Long Beach City Council to return to virtual meetings amid COVID surge

At the start of Tuesday's Long Beach City Council meeting, Mayor Robert Garcia announced forthcoming city council meetings would be conducted virtually due to a surge of COVID cases.

Ready player two:

The Los Angles County of Public Health reported another record-breaking day with 37,215 new coronavirus cases and 30 additional deaths, with 1,614 positive cases belonging to Long Beach.

• The Omicron variant has caused other municipal governments to switch to a virtual format to slow the spread.

• According to Long Beach's COVID-19 dashboard, the city is reporting 17,000 plus cases in a single day and ", the current peak is 1.6 times higher than the 2020-2021 winter surge peak, which at its highest experienced 1,052 reported cases on a single day."

• Cal State Long Beach will start the 2022 spring semester primarily with online classes.

Let's do the time warp again:

On Wednesday, the Long Beach Health Department issued a new health order aligning with Los Angeles County's COVID protocols by lowering isolation and quarantine requirements from ten days to five.

• The next city council meeting will occur via Zoom on Jan. 18, those who would like to make public comments will have to call in or email the city clerk.

• During last Tuesday's meeting, guests had to wait in the lobby and were let into the council chamber to give their public comments.

Bill Pearl, the publisher of LB Report dead at 71

Photo courtesy of LB Reports

The LB Report's publisher Bill Pearl died Tuesday after a three-year battle with cancer, the LB Report announced.

Why he mattered:

Pearl was one of the most influential Long Beach journalists for the past two decades. He was ahead of his time creating an online local newspaper and was relentless in finding the truth, even if it angered Long Beach's political establishment. He showed that online local news could create a loyal audience and compete with the Press-Telegram and later the Post.

• Pearl got his start in radio in the 1960s as a disc jockey for a laundry list of stations across Southern California.

• He would later move to Long Beach and create the LB Report in the year 2000, "founded on the idea to keep politicians accountable and also keeping other local media outlets on their toes," the LB Report wrote on its Facebook page.

• Pearl's family says they intend for the website to continue to operate.

• Mr. Pearl was a significant inspiration for the creation of the Modern Times of Long Beach.

What they're saying:

• Councilmember Al Austin: "My deepest sympathy to family and many friends of LBReport.com publisher Bill Pearl. Bill cared about everything Long Beach and worked tirelessly for truth, transparency, and government accountability. May he rest in peace."

• The Long Beach City Prosecutor's Office: "No one will ever fully understand how much Bill Pearl influenced the City of Long Beach by covering the news. He was the watchful eye. He covered stories other outlets thought were not important, but those events turned out to be incredibly important, like the airport noise ordinance and terminal expansion. Bill was also an attorney so he could always explain deeper. This is a loss for Long Beach."

• Vice Mayor Rex Richardson: "Rest In Peace Bill. 🙏🏿🙏🏿🙏🏿 You’ve made a real difference. Long Beach won’t be the same without you."

Small plane makes emergency landing on Seal Beach

Screengrab of footage from eAt Greens for life YouTube page

A small Cessna plane made an emergency landing on the sands of Seal Beach Tuesday afternoon, per multiple reports.

Surely you can't be serious:

Seal Beach Police say they received a call at 12:38 p.m. of a plane landing near Eight Street.

• SBPD Lt. Nick Nicholas told the media the pilot reported engine trouble before using the shoreline of Seal Beach as a runway.

• The two occupants walked away from the emergency landing safe, and there was no apparent damage to the plane.

• In a news release, the National Transportation Safety Board won't investigate the incident due to "limited damage and lack of injuries," Seal Beach police said.