Residents urge attendance at interfaith holiday event; raise broadband and drainage concerns

During public comment at the Nov. 24 meeting, residents promoted community events and raised infrastructure concerns.

Denise Hamilton invited the community to "A Night in Bethlehem," a free interfaith Christmas experience Dec. 12–14 at the Long Beach East Church, describing a live nativity, crafts, and charitable donation options. "This interfaith celebration invites the entire community to come together in joy and service," she said.

Joe Strapak, president of the Virginia Court Homeowners Association, told the council that aging buildings in Bellflower have failing telephone and internet cabling and said residents are experiencing degrading service from Comcast and Frontier. "We're getting poor and poor service from Comcast and from, Frontier... Frontier is very lazy about maintaining its already aged equipment," he said, and warned that cell towers lose power in outages, arguing for the continued need for hardwired connectivity.

Monica Mendez, a long-time Bellflower resident, said she lives near Artesia and Clark and that a clogged drainage gutter near the 9,300 block has produced putrid standing water for two to three months. She said property management and the water facility had been unhelpful and asked the city to route the issue to Public Works; a city staffer (identified in the meeting as Brian) agreed to navigate the complaint to the appropriate department.

Council and staff acknowledged the comments and indicated follow-up: staff directed fellow departments to investigate the drainage complaint and accepted the community event information for public dissemination.