Gail Hookailo often takes her two young daughters to the playground next to Colorado Lagoon, which is nestled among a golf course and upscale homes on Long Beach’s eastern edge. But with the lagoon consistently ranking among the beaches with the worst water quality in California, the family draws the line at actually getting in its cool, calm waters.
Since she was a child, 17-year-old Sundance Medina has lived across the street from Drake Park in a low-income neighborhood north of Downtown Long Beach. However, after two shootings at the park when she was younger and frequent gang activity there through the years, Sundance hasn’t been able to enjoy the park much, staying cooped up in her home.
Fontana resident Deborah White has spent most of her life fishing along the Los Angeles County coast. “I’ve been fishing down here since I was knee-high to a duck,” she said this month while fishing at the Belmont Veterans Memorial Pier in Long Beach. And for most of her life, White and her husband Ray – along with other anglers – have had to be careful about which fish they eat.
Under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, state funding for HIV and AIDS programs was cut by more than half, $85 million, in the 2009-10 fiscal year. That included the entire budget for HIV prevention and testing, though about $12 million in federal funds was still available. That trend has continued since then, and no state funding for prevention and testing is proposed in the next fiscal year either under Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget as California continues to face a financial meltdown.