Dear Friend --

Families across our city and country have begun gathering and celebrating Thanksgiving. This is my first Thanksgiving as a husband and I’m most grateful for Matt and our family.

I want to take a moment to show gratitude to all of Long Beach for another year working together. Serving as your Mayor is a responsibility I take seriously, and I am thankful for the opportunity to lead our city every day.

As I reflect on the year I am motivated by our progress—but also saddened by the losses we have endured and the work to solve homelessness we face as a state and community. We lost lives to gun violence and to irresponsible substance abuse and driving. As our city continues to mourn those we lost, I look forward to the work ahead to continue to honor them.

And this year I am thankful for our strong progress:

The Long Beach economy is booming with the lowest levels of unemployment in decades. In the past few years, we have seen historic growth, with new retail centers being opened across the city, breaking ground on what will be Long Beach’s tallest building, and a total of more than $5 billion in investment citywide.

This year so far, both violent and property crime are down. Homicides, which peaked in the 1990s, have steadily decreased every decade since. Our police department continues to work incredibly hard to keep us safe and implement the latest training and technology.

As you drive around our city during the holiday season, you’ll also notice much of Long Beach is under construction. Thanks to voters approving Measure A in 2016 we’ve invested more resources in our streets, parks and other public infrastructure than at any time in the last 40 years. This year alone we’ve paved 91 miles of streets and alleys.

Our education system remains strong. When I became Mayor in 2014, one of the first actions we took was having the City join Cal State Long Beach, Long Beach City College and the Long Beach Unified School District in becoming a full partner in the Long Beach College Promise. As a result, we’ve doubled the number of internships available to Long Beach students, made more students eligible for tuition-free classes at LBCC, and ensured qualified Long Beach students seats at CSULB.

And as we look to the coming new year, it’s a good time to remember the challenges we still face and need to continue to address. The entire state of California is in the middle of a homelessness and housing crisis. While we house approximately 1,000 people experiencing homelessness each year, more people fall into homelessness and need immediate support. The immense effort by the city and state is not enough and the housing affordability crisis is making homelessness even worse. I am hopeful these two challenges will remain front and center in the year ahead across our state.

I hope you have a great Thanksgiving weekend and I look forward to the holiday season ahead.

Go Long Beach and Happy Thanksgiving,

Mayor Robert Garcia