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Politics Sep 17, 2020
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Former Vice President Joe Biden walks with Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia as he gives a tour of the Gerald Desmond Bridge Replacement Project in Long Beach on Thursday, Jan. 9, 2020. Photo by Thomas R. Cordova. When Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia takes the virtual stage as one of 17 people to give Tuesday night’s keynote address at the Democratic National Convention, he’ll be representing California as the state’s only keynote speaker. He’ll also represent Long Beach as a city in transition and he’ll represent the LGBTQ community as a openly gay man. He’ll represent the Latino community as an immigrant from Peru. It’s an exciting time for the 42-year-old rising star in the Democratic party. But it’s also a time of enormous pressure. The mayor faces a city still reeling from the coronavirus pandemic and the civil unrest from the nation’s police brutality protests. And in the past three weeks, he lost both his mother Gaby O’Donnell, 61, and his stepfather Greg O’Donnell, 58, to complications from COVID-19. This week, he was planing his DNC speech while also planning for his stepfather’s funeral on Saturday. “I do have mixed emotions,” Garcia said in an interview Tuesday. “I […]
