Rex Richardson
Rex Richardson is an American politician who has served as the mayor of Long Beach, California since 2022. A member of the Democratic Party, Richardson previously served as a member of the Long Beach City Council, representing the 9th District from 2014 until 2022.
Early life and career
Richardson was born on August 18, 1983, at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois. His father was a member of the United States Air Force and his mother worked for General Motors as a welder on their assembly line. His parents divorced when he was three or four years old, and he and his siblings relocated with their mother, living in Michigan, Minnesota, and Missouri before settling in Pickens County, Alabama, before moving to California when he was 11 years old. He graduated from Covina High School and enrolled at California State University, Dominguez Hills. He served as student body president, but dropped out of college without graduating to take a job as a community organizer for the Service Employees International Union Local 721.In 2010, Steve Neal, the member of the Long Beach City Council for the ninth district, hired Richardson as his chief of staff and tasked him with organizing community groups in the district. In 2014, Neal ran for the California Assembly, and Richardson was elected to the city council to succeed him. In 2015, he rolled out the My Brother's Keeper Challenge to Long Beach. He was elected vice mayor of Long Beach in 2016. Richardson returned to college through remote learning in 2020, and completed his bachelor's degree from Cal State Dominguez Hills.
Mayor of Long Beach
Election
Richardson announced his candidacy for the mayoralty of Long Beach in January 2022, upon Robert Garcia's retirement to run for the United States House of Representatives. He received the endorsements of Senator Alex Padilla, Governor Gavin Newsom, and the outgoing Mayor Garcia.In the June 7 primary election, Richardson and fellow councilor Suzie Price received the most votes, but since no candidate received a majority of the votes, the election advanced to a runoff. Richardson would win the runoff election on November 8, 2022, becoming the first Black mayor of Long Beach.
Tenure
Richardson was sworn in on December 20, 2022.Appointments
The city of Long Beach, California uses a council-manager system. This means that policy-making authority lies within an elected governing body: the city council. Mayors can, however, make certain appointments.In 2022, Long Beach voters approved the formation of a new Police Oversight Commission. To serve as its first commissioner, Richardson appointed former Sacramento County Inspector General Francine Kerridge. Her duties include investigating instances of unnecessary force and broader trends within the department.
Richardson cited increasing diversity as a major influencing factor in his appointment decisions. He has appointed 32 commissioners, 53% are women and 59% are members of racial minority groups.
Major Local Issues
Long Beach Housing Promise
The Long Beach Housing Promise was proposed by Rex Richardson and approved by City Council members in April 2023. Richardson launched the initiative to create more affordable housing opportunities for students and their families and to identify more opportunities for homeless prevention programs in Long Beach. In creating this program, Richardson worked directly with the president of California State University, Long Beach, the president and superintendent of Long Beach City College, and the superintendent of the Long Beach Unified School District.Grow Long Beach Initiative
The Grow Long Beach Initiative is a long-term plan to expand Long Beach's economy. The purpose of the initiative is to find alternative revenue sources in order to help reduce the city's long standing reliance on fossil fuels and oil. The initiative focuses mainly on two industries: tourism and aerospace and aviation. Even so, the city is exploring other highly profitable industries such as healthcare, the Port of Long Beach and its supply chain, education, hospitality, and the arts. One of the recent developments of this initiative is the construction of a Hard Rock Hotel in downtown Long Beach. On November 13, 2023, Richardson formally announced the Hard Rock Hotel project. Richardson said the project aligns directly with the Grow Long Beach Initiative, because the construction of the hotel will help to increase tourism and transform downtown Long Beach into a thriving entertainment district.Major Economic Development Wins
Since Richardson came into office the City of Long Beach has seen a net gain of over 4,000 new high wage jobs inclusive of positions in aerospace, space, advanced manufacturing, technology, and electric vehicle design and engineering.On January 10, 2023 at Richardson's first State of the City address at the Terrace Theater he announced that Vast, a space technology company building space stations, would be relocating their headquarters from El Segundo, CA to Long Beach bringing 700 jobs by 2027, shared their new facility will consist of two buildings for a total of nearly 115,000 square feet, allowing plenty of room for future growth.
