of the coastal cities of California. Was. But it’s quickly changing. 

It is not changing because of the small mom-and-pop operators. It’s changing because of new development that’s coming into Long Beach that is exacerbating a shift that some people call “gentrification” and it’s not just gentrification necessarily based on race, but based on income. So our hard-working folks are being displaced. Many of the small operators are also throwing their hands up in the air and saying, “Look, that’s it. I’m selling. I’m out of here.” That isn’t right because it starts to just deteriorate the fabric of Long Beach and in it starts to really inflict an unnecessary punishment on small operators and small businesses of Long Beach. 

I mean this same councilmember voted in favor of Measure M, the sales tax. Long Beach is one of the highest taxed cities in the nation, at par with Chicago. So many of the small businesses here are suffering because why would someone go to a store here or shop here in Long Beach when they could just cross the border to Signal Hill, to Lakewood, or drive a little bit down to Cypress or you can afford to drive even further away, you could drive to Orange County and other areas where it’s still that 7.5%, 7.75% tax rate. Again, like I mentioned before, that affects the hard-working people of this city. It affects the working-class and the faceless people that are disabled or that are on fixed income that won’t be able to venture out to Orange County to get the best deals.

Yeah, and the other issue that is really important, like I mentioned to you before, when I grew in the Westside is that he also did not address the issue of pollution. He voted in favor of the storage and the transportation of petroleum coke in our Port of Long Beach. And that is dust that goes to China. That is a product that nowhere in California or in the United States, can we use it or burn it. It’s so polluting, and it’s going to China. And now that stuff that’s being burned in China eventually flies back to Long Beach. But in the meantime, just a transportation of that chemical, petroleum coke, is something that we possibly are all breathing. So it’s not going forward, it’s just pandering to possibly special interests that he is beholden to.

What aspects do you think he did well on? 

The housing bond, yes. Which would have been an additional tax. So even though when it came to the housing bond in 2018, he was actually in favor of it. He actually was one of the folks that wanted to see it placed on the ballot in November. Now, it didn’t work that way. By that time, they had all of the other measures. They also wanted to take over the Long Beach Water Department, which eventually they removed that one and they removed the housing bond as well. So in a way he probably did it to appease us, the property owners, of the city and voted against it. But, you know, sometimes some things are a little bit too little too late.

Austin has asked city staff to explore a vacancy fee or tax to combat the amount of commercial vacancies in the district. What are your thoughts on charging fees to owners of vacant commercial properties?

Yeah, again, because the tax hasn’t really worked. It hasn’t worked where they’ve implemented it. Like I mentioned before, many of the properties here in Long Beach are owned by small mom-and-pop operators. Many of them, not all of them, and I’ll get to that. So for the small mom-and-pop operators giving them the stick—because that’s basically what it is, it’s a stick rather than a carrot.

We need to make sure that these districts are something that we all want. So there has to be a needs assessment, an urban planning assessment, and eventually a recruitment officer or someone that will help recruit the right type of businesses to the area, but not develop the stick on these vacancies because oftentimes these vacancies are not being rented, not because the landlords don’t want to rent them; there isn’t enough market for mom-and-pops because usually it’s going to be a mom-and-pop retailer to open up. 

They’re competing against not only the sales tax of other cities, they’re competing against Amazon. We compete against all these other internet buying options. And that is where the urban planning for the needs assessment and the recruitment have to come together to figure out how we develop our business districts for the future. How do we become more creative?

The city’s own research shows that the climate crisis will pose a significant threat to Long Beach in the coming decades, whether it be by rising sea level on the coast or by heat islands inland. If elected, what would you do from behind the dais to address this issue?

Urban Planning has to be developed throughout this district and throughout the city. Urban planning that takes into account how do we mitigate or how do we reduce our carbon footprint? What do we do to make it better for the residents of Long Beach? 

One of the things that we’ve already commented to the city about through some research that we did related to the magnolia tree scale issue—we brought to their attention, look, that what we need here in the city, besides a replanting issue, is having a dedicated urban forester or someone that’s in charge of all of the urban forests of Long Beach, the street trees, median trees, and all of the landscaping. Make sure that this person is advocating for a greener environment by planting more trees, by making sure that they take care of what we have, number one. And part of increasing the amount of green space could be just simply planting trees where none exists, where we have empty lots, turning them into nature trails, turning them into areas where more trees can help absorb the carbon in our atmosphere. And that is one way, and it’s not an expensive way, but it requires someone to be dedicated, which will be the urban forester and a master plan of a green urban planning strategy.

