Check out the latest episode of What's Next, Los Angeles? podcast, featuring Mike Bonin's interview with Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson. Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, below, or almost anywhere you get your podcasts.
Long Beach is the seventh-largest city in California and home to the nation's second-largest port, a booming "Space Beach" aerospace cluster, and more 2028 Olympic events than any city besides LA itself. Mayor Rex Richardson — the city's first Black mayor, just reelected outright in the primary with 57% of the vote — sits down to talk about how he got here: growing up between the Midwest and Long Beach, a first-generation college grad who slept on his family's couch, a labor organizer turned City Council member at 29.
We dig into what makes Long Beach run differently from LA — a governance structure that forces collaboration between mayor, council, and city manager, and a city that runs its own police, fire, port, airport, utilities, and one of only three independent health departments in California. He's candid about the budget cuts coming this year, and why he thinks they set the city up for a surplus down the line. Then we go regional: his two years standing up and chairing LACAHSA, LA County's affordable housing agency, and his new seat on the LA Metro board — where his top priority is fixing what he calls an unfair balance of representation for Long Beach and the Gateway Cities. Plus his real answer on fare-free transit, and whether he's eyeing LA County's new elected CEO seat.
Former Los Angeles City Councilmember Mike Bonin is a teacher, writer, activist, podcaster and local leader with nearly 30 years experience in government, politics, and public service.
