Jan. 7--LONG BEACH -- A City Council discussion on leasing or possibly selling the Long Beach Airport will be heard in open session, not in closed session as had been planned Tuesday.

Pressured by community advocates, the council voted unanimously Tuesday to publicly discuss the matter that City Manager Pat West has said called "leasing opportunities" that have been presented to the city by several large finance companies.

Mayor Bob Foster tried to allay concerns before the council voted to hold the open session at a future meeting. A date to discuss the airport has not yet been set.

"There is no deal, there is no offer, there is no proposal, there is not anything on selling or leasing the airport," Foster said. "There are a lot of questions. It may or may not be a good idea. I have my own doubts, I have a lot of questions about it, and this is only to talk about some things as we do with all real estate transactions because you have prices involved and economic data involved that you would not want to be public to give someone an upper hand in negotiations."

Community advocates pointed to the lack of an actual deal being on the table as the reason the matter shouldn't be heard in closed session.

"City management can't simply attach a real property address to some agenda item to keep a policy discussion secret," local blogger Bill Pearl told the council. "That's a pretext to evade the openness of the Brown Act."