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LongBeachCC_10132015_15-1063 | Speaker 0: Okay. Now we're going to move on to new business. We have one item, which is item 24.
Speaker 1: Communication from Councilman Andrews, Councilman Price, Councilmember Wodonga recommendation to refer to the Parks and Recreation Commission to revoke the new senior water exercise fee at Martin Luther King Jr. Pool and Silverado Pool as well as all city pools and report back to city council.
Speaker 0: Okay. There is, you know, can we back up the.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 0: Councilman Andrews, I think it's your right.
Speaker 4: Yes. Yes. Thank you, Mayor. You know, on September the 17th, the Parks and Recreation Commission voted to increase the fees of the senior water aerobics classes at King and Silverado. A new fee was established at $2 a class or 4 to $450 a year per year individual. The average income in the city of Long Beach is $26,000 annually, which is below the national poverty level. Creating this new fee places an unnecessary burden on our aging population, as well as creating a burden to the physical activities to our older adults. I am simply asking our Parks and Recreation Commission to revoke the fee for seniors and look into taking other steps to increase their mainstream attendance to offset the pool cars by promoting pool use with families or additional programs to increase the revenue.
Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you. There's been a motion and a second. Any public comment on the item? CNN. Please cast your vote, please. Oh, I'm sorry about that. Councilman Price.
Speaker 6: Thank you. I just want to make sure that this would be to all polls citywide, correct?
Speaker 4: Yes.
Speaker 6: So that seniors would have the same.
Speaker 4: All the seniors. Okay.
Speaker 6: Thank you.
Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you. Members, please cast your votes.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Councilwoman Mongo.
Speaker 3: Motion carries.
Speaker 0: Thank you. With that, we have any final public comment. Anyone is in the audience seeing none and any new business that counts. I'm going to share with Councilman Andrews. Okay. He has nothing. That's a first councilman. Your anger. | Agenda Item | Recommendation to refer to the Parks and Recreation Commission to revoke the new senior water exercise fee at Martin Luther King, Jr. Pool and Silverado Pool, as well as, all City Pools and report back to City Council. | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_10062015_15-0989 | Speaker 1: Great. Well, thank you very much again, guys, and thanks for coming down. Thank you. Okay. We're moving on to Madam Cook to hearing one.
Speaker 2: A report from Economic and Property Development. Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record. Conclude the hearing and adopt resolution approving the Long Beach Tourism Business Improvement Area Program. An assessment for the period of October 1st, 2015 through September 30th, 2016, and authorize the City Manager to execute an agreement with the Long Beach Area Convention Visitors Bureau for one year term districts one, two, four and five.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I'm going to turn this over to city staff.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Members of the city council. I believe Steve's going to have a very exciting presentation for us today about all the great work that our CVB does and his partners here in the audience. But first, I'd like to turn it to my Conway to give the staff report for the hearing. Mayor Garcia, members of City Council, the Long Beach Area Convention and Visitors Bureau promotes and markets the city of Long Beach as a tourism destination, using funds generated through self-assessment of hotel properties located in Long Beach Tourism Business Improvement Area. The Self-Assessment District was established June 21st, 2005. City Council action this evening request approval of the continuation of the program in assessment and to authorize the city manager execute an agreement with the CVB for an additional one year term. The CVB continues to promote and market the city of Long Beach at an unparalleled level of excellence at its helm as its President and Chief Operating Officer. It is my pleasure to introduce Mr. Steve Goodling.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 9: Thank you, Mike. Hi, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Council members, city management. We appreciate the opportunity to be here this evening and present to you an update of what's been happening in the last 12 months. Also, honestly, I think it's the best private public partnership that I've had the privilege of being part of. It's between the business improvement district and the moneys from the city. It truly has helped us create a really strong economic environment within our city. That economic environment is over $300 million impact out of the top five industries in Long Beach. Tourism is the second. Manufacturing, which includes the port is the first. In addition, this last year, another benchmark is over 23. Almost $24 million was collected in bed tax. This is Council Member Andrews favorite favorite number four. For every $1 that we receive in the city contract, we generate $6 in return and we're really pleased with that number because I think it shows the efficiency and and the effect of what we're able to accomplish. If you look at the last five years, in 2011, it was 17 million, then 18 million, then 19 million. Last year, 21 million. This year, 23, almost 24. In five years. That has been a $6 million increase in total collections or a 35% increase as a city. And with our hotel partners and our entire hospitality community, we could not have achieved those successes without a really strong, dynamic relationship with our partners in the city. But also the economy has been extremely strong as well, and we've all benefited as a city and as individual businesses because of that. One of the key marks that helped us, that helped separate us from the competition was the opening of the Pacific Rim. This occurred roughly 18 months ago. Since that room opened, we've booked an additional $100 million in economic conventions. And basically what we're hearing from the clients is this room separates us from the competition. They can come in. It's turnkey. They don't have to spend a lot of money for extra rigging, lighting, sound. It's all they have to do is tell us what colors they want. And $100 million is a really, really significant number in terms of our overall outreach when you think 300 million a year. So that room has done a significant, significant job for us. In addition, on a smaller scale this year in our city, we will have four holiday events, corporate holiday events that normally actually never met in our city. They were outside of our city because we didn't have the facilities large enough to accommodate from 1200 to 2000 and more people. But the Pacific Room is making a huge headway into into this other segment, which is bringing additional people from the Southland into Long Beach and seeing all the transformations. At this time, I'd like to show you a video and you can hear from some of our other clients what exactly the Pacific Room is doing within our niche.
Speaker 0: Long Beach is on the map in a way that it never.
Speaker 3: Has been before. Amazing. Breathtaking.
Speaker 6: I love this space.
Speaker 3: It was one of the.
Speaker 0: Most diverse, flexible meeting spaces I believe we've ever seen. An incredible array of different types of venues and options of flexibility. Astonishing. I've never seen anything like it. The wow factor was throughout the entire night.
Speaker 3: They've made lighting a turnkey event that you can change your mind in just a few minutes to change the whole design.
Speaker 12: Literally, there are millions of colors and combinations and all the things that you could do with a light.
Speaker 3: 180 pin point light. So you're going to have 180 tables and it could cover the whole table or we can make it too small enough to cover the center.
Speaker 0: There's a particular color for your brand, your association, your conference, ask for it and you shall receive it.
Speaker 12: I was completely blown away. The functionality, the production equipment.
Speaker 11: There, there's nothing like it that I have seen so far.
Speaker 3: The group with any budget can impress in.
Speaker 11: This room such a.