In 2015, 13.3 million barrels of crude oil were extracted in Long Beach. This oil is in the top fifth in regards to carbon intensity throughout its life-cycle compared to other oils around the world, meaning from extraction to burning, it is quite dirty, according to the city’s Climate Action and Adaptation Plan. Do you believe fossil fuel extraction should be phased out in the city, and if so, how soon?

I believe that the city needs to start planning for the future, which means making sure that the infrastructure of the city will be able to adapt to new technologies. We cannot just eliminate something period without having an alternate plan. We need to start developing an alternate plan. That alternate plans should have been developed years ago, if it’s on the bookshelf somewhere in City Hall we need to make sure we clean it out and we start working on it to make sure that we plan for future sources of energy in the city, whether it’s phasing out petroleum, whether it’s just simply increasing the use of natural gas and electricity to start reducing immediately the the impact of climate change or the impact of these other fuels.

Austin recently voted against exploring the possibility of placing a bond measure on the November ballot that would have raised nearly $300 million for homelessness and affordable housing initiatives. Do you agree or disagree with his decision and why?

I would not have supported moving forward with this bond. Nope.

Yeah, well, like I mentioned before, the residents of Long Beach are some of the most taxed residents in the nation. We don’t need additional taxes, number one. Number two, with the track record of the city of Long Beach in terms of its fiscal irresponsibility, they don’t deserve a single penny more from the taxpayers. Rather than building a civic center that we didn’t need, the city should have been looking at how do we address the issue of affordability rather than building a civic center that we didn’t need, it should have been addressing the issue of safety. They closed our only fire station for a lack of maintenance. So those are really important issues that the city needs to start addressing. They should have addressed them.

One program some housing advocates have called for to combat the housing crisis is the creation of a public rental housing registry to collect data on rent levels and evictions. AB 724 would have created such a program on the state level, but it failed to reach a full assembly vote this past year. The author, Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, said that it would have helped “decision makers better gauge displacement risks and potentially identify landlords who engage in illegal evictions.” Santa Cruz is currently debating the creation of a citywide registry. What are your thoughts on this type of program and would you be open to supporting a rental housing registry in Long Beach?

No, I wouldn’t. I would not be in favor of that. I think that is infringement on the privacy of the owners of the properties and also on the privacy of the tenants themselves. I will not be in favor of such a move.

Long Beach—and the state as a whole—is in the housing crisis. Vacancies at 3.8% and rents have risen 28% citywide in the past decade with neighborhoods like this Bixby Knolls seeing some of the sharpest increases. One solution being deliberated upon by the city’s inclusionary zoning. The city’s study on inclusionary zoning published last year, says that inclusionary zoning will only be able to meet “a small portion” of the affordable housing needs of the city. What are your thoughts on inclusionary zoning?

You know, whatever zoning changes we make, whether it’s zoning changes based on the Land Use Element, they have to be clearly vetted. And they have to clearly show a gain and a benefit for the hardworking residents of Long Beach. Not only for that, but they also have to show a benefit for our environment. Making sure that our infrastructure is adequate, making sure that our green space is adequate for new housing. So I think those are some of the things that need to be addressed before going down the road of inclusionary zoning.

So if you have a luxury development and wanted to set aside say 30% or so of affordable housing units…

Well, that’s something that the city should have been working on years ago, in terms of having more affordable rent or affordable rental units. But they never did. Mostly the new development in Long Beach is all market rent: luxury market rent units, market rent condos, not affordable housing. Most of the rental increases are due to the new development, not the existing housing.

What are other solutions that you would favor in order to create more affordable housing?

The city of Long Beach has to, one, make sure that it starts to protect the existing stock that we have. Basically the mom-and-pop shops, which are traditionally the affordable housing providers here in the city. Number two, any new development that arises needs to be well-vetted. And, and it needs to be something that contains incentives for affordable housing as well or mixes housing. And then the other issue that’s really important, and it’s oftentimes ignored by the city, is making sure that the housing providers, existing housing providers like us, the mom-and-pop shops, are involved in the decision-making process, because it impacts all of us.

