Long Beach council to consider emergency declaration after hack

The Long Beach City Council will meet virtually on Friday to consider adopting a state of emergency proclamation after the city was hacked earlier this week.

After “a network security incident occurred” earlier this week, online systems including the city’s website were taken offline. As of Friday morning, longbeach.gov is again online, though it appears some functions are still unavailable.

The council’s vote would ratify a proclamation of emergency already issued by City Manager Tom Modica, the city said in a news release.

“If adopted, the emergency proclamation will streamline and strengthen City response efforts as it continues to investigate and resolve the incident … Emergency powers are needed to quickly deploy the City’s personnel, to facilitate additional contract authority if specialized services are needed to be procured quickly, to ensure continuity of the City’s operations, and to raise the level of purchase authority available to the City Manager to $1 million, and the Purchasing Agent to $500,000, to be in the best possible position to respond,” the release said.

The meeting to consider the emergency proclamation will begin at noon.

To join the meeting:

• Call 213-338-8477 and enter meeting ID: 958 2523 6717  
• Visit https://longbeach-gov.zoom.us/j/95825236717