Speaker 6: Great venue. You can use it for.
Speaker 12: Just about anything from a general session to your.
Speaker 6: Closing night party. You can use it for a concert.
Speaker 12: Or even a welcome reception where you're just doing.
Speaker 6: Cocktails, great food and networking.
Speaker 11: I was talking to colleagues in the UK about it before I came and showing them the video and they were all gathered around the computer going, Oh my.
Speaker 3: God, this is huge. We have a lot of members of our association that are Hollywood studios, TV companies, other creative companies from around the world. So it gives them a chance to show off their creativity.
Speaker 0: Using it, using the facilities here.
Speaker 6: It's going to save the meeting planners a ton of money to the fact that they have all the rigging and lighting that's going to be included.
Speaker 0: What is innovative about this space is the ability to transform the environment into an immersive media based space.
Speaker 3: The way they can drop the drapes and the lighting and the ceiling that they put in is just incredible. What we've created is essentially a technical ceiling, so it's a large metal structure and then a surrounding curtain wall essentially comes around and creates the sidewalks. The graphic ability of the curtains with projection is really unless you can walk in there and feel you're in a fish tank if you wanted to. I was here earlier when it was just a bare arena, and then when I came back it was like I stepped into another world. A planner can craft an event with very little effort now and totally cost effectively. Can really wow and not have to worry about thousands and hundreds of thousands of surprise dollars. It is a big palette to tell a big immersive story. It's an event planner, event producer.
Speaker 0: Event promoters dream come true.
Speaker 3: And an attendee a dream.
Speaker 0: Come true to experience all that.
Speaker 9: Mayor Garcia, Vice Mayor Lowenthal, also Councilmember Andrews, you were three that were on the council at the time. Your vote helped us achieve $100 million economic impact. So thank you for that support and will continue to deliver on that. In addition, this past June, we were in Washington, D.C. The mayor cleared his schedule. Mayor Garcia, we appreciate that there is no mayor of any city that actually goes back to Washington to meet with clients. They usually meet with everyone else but clients. Right. And so for Mayor Garcia to be with us, it made a large impact. And we had at that time over eight customer events, 300 customers and 28 partners from Long Beach. Traveling with us to D.C. recognized it. It was a flutter in both social media and also on the ground. In addition, last week we had a site inspection. The mayor had a chance to spend time at one of our events with a meeting planner and her son and mayor. We're pleased to report that as of today, we're about 95% probability of booking an 8000 room night convention because of your efforts. And and it really did your your dialog with the planner and her son at that time meant a lot, and it actually made the city more personal for them. And then when they came out and saw the city, they felt everything was the perfect fit. So thank you for blocking that time. In addition, another great community event this past year was we had the opportunity to host the World Games for Special Olympics, and Jane Netherton is a board member of Special Olympics in Southern California, also a board member of the CVB. And our past chair and Jane reached out and asked all of us if we would be glad to host the athletes coming in from China. And as you can tell from these pictures, we had a full community turnout. There is Councilmember Urahn shuffling in a little bit and Lew and Bynum and then. DH I'm sorry, but somehow the Chinese got the things behind the ears. But anyway, but we really, really appreciate all of you coming out this summer and welcoming the contingency from China. They had a blast. They had a phenomenal experience. And they left going back to China with a really, really warm spot of Long Beach. And that went a long way, especially considering they're one of our major trading partners. Jane Netherton on our farewell. It was a tearful farewell morning, but Jane also has a few words to share on Special Olympics and the event itself. Jane.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 12: Steve. Mayor Garcia, council members. I would like to also add my personal thanks to all of you. The city, the city departments, Parks and Rec was amazing. They came out and one of our days was in Eldorado Park and it was just outstanding. Fire and Belize, we had so much cooperation. It was it was really great. There was an issue on transportation. I'm not sure many of you heard about it. But on that Tuesday night when our athletes were supposed to be delivered to us, that did not happen. And so about 230, 330 in the morning, we managed to get taxicabs and I wonder how we did that. And some shuttles and we brought our athletes to Long Beach to where they were able to sleep in the beds in the university that we had arranged. The next day, the Chinese consulate came out to Long Beach personally with his staff to say thank you to Long.
Speaker 11: Beach for making.
Speaker 12: That extra effort so that their contingency from China did not sleep on the floor in a gymnasium. And he was very grateful for that, but made that personal trip out, which I thought was a big step and just, I think Long Beach and said, if we ever need to get older of and we have cards and he would look forward to helping us any way that he could. Also, the Council of Council Member, we have a commendation from the county for a Long Beach as being a host town. They had us at their meeting the host town chairs and presented the accommodation for the city of Long Beach, which belongs with you, Mayor Garcia. And it just shows that they are they acknowledge we were we were the top of the top when it came down to what we ended up doing for three days. It was all about Long Beach and how well they were received here. So thank you all for making that happen.
Speaker 9: In addition to Special Olympics and host town. And thank you, Jane. Jane's heart and soul was in that and it was evident throughout the entire time. And it really was a complete community effort. The Queen Mary, the aquarium, everyone everyone came came to the table and actually helped make it just a memorable time. This past week, our hotel community also came together as another community initiative, and the police department came to us. And they had also spoke with Jane earlier about the special victims, those of domestic abuse, sexual abuse and elderly and children crimes. And when these things occur, they need a place for safe haven, sometimes immediately, because they're trying to extricate them out of an environment. And so they wanted some place that they could put them with budgets being constrained as they are. They had asked if there could be help in our hotels, have stepped up to the plate, all of them. There hasn't been one that said no. And they have said that they would provide complimentary vouchers for our police department to use so that when there are experiences and we have to find a safe home for an evening until they can relocate these victims into a better environment, they have accommodations in our hotels here in Long Beach, so we'd like to thank our hotels for doing that as well and for the police department for reaching out on that issue. I in other community. Yeah, it's. Another community effort which which we really like. Everyone understands social and how social media has really changed everything that we're doing. And so we wanted to reach out to the community and say, Hey, show us your Long Beach. How do you see Long Beach? And so we, to our surprise, had 38 submissions for a video contest. This video contest last spring culminated in a social media reach of over 15 million. And what does that exactly mean? Let me give you one example. Chaz Curry, who's a gentleman sitting here. Chaz was our award winning video for the entire contest. And Justin Rudd told me that Chaz, his video was the quickest viral upload he's ever seen in his history. And he had over a half million views of his video and 15,000 shares and look at all the likes he had. I mean, it was an amazing success. And and Chaz brought that into our contest. There were others, too, like Charles Whitehead. And Charles also came to council not too long ago, presented this great song. And of course, many of you said, go talk to the CVB. He did add. And we liked we liked what we heard and we liked where Charles was going with it. So so we encouraged Charles to enter into this video contest. Well, long story short, the videos were so phenomenal and the quality was so phenomenal. We had asked everyone, do we have the rights to your material? And they all, of course, said yes. And so we amalgamated all these different videos into one community video, which we took with us to Washington, D.C. to showcase Long Beach. At this time, we'd like to share with you are what we consider to be our community. Video of Long Beach.