There’s a growing consensus among urban planners that exclusionary zoning, that is areas that only allow for single-family homes, will need to be upzoned in order to deal with the housing crisis, not to mention the climate crisis. Oregon last year eliminated single-family housing zoning statewide. Virginia is considering legalizing duplexes and all residential zones. The Long Beach City Council positioned itself against SB 50, which would have overridden local zoning laws to allow for more mid-rise apartment buildings. Do you think the city’s stance is correct? Following the interview, SB 50 was shelved by the state legislature. The bill’s author, Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) has committed to bringing it back in another form. 

Yes, I think so. Yeah, it is a good stance and it’s a stance that, again, many of us have been advocating for here in Long Beach. The city needs to make sure that not so much the city, all of us, the residents of Long Beach, have to really address this issue in a more holistic manner. Because if you’re going to upzone all of the homes in Long Beach, who will benefit from that? Will it be the mom-and-pop shops, will it be the homeowners, or will it be outside developers that will start buying up property? These are the things that needs to be addressed in the city and it needs to be clearly spelled out

Do you think money is a problem in Long Beach politics?

Money and power has a lot of influence in Long Beach politics. When you have candidates raising record numbers to run for City Council, $100,000, $80,000; when they have a slew of special interests behind them, there’s gotta be something wrong. And that influence can be detrimental to the outcome of the decisions that are made in City Hall.

One of the planks of the Reform Coalition pledge that you signed is to limit the use of officeholder accounts. Can you explain this position?

So the officeholder accounts—it would be about limiting the use of them to yourself and to your council office, not to be shared amongst councilmembers. it should be limited in its amount and it should only be able to be used for your own position, not to be shared among councilmembers, not to be used as an independent expenditure, to help other political aspirations.

You think the change the City Council made in 2017 allowing elected officials to use those funds to donate to political campaigns should be repealed?

That’s right. It should be repealed in Long Beach.

In recent years, the Long Beach Police Department Police Department has drawn criticism for transparency. This publication was first to report on the destruction of police misconduct records that shortly before a state law went into effect that would have made those records public. It was also reported that the department was using a self-deleting messaging app possibly preventing those communications from being discoverable in criminal or civil proceedings. The department has denied that was the intent of using the app but did suspend its use. Does the Long Beach Police Department have a transparency problem?

All of our police departments throughout the nation need to be transparent. Transparent because it is the people’s right to know what’s going on behind those closed doors. The police department is here as a public servant. As a public service, a service to protect and to serve the residents of Long Beach, not the other way around. They are here for us. Therefore, they need to make sure that they always remember who the boss is and the boss is us, the residents of Long Beach. And that goes for every single public servant. 

The culture of transparency does need to be fomented here in Long Beach. So I do believe in that. I think there’s a lot of really great officers. Really great officers. I have friends that are officers, I have met family members that have been officers and they’re really great individuals. You know the person that actually exposed this TigerText was a retired officer who understands it. So there are really great and amazing individuals that are doing their job every single day. So I think that the possibilities are there. I think for the most part the culture within that institution is there, we just need to make sure that that we advocate for all of that organization, especially the top brass to adopt good measures going forward.

What specific police reforms would you propose?

I think increasing community policing would be a great thing. You know, walking in this district, many residents say, “Look, I hardly ever see an officer.” I wish I could see one walking down our business corridor once in a while, or even if they just took their little scooters and walked around just to say hi and got to know the community on a one-to-one basis, whether it’s the commanders, but most importantly, the officers themselves going out there and being part of the community, not just once a month giving reports. Get them to know the areas that are problematic areas, and also get them to know the areas that are maybe not as problematic, but that could be a resource to the police department going forward. So I think that the issue of community policing would be a benefit to the Long Beach Police Department integrity issues. 

What kind of music do you listen to? 

I love a lot of eclectic music. One of my favorite bands has always been The Clash. But, you know, I love Spanish rock and I love a lot of classic music as well. So I feel that sometimes, especially in these last few weeks or months in this campaign, I really liked listening to classic classic music. So I usually turn on KUSC because it’s more relaxing. And it’s just music that I grew up with when I was a kid. My dad loved classical music. And maybe now it’s coming back around. So now I’m starting to really dig classical music.

Oh and country music. But my wife doesn’t like country music, you know country pop.