Long Beach Awarded $50,000 Grant to Prosecutor Environmental Cases

BY SIGNAL TRIBUNE | DECEMBER 16, 2011

Long Beach City Prosecutor Doug Haubert has secured a $50,000 environmental prosecution grant from the National Fish & Wildlife Foundation. “This grant is significant to Long Beach’s environmental prosecution program,” said City Prosecutor Doug Haubert. “Environmental prosecution has suffered in recent years due to budget cuts and this will help give us the resources to prosecute environmental cases.”

This is the first grant awarded to the city prosecutor’s office since 2007. Their office prosecutes over 15,000 misdemeanors each year, but the number of environmental cases filed by the city prosecutor has dropped in recent years. One of the goals of City Prosecutor Doug Haubert, who was elected to his first term last year, is to seek grant funds to offset budget cuts resulting from the Long Beach’s ongoing budget crisis.

This $50,000 grant is part of a larger sum that resulted from a federal plea agreement “for the enforcement of environmental and public safety regulations and the benefit, preservation, and restoration of the environment and ecosystems in the Central District of California.”
The grant will be administered by the California District Attorneys Association. Grant funds may only be used to reimburse the city prosecutor’s office for attorney time spent reviewing and prosecuting cases presented by the California Department of Fish & Game.