Speaker 10: This place just south of L.A., where the people.
Speaker 11: So I mean, it's up for you to see.
Speaker 0: You could take the family tree like the Queen.
Speaker 10: Membership and the Aquarian. Once a year you'll see.
Speaker 0: Cars, racing, industry, people come.
Speaker 11: From everywhere. Check it out the way.
Speaker 10: You go to see the show.
Speaker 0: The place you want to go. A lot of people want to be here in.
Speaker 10: Down in the water. Here. You can see the skyline. You can even see the.
Speaker 0: That's been all the time. From the shoreline could take off on.
Speaker 10: Oh. Hang out with me.
Speaker 0: People seem to be in this way.
Speaker 12: The market.
Speaker 10: The people want for me. Just see something's always going on. Be. Be understanding that we're way downtown with our town. I go in. Downtown.
Speaker 0: You might.
Speaker 10: Long Beach. You might just be in Long Beach.
Speaker 0: You might be in Long Beach. You might just be in Long Beach. You might.
Speaker 9: Thank you. And also, could we thank Charles White add again and Charles Curry for these great, great templates. They gave us the opportunity to create this great city video. So, Charles. This year is also an exciting year of new firsts. The first was the Formula E race. Formula E is coming back again. We are the only city in North America this year. Monte Carlo, Beijing, Long Beach. Nice combination. And so. So with Formula E, we also had another new event this year and it was called Powell. And Powell hit the seat, hit the streets and hit the scene rather quickly. And we like to thank Pat West and city management for helping us work through this very quickly and getting all the permits done. And John Hall is here as well. John and Julia Wang and also Ron Nelsen from Long Beach Museum of Art. They brought this concept to us. We fell in love with it. We said, okay, how do we run with it? And so we worked with them and won the permitting and everything else. And then we we also took ads out in the Los Angeles magazine. We wanted the folks in Los Angeles to know that actually, we, too, have our own vibe and our own in our own hipness. And quite honestly, it was quite fun because L.A. came down afterwards and wanted to meet with Powell and see if they could expand beyond Long Beach. And and the reality is, is they're very happy in Long Beach. And so.
Speaker 1: I told them now.
Speaker 9: And and Jasper Wong, who is the founder of Powell, actually said he felt more at home here than in his hometown in Hawaii. So, Mayor, you, Mark Taylor, our city management team, everyone made him feel welcome. But you saw all the great artwork that was left and they're coming back again next year. In addition to the ads that we took out in L.A. magazine for the summertime, promoting promoting Long Beach and encouraging people to come down to Long Beach and see these ads. We also worked a collaborative effort with the Queen Mary and the aquarium this year. And for the first time, we had four pages in the Sunset Magazine and in triple j's West Ways Magazine, promoting Long Beach as a destination with the aquarium and the queen. So there were a lot of firsts this year, and those were all wonderful. I add at this time, I just would like to to conclude by saying what we keep hearing from our customers. And I just heard it again last week. We had, you know, we had the Unitarian Church here, and they were blown away at how this community espouses a lot of what they espouse. And they've never seen a community work together between elected city officials, city management and also the private sector. And I hear that weekly. And so one, we'd like to thank all of you for helping us in our effort to sell and promote Long Beach. Pat, Tom, we'd like to thank you as well. And SMG, the operator of our convention center, has been a wonderful partner as well, making our jobs a lot easier and also all of our hotel partners if our board could stand and just be recognized. And if the board could stay standing and if staff could stand. Please. And lastly, with over 400 business members and the second largest industry in our city, could all of our partners stand? Be. I will share with you together. And I hear this constantly. It's this. It's this grouping that makes it insurmountable and hands down, we continue to win because of it. So anyway, I'd like to share our customers comments with you. And again, thank you for your support this year. We really appreciate it.
Speaker 3: All that you may have heard about Long Beach in the past, that's out the door. That's passé. Long Beach is a real gem, one of the best kept secrets in the convention business.
Speaker 12: A little mini paradise.
Speaker 3: Long Beach is Southern California personified.
Speaker 11: Talk about a great package. Have all the big city.
Speaker 6: Services and amenities that you need. But you have this wonderful small town charm.
Speaker 3: There in a resort location. But at a convention center.
Speaker 12: The nicest thing is that it's a wonderful city. Two steps out. The convention center. You're right down.
Speaker 2: On the water. Everything is close enough, you know, within two, three, four.
Speaker 12: Blocks to find anything you could possibly need.
Speaker 3: There are hotels are so close to each other, it's almost like a campus. There's so much to do here. You just walk out the front door and take a look. Are we going to go there or they're there? Everything's at your fingertips. The aquarium, the Queen Mary.
Speaker 11: There's music. There's arts.
Speaker 12: There's places to go and dance.
Speaker 3: The hundreds of restaurants.
Speaker 12: And everything from your basic and expensive restaurant to.
Speaker 0: You know, your beautiful four or.
Speaker 11: Five star type dining.
Speaker 3: Restaurants. Long Beach is the only city where you actually leave your blinds open in night because of the lighting. Transportation in and out of out of the city is very, very important to us. There are three.
Speaker 12: Different airports that attendees can plan to from first tier, second tier, third tier and little itty bitty country towns.
Speaker 3: Which had great access to all parts of the world. When you experience the center, you'll recognize right away that it's not your typical normal brick and mortar convention center. I have two conferences in most convention centers in the United States. This is the only one that has this much versatility within the center already built. And there are so.
Speaker 12: Many great spaces, whether you're looking for something inside or outside. Small, medium, large.
Speaker 6: You can find it here. People love.
Speaker 12: The space. They come here and they love the casualness of it, and people just want to hang out here. The layout of the center is very easy.
Speaker 3: A lots of little, almost cozy little places for people to gather and can be. I saw more people networking within the convention center and not within the hotels. Our people loved it. We had all kinds of tables set up outside. The weather was gorgeous. The weather's always gorgeous here. We had to do a party for, you know, 10,000 people. And it turned out to be one of the most successful parties in our company's history. What attracted us to Long Beach was, number one, the people.
