Bob Foster for Mayor
3747 Long Beach Blvd.
Long Beach, CA 90807
562-981-2359
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News
Bob Foster launches run for mayor of Long Beach
Bob Foster made his mayoral campaign official Monday, announcing his candidacy and emphasizing the role he played to prevent the city from partnering with Enron for electricity in the 1990s. The departing Southern California Edison president made his announcement in front of a downtown SCE building whose employees were brought to Long Beach as part of the city's electricity negotiations at the time. Foster said he would work to "return civility and a common sense of purpose to local government." "It is the job of a leader to extract the common strain from the discordant chorus," he said. Foster joins City Councilman Frank Colonna and former Councilman Doug Drummond in the race to replace Beverly O'Neill in April 2006. Candidates have until January to qualify for the ballot. The 58-year-old Foster is a bit of a political unknown. But he has already made a splash in the crucial fund-raising arena. He collected more t! han $150,000 in contributions through June 30 in the run-up to his announcement, twice what each of the top two candidates in 2002 collected during the same period. Based on 2002 campaign statistics, that would put Foster on pace to raise roughly $1 million. Friends and former colleagues described him as a successful businessman with the leadership skills to replace O'Neill, who will not seek a fourth term. Brian Bennett, a former SCE vice president, described Foster as a team-builder. ``What he's really good at is putting all sides together and getting them in a room and trying to reach an agreement,'' he said. Last month, Foster announced that he would step down from his SCE post on Sept. 30 to concentrate on his mayoral run. Foster also serves as a California State University trustee, a board member for the Aquarium of the Pacific and an advisory board member for Long Beach Memorial Miller Children's Hospital. After making the announcement, ! Foster picked up the endorsement of State Sen. Alan Lowenthal, who had once considered running for the position himself. Foster's most public role in Long Beach came in the late 1990s, when the city considered taking control of SCE's local distribution center. The plan would have partnered the city with Houston-based Enron Corp., which later collapsed after an accounting scandal. SCE, led by Foster, challenged the city's effort and eventually struck a 10-year deal to keep control of the grid. To keep its power agreement, SCE paid the city $5 million, gave Long Beach a downtown high-rise building that recently served as the city's temporary police headquarters and agreed to a sales tax-sharing deal that has paid the city $18 million to date. "I think Long Beach dodged a big bullet by not going with Enron,'' he said. On another energy front, Foster said he opposes the placement of a proposed liquefied natural gas terminal in the Port of Long Beach. LNG terminals are safe, he said, but not appropriate i! n urban settings. "In a heavily inhabited area in a post-9/11 world, it simply does not make sense to put an LNG facility in Long Beach,'' he said. Colonna and Drummond have also opposed the proposed terminal. Foster also pledged support for increasing the police force, including a tax to pay for officers if other revenue sources are not found. Foster is surrounding his campaign with political veterans. Among those is Mark Taylor, the chief of staff to City Councilman Dan Baker, who has been hired to help run Foster's campaign. Taylor will continue working part-time for Baker before taking a leave later this year, he said. Foster's political consultant is Parke Skelton, who spearheaded O'Neill's successful write-in campaign in 2002. Foster grew up in New York and San Jose and has lived in Long Beach for 11 years. He and his wife, Nancy, have two children and three grandchildren.
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Copyright (c) 2005 Press-Telegram
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