Style Life And Music THE POWER ISSUE | Page 7

We sit down with the Mayor of Long Beach, one of the youngest mayors in the United States and speak with him about a range of hot topics. His unique perspective and infectious personality is resonating with the city’s residents. Mayor Robert Garcia shares with us what his life is like outside of his mayoral duties as well as some major new developments happening right now that is enriching the culture of Long Beach. SM: Thank you for meeting with us, Mayor Robert Garcia. We are here in his beautiful building overlooking the entire city. You are not the typical person in government as far as being so young. You always seem to hold the city’s best interest at heart. You are doing things a bit differently here. I have seen you on TV a few times, you have done a few interviews, such as one with Art Levine on “Straight Talk” in which Levine said something that I thought really rang true to who you are. He said that you have a really infectious personality and I believe that. Have you always been this way and do you think it has anything to do with your upbringing? MRG: I have always been energetic, I was an energetic kid. I was involved in high school, and I was really involved in college so I have always been a little bit in a hurry. In a hurry to get something done or to see progress. That’s just part of my personality. The interesting part is when I am at home, I am actually very quiet. Even though I think I am probably very energetic out in public, when I am at home I’m quiet, I like to read, relax, hang out with my partner and just be very mellow. SM: What did you see yourself doing when you were young? MRG: I always wanted to be a teacher and I am a teacher. That is what I always saw myself doing when I was younger and I was able to go to Grad School, get my Doctorate, teach, became a college administrator, so that was always my professional goal; which I feel like I achieved. And even though I am the Mayor, I still consider myself a teacher and will be one after I’m done being the Mayor. SM: Are you teaching now? MRG: I stopped teaching when I became the Mayor. I am lecturing in one class at Cal State Long Beach with a professor friend of mine, but I am no longer a full time teacher. SM: You are a pretty busy guy! Do you have a favorite place that you go when you are traveling outside of Long Beach. MRG: I don’t know if I have a favorite place, I know that I like to go to Palm Springs for vacation just to relax. I like to go to Las Vegas for fun. I like to go to San Diego. These are local places. I don’t get to travel very much personally I am busy. We are always very busy. I have very little personal traveling time. SM: There is something that I read as far as things that you are doing to contribute to our local shore here in Long Beach and I wanted to speak with you more about the initiative called “Sink The Break Water” and “Restore The Shore”. What is your involvement with that? MRG: The involvement is that right now the city is completing, with the army corp of engineers, a study on the federal breakwater. We have been looking at if there is a way to restore the ecosystem. Because of the breakwater, which was built by the Navy, the shore has changed a lot. Such as water quality issues, issues about marine life, coastal sand, all sorts of issues have occurred because we kind of changed the ecosystem with the breakwater and so the studies looked at whether or not we can reconfigure or remove parts of the breakwater to restore some of the ecosystem. We’re not sure what we can do. Our top priority is always the protection of coastal homes and the protection of the port and so once we get the database back in a couple of years we will know what we can do. SM: What I have read about it which was really interesting to me and probably a lot of the residents here is for the surfers. What it would do is bring some of the waves back. MRG: That is the interest of the surfers. It would be great to have some wave increased wave activity. We think it would be great for people coming to the beach and to the coast, but, we also have to protect the coastal homes that are there. We are going to make a decision once we Article Key Code - SM - S.L.A.M. Magazine | MRG - Mayor Robert Garcia have all of the data and the information, I think that’s really important. SM: Also, right next to your office they are currently bringing down a huge building. We just saw your announcement for that on Facebook. It looks really cool, it is going on right now as we speak. But the other ground breaking development that you are working on is development around the Queen Mary! You put together a great team of people that are helping you develop that space surrounding it. I think that is really wonderful, Frank Gehry is a word-renowned architect. He built the Disney Hall in downtown Los Angeles, he’s worked for Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Did you seek him out? MRG: Those are two different projects but they are in the same area. The Queen Mary project is a project that we are looking at redeveloping about 40 acres around the Queen Mary. We have a task force that is looking to redevelop that right now which is really exciting. The Frank Gehry project is the L.A. River project. He is looking at doing a signature project along the L.A. River, based in Long Beach He’s come out a few times and he’s glad to be involved. Two separate projects kind of in the same area, but obviously Frank Gehry is probably one of the most well loved architects that’s currently anywhere on the planet alive. People love his work. I do personally; so that is very exciting to have him on board. The building that you were talking about initially that is in construction is this building that we are actually in right now. It is actually going to be closed down because we are going to go and move into the new part of the Civic Center. We are tearing an old building down, we are building the new City Hall and then this building will get torn down. SM: Wow, a lot of plans being built. As far as your role in being the Mayor, do you feel, because I also read that you are the first See Mayor Garcia, continued on page 40 StyleLifeAndMusic.com | 7