Speaker 11: Everyone was super happy to have us and they knew us and people.
Speaker 3: Who are working in the restaurants and working in the hotels all the way up to the mayor of Long Beach from top to bottom. Long Beach is a unique venue that people will enjoy and want to come back to if you want to be assured of sunshine. Of happy people, of great service and a variety of things to do before and after your meeting. One which is for you. On a scale of 1 to 10, I give Long Beach a ten. If it weren't a ten, we wouldn't be coming to Long Beach.
Speaker 12: I think Long Beach really is the total package. I wish I could put every convention I ever planned in Long Beach.
Speaker 9: And if. And if you if you couldn't read that last meeting, planners from the National Retail Federation. Right. What great clients to have in our city. So anyway, thank you again for your support. We've appreciated it greatly and thank you for your time this evening.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you, Steve. We have a couple comments and I'll close. Close us out, Vice Mayor Lowenthal.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And we could not have a better cheerleader for our city. I know that the mayor and I talk often about what a great job you do, Steve. And so earlier when we walked in, we thought, oh, my gosh, what's on the agenda? Why are all these people here? So I'm glad it's for a good thing and nothing that caught us by surprise. No one can turn people out the way you can as well. But I wanted to thank you for all your hard work, your board, your staff. You have a very hardworking board. Of course you have a hardworking staff. But a lot of times board members are there to give you advice. But you have a very active board, and I see how hard Jane works and Bill and others. And so there is something to be said about your leadership that you're able to draw that out of your board as well as your staff. And we get a lot of high praise. I know Steve said quite a bit about the high praise we get in other cities in our ability to host conferences, but we are quite unique here, you know, saying that we might be a boutique conference culture conference community might be appropriate. This is a place where conferences can come and feel like the star of the show. And because they're not paired with two and three other conferences happening in the West Wing, in the East Wing, it's just them. And so I think that's something very special and you're able to capture that and all of the renovations that have taken place at the Convention Center with the city's partnership and this council and previous councils, really my entire nearly ten years here, I think we have delivered a beautiful project, a beautiful gem. And I want to thank you for showcasing it, taking the show on the road and bringing more and more people to come here. I do want to thank you. You didn't mention it, but it is our next big thing that your ongoing support for our soon to be constructed pedestrian bridge, which would link the performing arts theater and the convention center. And that's something that's much needed. Of course, people find their way around, but for us to be able to make this easier, that connectivity easier, is going to be something magnificent. And I think it will open up other demographics of conferences, visitors and users just because we added that amenity. So thank you and keep reminding us that we need to keep investing in our CVB.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Vice Mayor. Councilwoman Mongo.
Speaker 2: I really want to thank our hotel partners for what you're doing for the victims of crimes here in Long Beach. That's really remarkable and first rate. And it's it's not often found in local areas. And so to have that partnership with you is amazing. Thank you. To our cab partners and supporting the Special Olympics. I remember the morning that I heard on the news that all those other cities were sleeping on gym floors. And I was really proud to know that our convention and visitors bureau, our team of people, comes together to find solutions. We never let bureaucracy get in the way of finding solutions that make sure that people feel welcome here in Long Beach. And then finally to the staff of the CVB for taking my endless calls and questions, ensuring that any policy we make here doesn't impact our convention business, and that any potential convention or meeting I ever attend . I always solicit them to come here. And I know you've done a lot of packages and many of them have resulted in great bookings and some of them haven't yet developed yet. And I look forward to each and every one of those organizations finding the right time to come here and saying, You know what? Long Beach is the best place I'm going to fall in love with Long Beach. Thank you, everyone.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Councilwoman Price.
Speaker 6: Thank you. I want to echo the comments of my colleagues. It's a real pleasure to have all of you here tonight. So thank you. You do turn out in large numbers. And I did say to the vice mayor when I walked out. I think I'm missing some big item on the agenda or something. What is happening. So thank you very much for being such a positive energy to our council chambers this evening. You do amazing work and you do amazing work as a team. Certainly you're led by Steve and he does an excellent job setting the tone for the organization and everyone who's associated with it. But really, the commitment that you all have to providing the best service experience for those who visit and those who do business here is it's just infectious every time you come and speak to us and every time any one of us experiences one of your events or program. So thank you very much for making us look good. And I know I've said to Steve many times that I speak for my colleagues when I say that we're here to be ambassadors for you and everything that you're trying to do and we support what you're trying to do for the city. I think it's it's fantastic. I will say, Mr. Whitehead, the next time I would like to see Belmont Shore, Long Beach, you know, something like that, aquatics, capital, you know, something like that. Maybe we can do a different video focusing on our love for sailing in the third district. But I think that is such a catchy song. My kids actually sing it because they watch council meeting on occasion, and the last time we played it they were so excited that they were singing it for a few days. And so I love that. I love the local energy and that that the heart that comes from what you guys are doing. So thank you very much for being here and for starting our meeting off on such a positive light. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Councilmember Gringa.
Speaker 9: I guess you should also include a town. Long Beach town. Long Beach. Westside. Long Beach.
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 9: I mean, we have, I think more than anything else, it's an expression of how what a great community we have in Long Beach in regards to not only the people who live here, but the people who work here. And, of course, the CVB and the great work that you do in being able to market. Long Beach is all about branding and marketing, and if there's any one thing that I want to say is that we've done this with a measure that we passed in 2012 measure and that raise the salaries of hotel workers. And the sky did not fall on the opposite. It grew and it's looking better all the time. And we have people who love Long Beach, who want to come here, want to spend their money here. I have the Coastal Commission here. They're going to spend their money up all this week here. But it's it's it's it's a measure of how resilient Long Beach really is and how the business community, the hotels, can really step up and deliver. And it's and it's all because Steve Gooding is just a great cheerleader. And I'm looking forward to a result of our minimum wage study because I know we're going to step up again and we're going to do just as well, if not even better and greater, for the community of Long Beach. And I want to congratulate you on the job well done. Looking forward to having the National League of Cities in Long Beach. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much, Councilman Andrew.