On June 26, 2023, Richardson announced that ExLabs a next-generation spacecraft manufacturer, building the foundation for sustainable space exploration and access to off-planet resources had selected Long Beach for its headquarters and advanced manufacturing facilities.
On September 13, 2023, Richardson joined the senior leadership of Blue Shield of California as he cut the ribbon on a massive 136,000 square foot new state of the art office complex that will be home to 1,000 Blue Shield of California employees.
On September 28, 2023 at Richardson's new annual economic development presentation held at the Aquarium of the Pacific called Grow Long Beach he announced that TaChen International USA, a leading distributor of stainless steel and aluminum sheets, plates and tubes would be expanding in Long Beach and opening a new 120,000 square foot headquarters.
On October 4, 2023 Richardson cut the ribbon on Rocket Lab's new 144,000 square foot advanced manufacturing complex that will support the high-rate production of Rocket Lab’s 3D printed Rutherford engine, as well the development and production for the new Archimedes engine that will power the Rocket Lab's new medium-lift rocket, Neutron.
On January 9, 2024, at his second State of the City, Richardson announced that JetZero an innovative aircraft developer had chosen Long Beach for a massive seven building campus totaling over 275,000 square feet which will be the company’s headquarters and a hub for innovation in commercial aviation design and manufacturing. Also announced that night the Orange County headquartered Swing Set Productions had selected Long Beach to be the home of its new headquarters offering expanded turnkey production and postproduction services. Additionally, that same night Biogas Engineering an engineering procurement and construction company announced they had selected Long Beach for its new headquarters.
On June 26, 2024, at his second annual Grow Long Beach presentation Richardson was joined on stage by Doug Field and Alan Clarke two senior executives for Ford Motor Company to announce that Long Beach was selected to be the home of Ford's new Advanced Electric Vehicle Development Center also branded as their "Skunkworks" campus. The new campus would have two buildings totaling over 250,000 square feet for the research and development of Ford's next generation of electric vehicles and will be home to 450 Ford engineers.
Also announced by Richardson on June 26, 2024, hybrid electric airplane developer and cleantech company selected Long Beach as their new headquarters relocating from Hawthorne to the Long Beach Airport.
On December 2, 2024, Richardson joined the ownership and management teams of the new for their official ribbon cutting ceremony. The Fairmont Breakers is a restored hotel that had originally opened in 1926 and had been designated an historic landmark in 1989 before turning into an assisted living facility. The newly restored hotel has 185 guest rooms, two fine dining restaurants, three bars, a pool, spa, several meeting rooms and an incredible rooftop bar with 365-degree views from the Pacific Ocean to the San Gabriel Mountains. The opening of the Fairmont Breakers not only added much needed hotel capacity but also represented a reinvestment in the historic downtown core.
On January 2, 2025, Richardson joined the ownership and development team of the for its grand opening and ribbon cutting ceremony. The newly renovated midcentury modern hotel had been opened originally in 1962 as a roadside inn but had grown tired and blighted. The new boutique hotel includes 50 rooms, pool, a newly designed outdoor courtyard and restaurant and its reopening marked a major turning point in downtown Long Beach's East Village neighborhood.
On January 14, 2025, Richardson cut the ribbon at the grand opening of the Nikon Advanced Manufacturing Technology Center, a first of its kind R&D facility in Long Beach, which will serve as a hub for Nikon, Nikon SLM Solutions and Nikon AM Synergy. The 90,000 square foot campus will support aerospace, defense, aviation, space and automotive advanced manufacturing needs.
On February 19, 2025, Richardson was joined on a stage inside the lobby of Long Beach's city hall by senior executives from as they announced that the defense technology company developing advanced space superiority systems, chose Long Beach for expansion into Southern California with a 90,000 square foot factory. The factory will serve as the company’s footprint for new product development and vertical integration and include 20,000 square feet of office space for True Anomaly’s growing employee base.
On August 22, 2025, Richardson hosted a fireside chat and was joined on stage by the founders of a space and defense technology company developing a high thrust space vehicle that will be stationed in orbit for satellite defense; to announce they selected Long Beach for their headquarters and advanced manufacturing facilities.