Having apparently finally run out of things to study, the New York-based travel and economic development marketing firm DCI has completed a report on which U.S. mayors make the best use of Twitter.
Followers of our mayor Robert Garcia will not be surprised to find that the study puts him at No. 10 out of 250 mayors in the nation.
Garcia is an avid user of the brisk social medium, blasting out tweets about where he’s eating, where he’s biking, where he’s cutting a ribbon or breaking ground and, most recently, how excited he is about the critical failure/box-office smash, “Batman v Superman.” He is, if you didn’t know, a huge, huge fan of Superman and he now hates movie critics.
We were going to call him up about this latest honor, but we figured we have a greater success in Twitterviewing him. So we did.
Q: So how proud RU of your Twitter honor?
A: This was my reaction when I heard (he posts a gif of Harrison Ford n “Star Wars” making a “who, me?” gesture).
Q: Yeah, I saw that on your Twitter page (@RobertGarciaLB). Would you classify yourself as nerd (proudly, or somewhat abashedly)?
A: Very proudly (he tweets a nerd emoticon; buck teeth, big glasses, etc.).
Q: Were you sad when Batman won?
A: Batman didn’t win. Superman always wins.
Q: Oh, I didn’t see it. I just thought that Batman would win.
Q: I’m going with the film critics on this one.
A: Well, the movie was the biggest superhero box office debut of all time, so I’ll stick with the fans. Fans > critics.
Q: Trump gets millions of votes.
A: Trump is Lex Luthor.
Q: If you’re Superman, what is your faithful columnist?
A: Jimmy Olsen. Or maybe Perry White.
A: Did you see this tweet? (He posts a screenshot of a tweet from someone responding to Garcia’s Han “Who, Me?” Solo tweet, with “Does that make Tim Gorbaty (sic) your Greedo?”)
We don’t know what anybody’s talking about at this point.
Q: The only comic books I read were Archie. Maybe Sgt. Rock.
A: I’m yanking your nerd card.
Q: Enough about comics. Do citizens tweet you a lot?
A: Yes, they do. I have two Twitter handles. The other is @LBMayorsOffice.
A: That is a city handle that is mostly handled by staff.
A: I get resident requests all the time.
A: For example, this weekend a resident reported a broken water pipe to me on Twitter, tagged me and I reached out to the water department and now they are handling it.
A: I get requests to fix streets and other things all the time on Twitter.
Q: Are you a hipster?
A: I don’t think so, but I do like good coffee, riding bikes and hang out on Retro Row for good food.
Q: When is Long Beach going free WiFi?
A: We’re moving in that direction. We’ve started with free WiFi in all libraries, in our community centers and many of our parks. Now we’re working to expand to business corridors. It’s a big project.
Q: Thanks for your time. Maybe I’ll see “Batman v Superman” when it’s on Channel 5.
A: Go see it sooner!
Contact Tim Grobaty at tim.grobaty@langnews.com or @grobaty on Twitter.