Speaker 8: Yeah. Oh, thank you, Vice Mayor. I'm getting the same comment that I council vice mayor got when a councilman asked and I was walking in the door and he looked up and saw a guy with a crowd and I said, Oh, it's a Steve Goodman show. So you have to understand, when this young man goes places, Steve, you and your staff, it was a dollar. Now we're going to put two and and we won't be able to get in here next year. But again, you and your staff, you guys are just fantastic. And I just I couldn't believe, you know, we get a large crowd when there's a lot of madness going on. But tonight, this is joy, you know, and everyone that's here, you'll enjoy this. And if you get a chance, please go to some of our convention centers, go around to the hotels, support the city of Long Beach , because this guy Guillen, hey, I tell you, he's the best. Thank you. And your staff again. Good luck, big guy.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Councilman Richardson.
Speaker 5: Thank you. I just wanted to chime in and say, Steve, where there is Steve, this is this is fantastic. You come here every year. I see all the support you have. It's broad, it's diverse, it's Long Beach. And we we had a chance to see and listen to Mr. Charles's video before, and we enjoyed it. Right. And we did say take at the CVB. So we're I'm really pleased to see that not only did you watch the video, you embraced it and turned it into something else. Right. And and that was really cool. So thank you so much for that. And Charles, you know, I would say that I think we got our own song up in Uptown. What do you think? We think our Uptown Funk. Uptown Funk. I think we got our own song. Thanks a lot.
Speaker 0: Thank you.
Speaker 1: What do they get ready for? For their for their comment and the singing councilman Ringo, that was nice. Just just to wrap up for let me just start by thanking just the whole crew that's here from. I see so many of our games from our hotels that are here and our convention related business leaders, a lot of workers here from from a lot of our hotels. And of course, Steve and the whole CVB team and the board, you know, we have a world class like tourism team that I think everyone kind of knows that. You hear it when you travel, you hear from other convention folks, you hear from other cities. And we're just really lucky to have all of you just kind of promoting Long Beach every single day. And I you know, I've said this before, but like, you know, I have officially, you know, deputized all of you as ambassadors for the city of Long Beach because there's nobody in the city. I said I've said this many times. There's nobody in the city that is promoting the city more than you guys. You guys are promoting the city every single day. And that's a great thing. That's something we're very, very thankful for. It's an honor for me to help lead, you know, that that promotion and that and that ambassadorship. And you're all a really important part of what we do. And, of course, Steve is I would say is, you know, he's in the show business. This is your you're the best show man in the show business because you do a great job of selling Long Beach everywhere. Let me close by saying what's really exciting to me is, you know, a few years from now, three or four years from now, when you show that video, you know, downtown Long Beach is going to look pretty different. And it's already looking different, but you're going to see a very different skyline when you show this video three or four years from now. And I think that's something very exciting for our hotels and for the community and for those of us that live in the neighborhood. So it's a very, very evolving downtown. And you'll be able to add some more lyrics as we as we do some different venues. All right. Good. Well, thank you all again for coming out, Steve. Thank you. The board really appreciate that. We have a motion in an hour and a second on this. This is a hearing. I know. So if there is, I'm going to close the hearing, if there's any public comment on the hearing. Great. With that, if I can just please cast the vote.
Speaker 2: Motion carries.
Speaker 1: The companion item to this is item 24. If you can just read 24 quickly. | Resolution | Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record, conclude the hearing and adopt resolution approving the Long Beach Tourism Business Improvement Area program and assessment for the period of October 1, 2015 through September 30, 2016; and authorize City Manager to execute an agreement with the Long Beach Area Convention and Visitors Bureau for a one-year term. (Districts 1,2,4,5) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_10062015_15-0990 | Speaker 1: Okay, great. That was easy. Thank you, John. Good to see you guys. Moving on to back to the agenda here. So we have are we going to continue back on the hearing? So we have hearing item number two.
Speaker 2: Hearing two requires an oath.
Speaker 1: Anyone that's going to participate, please stand.
Speaker 2: You and each of you do solemnly state that the testimony you may give in the cause now and pending before this body shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. With that, I'm turning this over to staff.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. The staff report will be handled by Jason McDonald, purchasing and business services manager. Thank you, Mayor. Council Members. Jason McDonald for financial management. Tonight you have in front of you the application for entertainment with Dancing for Mineshaft, doing business as Mineshaft at 1720 Broadway in District two, all of the necessary departments have reviewed the application. The application and proposed conditions are contained in the packet that was provided. We are prepared to address any questions or concerns along with the police department regarding the application of those conditions. That concludes our report or available for questions. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you. With that, I have a motion and as I'm sure that's over to Vice Mayor Lowenthal.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I wanted to just clarify a couple of things with our city staff.
Speaker 1: And vice mayor. Also, just because there was a hearing, we're also able to hear public comment before you make the motion, if you'd like.
Speaker 4: Oh, yes, can we do that?
Speaker 1: Okay. So if anyone wants to comment on the hearing, now would be a good time. Please come down.
Speaker 0: Hi. My name is Tom Herzog, 1725 Second Street on the property owner that goes through next door to the mine shaft at 1724 East Broadway. My partner and I have lived in the home for 20 years. The wall of the mine shaft is actually the property line with my property and knowing their mine shaft is there when I moved in. So we knew that we've raised our two sons, adopted sons, and we've actually been able to do it. Last time I was here was for the same issue noise, public disturbance, smoking affecting the neighborhood, trying to figure out the balance between the commercial and the residents. So I've talked to Brock. He does a great job of responding to the planning inquiry. You know, that didn't really do too much and brought me to this point. He said that this is a normal evolution of a business, but our school board sued the city for the normal evolution of a business, which was the Long Beach Airport expansion. That very noise complaint destructing a neighborhood and going against the general plan, which is to create a healthier, quieter environment. Have you seen the onerous and lengthy noise complaint? It takes weeks and months to actually do a noise complaint, and that's what you are putting on the city residents. People are paying a tax dollars. People expecting you to do your jobs. I've called a number of the officers I've talked to Brock and to his office. Does a great job. I understand. I understand the bars there, but I have defecation, urination, drugs, sex in my parking lot. We have people picking up, people yelling and screaming. The cigaret butts out on the sidewalk, the pollution, just the trash in general. Something has to be done. I don't think extending a dancing permit, extending the louder pay system for an older building to a company where those people don't even live in Long Beach. You're up in Redding, California. I'm really not invested. Number of neighbors. Number of people trying to make community. But yes, it is an apartment. It is transient. It is not a normal residence. We don't have the support that someplace against like talk of circuits where you get a whole bunch of residents coming in and actually lobbying and actually getting results. So we're left to make complaints. File complaints with the Long Beach City police take their time to complain to noise. And if we don't log each call and the city police department last time didn't have any record no record for any complaints of the year. Just that didn't happen. So we're left to look like, oh, I'm a liar. But no, I know we what my noise or I'm not trying to be a gadfly, not trying to sit there and call time. But when I was in my front room, living room of a 100 year old house, it just turned this year trying to improve my neighborhood, spend my money in my hometown, that small town charm. But yet, all here's boom, boom, boom. Or people screaming or having to go out and talk to my my neighbor, who's actually has a little using a place and had to clean off defecation from the parking lot or, you know, vomit. That's ridiculous. Something has to change. And really love Long Beach, but it makes me feel like moving. I don't feel that small town charm right now. So I hope you vote against this.
Speaker 1: Thanks. Thank you, sir. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 0: Mr. Mayor and council members. My name is Gerry Cochrane. I'm the owner of an apartment building that runs 1732 through 1738 East Broadway. My building is right between the Brit. And the mine shaft. Earlier this year, we acquiesced to allow the Brit to. Have entertainment in their open patio with limited time. What you're looking to do right now is to get all of these people to go to bars for the same thing all night long. As my previous person mentioned. We have to clean up the bomb. We have to clean up the cigaret butts. We have to clean up the defecation every day. So let's keep in mind that this is also a residential area, as well as a major thoroughfare to the inside of the city. So. Adding entertainment. To the mineshaft. He's just going to get the people to move back and forth between the two bars constantly. So that the neighbors, the people who live in that building are going to have to deal with all the noise and all the trash and all the cigaret butts. That is constant. I might add that recently over the last 30 days, I know after this permit was focused that all of a sudden the place was getting a little bit cleaner. Things were looking a little bit better. Let me tell you, if you go back 30 days and I'll be more than happy to take pictures for you and provide to the city council how many hundreds of cigaret butts and defecation and gum and things that I had to clean up in front of my building every single day to try and keep tenants in the building. The owners of the of the permit, we agreed to allow them to to have music there. They said they were going to try and cover the open patio to contain the noise. They didn't do anything. So I know they posted somebody out front to try and keep the traffic or keep the noise down. But, um, my tenants every particularly Saturday and Sunday, particularly as we've had extreme weather recently, had to close their windows in the afternoon. So that they can just hear themselves or enjoy their own peace and quiet. So I just ask this council to consider this is not just a commercial area. This is also a residential area. I'm trying to keep tenants in my building. I'm spending an average of 15 to $20000 per unit trying to get tenants or stay. But it's very difficult based on the noise. And if you offer them to move with music and noise, that'll expand between two units.
Speaker 1: Thank you, sir. Thank you. Time's up. And then we have our last speaker, please.
Speaker 0: Thank you for hearing me. I'm Jeff, darling. I am representing the owners of the mineshaft. We also owned the Brett Bar. This is a family owned business. Our uncle started these bars 32 years ago and has owned them continuously. When he passed away in 2003, it became part of our family bar. We do live in Redding, California. This year I've spent three months of my time down in Long Beach living here. We have an apartment downtown. We own a condo in a historic building. I feel like we're very much part of the community. Some of our employees have worked for the bar for over 25 to 30 years. So we have a long standing history here. The things that we're asking to do in this permit are specifically to have a deejay and entertainment dancers, something that's happened continuously for the history of the whole bar. So we're not really asking for something that's uniquely different, like the Brit bar that has a large patio and does have more noise issues. We made some concessions and we settled it peacefully here in this council meeting to close the patio at 10:00. And it has greatly affected our business. But I'm not going to be bitter. I'm going to move on. We have to do business and take care of our employees. Our employees are part of our family also. They work here. They live here. We've made several attempts to alleviate some of the concerns that was recommended by the city. We had the police department come out. It's really difficult to speak to some of the specific things that they talk about, like defecation. Cigaret Butts is an urban area. It's very close to Bixby Park. We do have it's a thoroughfare there on East Broadway. Some of the people there spoke tonight. They have homeless people sleep in their doorways. They leave trash. It's very difficult for a bar that polices and does custodial every single day in their property and takes care of their particular space, too. To worry about the whole urban environment and some of the things that we've done this year. We made a new solid back door for noise to keep the noise at a minimum. We had a uniformed security guard that pulls patrols the street between both bars to keep the patrons quiet during the evening hours. We've installed security cameras to monitor the front entrance with the ability for the police department to have its own username and log in so they can monitor that at expense to us. All bartenders have taken leads, training as asked, so they are more aware of not serving intoxicated people. Um. All of our security wear clearly identified staff shirts. We've updated all the building to the current ADA requirements. As for that building, we just have gone to several measures. We contribute $71,000 in taxes.
Speaker 1: Thank you for your time. Thank you very much, sir. Thank you very much. Mr. Goodhew.
Speaker 0: It's very good. You click as the address. It's listening to this. Here's how I see this. You've already got a problem. A way to partially address this is for any person who votes to approve this. Would agree to this. Number one, you will provide your 24 hour seven cell phone number. Two of the two gentlemen that spoke opposing this that are neighbors. Allowing them to call you at whatever hour. The noise. Wakes them up or disturbs the neighborhood. Number two. You will underwrite the cost of having. Someone first thing in the morning. Check the sidewalks, sweep up any feces, cigaret, butts or whatever junk is there. And transport that to your council office. The first thing the next day. And after a year. Or after six months, bring this back. Based upon the number of your feelings, based upon the number of calls that you will gladly take at two or 3:00 in the morning. And the amount of feces. The amount of cigaret butts and other litter that the people had to go out and clean up because their custodians had done. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Back to the hearing, Vice Mayor Lowenthal.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I wanted to thank our speakers and follow up with staff on some of the questions that I had. Okay. I think I see stuff there. If you could clarify for us, this was mentioned by one of the speakers, actually, I think the owner's representative, that the dancing component of the permit is for performers and not for the patrons. Is that correct?
Speaker 0: Vice Mayor That's correct. The council letter is that it seems to have indicated patrons it was intended to say performers as per their application.
Speaker 4: Okay. So it is performers and not patrons. I appreciate that. And that the entertainment is only for Friday and Saturday until 1 a.m. and Sunday between 3 p.m. and 7 p.m..
Speaker 0: Correct. That is their application and as recommended by the police department.
Speaker 4: Okay. And then there is discussion about the breezeway and Mr. Herzog brought that up, I believe, if we could know, are the patrons using the breezeway behind the establishment as a makeshift patio or smoking area? Are you aware of that?
Speaker 0: Our office is not aware.
Speaker 4: I think we've had concerns from residents that that, in fact, is taking place. It's a physical space that's available. So I'd like to alert you to that and make sure that that's part of any monitoring or compliance that we're looking for. Because if that is happening, we have to ensure that the conditions that arise in the condition that it be closed attend. And so that's my concern. It might not be a physical space that we recognize because we're not aware of it, but it is a space that people are using. And so we have to include that as part of the 10 p.m. cutoff. For noise and other things in the smoking and all of that that sort of permeates beyond the property. And I appreciate the gentleman that came to speak on behalf of the family property. I'm not sure where he went that you are. I'm sorry. And. You're right. It is an urban environment and. You know, not a secret. I'm an urban planner, but nowhere in my experience do we accept that defecation and everything else is part of the urban experience. It's. It's a consequence of. Poor behavior. Poor management throughout. It's a combination. It's not just the business owners responsibility or the city's responsibility. It is what happens. And when we have establishments that that bring in a lot of customers, which thankfully you have a successful business. You do. And and we're thankful for the balance that we try to strike on Broadway. Broadway was purposely many, many years ago zoned in this multiple zoning type effort with residential and commercial and business. And and whether that's good or bad, you know, you'll have to ask the residents and the businesses. It is a tough balance to strike. But just as we do with our homes, we clean up the area out in front of our homes. It does little to say that it's not our patrons or it's not something. It's in front of your home, so we have to clean it up. And so I thank you for doing that, but I want to ask staff I have seen in permits where that is actually conditioned, where, you know, the property owner is required to maintain cleanliness outside. And that's something that I would like to be sure is I know they do it voluntarily, but I do think that that has to be a part of our monitoring effort. And whether it's code that gets involved, any part of Broadway is not a part that we can risk having mean not maintained to a livable standard, a sustainable standard and a standard where patrons do want to keep coming back. We have daytime patrons that should want to find it appealing to walk on Broadway. And we're making many efforts to make adjustments, some infrastructure adjustments to the street, to the public right of way so that it can be more appealing. And it's not a thoroughfare. And you're right, it kind of is a thoroughfare. And we are you know, through our planning efforts, we are trying to slow that down. And so but that has to be matched with what we ensure the business owners and patrons do. And if I could also ask staff. Actually, if I can have a response to. The part about the cleanliness. I know we're both talking to you and but you're good at this.
Speaker 0: I think the discussion was, is where is the appropriate enforcement activity coming from? And I think that's a determination we'd have to make in cooperation with the police department and code enforcement as well as in the ABC conditions.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 0: I don't know that the area being discussed is specifically under the control for the purposes of the entertainment permit, but it could be added as a condition potentially. And we'll review that with the attorney's office as well.
Speaker 4: Okay. And I would appreciate that and ask that we do that well. And certainly with the loitering and cigaret butts yelling and loud noises late at night, these are the types of activities that I know your security team is probably aware of and very conscious of keeping an eye on. But we have to not just be aware of it and sort of the observant of it. We have to have that controlled as part of your conditions and more importantly, just just being a good neighbor. I know you can't control human behavior, but if they are patrons, we do expect that. We expect that kind of management. We expect that kind of crowd management and behavior management. Whether it's for the neighbors that live right next door or really other patrons are trying to enjoy themselves on the street as well. So those are the requirements that I am asking you to ensure is worked into the conditions and and follow up in enforcement. I don't want to leave our community represented by the few people that have come here, but they do represent that entire community. I know this. I don't want to leave them with this expectation that these are the things that will change unless we can actually follow up and enforce them. So if there's any changes to that, I'd like to know directly through my office. But for now that is my request and my belief that we will move forward with that. With that, Mr. Mayor, I'd like to make the motion to conclude the hearing and grant an entertainment permit with conditions for the mineshaft, including closure of the patio or the makeshift patio that could potentially be the breezeway by 10 p.m..
Speaker 1: Thank you. There's a motion and a second. We've done public comment. Members, please cast your votes on the motion.
Speaker 2: Motion carries.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Moving on to the next hearing, please. The next hearing is, I believe, hearing three. | Public Hearing | Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record, conclude the hearing and grant an Entertainment Permit with conditions on the application of Mineshaft, Inc., dba Mineshaft, 1720 East Broadway, for Entertainment With Dancing by Patrons. (District 2) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_10062015_15-0997 | Speaker 0: We'd like Mr. John Keisler to make those comments for us. The innovation team leader.
Speaker 11: Mayor and members of the city council. Thanks so much. The Innovation Week is actually 20 days of activities. It goes from October the second through the 22nd. And this is a partnership with the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation, L.A., EDC, the first innovation.
Speaker 1: Hold on 1/2. I think that's a different item. I said I have number ten, which was the US small business start up problem.
Speaker 0: My apologies.
Speaker 11: I'm looking at the wrong notes. My apologies. Startup in a day. I'm going back to the content item.
Speaker 0: It's very.
Speaker 11: Fast. My apologies. Mr. Mayor, members of the City Council hit the reset button. Started the U.S. Small Business Administration issued a competition nationally to to come up with a tool to help small businesses start up in a day. And there were there are 26 cities selected nationwide to receive prizes of $50,000 and one prize, which was received by the city of Los Angeles in the amount of $250,000 to develop a online business tool. And essentially the purpose of this is to make the application process for small businesses easier and to to bring city process online so that people may access it any time of the day. And so we we submitted and won an award, and we are now asking for the city council to to accept the award so that we can proceed with the project. I'm happy to answer any questions. And thank you so much for for allowing me to speak on this.
Speaker 0: I apologize for the confusion.
Speaker 1: No worries. I think there was a there's a confusion about consent as well. So any public comment on the item? See nonmembers. Please, Gordon, cast your vote there.
Speaker 0: Maybe they've already.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's right. We were going to pull it, and I thought I had gotten told, and it clearly did not. So. Yeah. So it's been voted on already. So, John, great job with that report.
Speaker 0: Great.
Speaker 1: Moving on to item number 22.
Speaker 0: 22. Okay. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Let's let's just let's do item 21 since John has already started. | Contract | Recommendation to authorize City Manager to execute all necessary documents to receive and expend proceeds from the U.S. Small Business Administration in the amount of $50,000, for the express purpose of participation in the Start-Up in a Day Prize Competition, of which Long Beach is an award winner; and
Increase appropriations in the General Grants Fund (SR 120) in the City Manager Department (CM) by $50,000. (Citywide) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_10062015_15-1007 | Speaker 1: Thank you. 22. Yeah.
Speaker 0: It's okay. All right.
Speaker 1: I know. Madam Clerk.
Speaker 2: Communication from Councilman Andrews, Vice Mayor Lowenthal, Council Member, Supervisor, Councilmember Muranga recommendation to direct the Department of Health and Human Services to update the Long Beach strategic plan for older adults and create an action plan to address priority areas, as well as the feasibility of creating the City of Long Beach. Office of on Aging and report back to City Council within six months.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Turn it over to Councilman Andrews.
Speaker 8: Yes, thank you, Mayor. You know, there's been over 65,000 senior citizens in Long Beach, which is the largest aging population within the city, borders yet the most underserved. As a senior myself, I know the difficulties that are faced and it's time to address these issues and to get help that is deserve. So at this time, I would like to ask my chief of staff, John Edmunds, to present a special presentation on this item. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Good evening. I'm bill mayor, vice mayor, council members city manager in the public and hope to keep this brief but it's background information for your deliberation.
Speaker 9: This plan was created in 2005 to identify the.
Speaker 0: Issues and recommendations solutions for our aging community. The Long Beach Health Department, under the direction of former department director Ron Ears and Health Department manager Teresa marano, spearheaded a Long Beach strategic.
Speaker 9: Plan for.
Speaker 0: Older adults. Task Force. This task force was made up of valued partnerships.
Speaker 9: That involved more than 60 representatives and stakeholders from the neighborhood and older adult service community and as well as various cities departments who participated in over two years. During the plan, the.
Speaker 0: Research and development stage. The purpose of the plan was to address the needs of the elderly, including safety, transportation, housing, health and improving their quality of life. The vision for the plan is one that still holds true today. Long Beach, the best city to live in for a lifetime, just by way of background. Long Beach is currently home to over 65,000 seniors, which is the largest age population within the city borders. We need to champion this population by providing all of the resources available to them.
Speaker 9: Each year are seniors and their.
Speaker 0: Families are faced with difficult situations from in-home in-home assistance, elderly abuse, transportation, housing and all of these can be difficult.
Speaker 9: Without the proper assistance. 60% of the seniors in our city are under the national poverty level, and one third of our seniors do not speak English.
Speaker 0: Updating the Long Beach Strategic Plan for older adults, the original plan is very comprehensive and very thorough. After reading the plan in its.
Speaker 9: Entirety, one would be left with the.
Speaker 0: Impression that not much should be changed. We do think, however, there are a few.
Speaker 9: Possible gaps to bring the document up.
Speaker 0: To date, and there should be new availability.
Speaker 9: In terms of services, education and technology.
Speaker 0: Many of our seniors are more active than ever.
Speaker 9: As I can attest to my mom. She puts things up on Facebook, Twitter, and everyone in Scotland messages her back. The plan was.
Speaker 0: Introduced to the.
Speaker 9: City plan in 2010. However, a few of the action items have been implemented since the plan was created. We need to demonstrate our commitment to this community.
Speaker 0: Through action, execution and the plan of implementation for this policy and support for the community that we are directly either part of or soon to be part of. Creating the City of Long Beach Office of Aging helps to achieve that. The City of Long Beach is fortunate to have many.
Speaker 9: Organizations services in our aging community. This includes Park Recreation, a in Marine Department Health Department, senior advisory committee, Long Beach Senior Police Partners, Long Beach Fire.
Speaker 0: Ambassadors, as well as other key.
Speaker 9: Senior partners like housing facilities, medical centers and foundations alike. Each entity carries its wealth of information and resources.
Speaker 0: But the information does not have a central hub for the community to draw upon its services.
Speaker 9: And therefore, many of our seniors are missing out.
Speaker 0: On key quality of life services that are, in some cases, could be lifesaving. Having an office of Aging within our city would be a central hub to providing much of the needed information and services, as well as being a conduit for future services and funding opportunities. The City of Long Beach Office of Aging would be under the Department of Health and Human Services to coordinate.
Speaker 9: Senior programs across all cross functional department lines, including tho county, state.
Speaker 0: And other agencies to address the.
Speaker 9: Priorities in service of the Long Beach Strategic Plan for older adults.
Speaker 0: The Office of Aging would also reflect the diversity of Long Beach by offering services that have specific needs to their cultural.
Speaker 9: Ethnic.
Speaker 0: Identity. Throughout California, many cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, Berkeley, San Jose, Fremont have realized the need for an office of Aging to further their support of the increase aging populations in their communities. It is suggested that we look at this city, our city, to examine funding sources, possible seed money from general fund as well as exploring additional revenues. The City of Long Beach is the best city to live in for a lifetime. Our city's senior population is ever growing as well as their needs. In updating the implementation of the Lumbee Strategic Plan and creating the opening of the Long Beach, aging within the city will reflect our commitment we have for our.
Speaker 9: Seniors in our community.
Speaker 0: And that concludes the presentation.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much, Councilman. Your anger.
Speaker 9: Thank you, Mayor. I'm very glad to have co-sponsored this resolution with the. Can't remember. Jesus Christ.
Speaker 0: Andrew.
Speaker 9: Andrew, don't say.
Speaker 0: That. Look, don't say that again.
Speaker 9: I'm not saying nothing. You don't say anything.
Speaker 0: Okay. Rex got Rex off my bed.
Speaker 9: And I'm very happy to say this item because I know I was a planet long, long in the making. I recall when I first started at Long Beach State as a freshman and I traveled Long Beach, I saw a wealth of aging citizens here. I think it was I thought it was a senior citizen city back in the day because there were there were that many there, of course, with the influx of myself and young people at the time who changed the face of Long Beach and helped it grow. Now, here I am on the edge, on the verge, on the cusp of being a senior citizen. And it's something that I think we need to address, obviously, with the aging population of the boomers. You know, I'm part I'm part of that boomer generation. And where we're getting we're getting there. And our services have not kept up with where we're getting that, where we're getting to. I had the honor also of working in the health department where there were some services there. Granted, it was not specific. They were not directly related to senior services and they were not supported. The only way that we can do anything meaningful is we're going to have to put some money behind it. I would propose that we create some kind of fee structure if we can, or some kind of financing that would be consistent and sustainable that will keep senior services available for all ages, not only mine and those behind me, but for those that are behind them as well. Because it's a travesty that we would have 65,000 senior citizens in Long Beach today who are not receiving any kind of services officially or unofficially. It was also an opportunity for me when I was a trustee along with City College, and we had the unfortunate incident of having to eliminate senior programs along with City College. I would like to see those returned as well. Senior citizens who were enrolled in. Well, it doesn't sound good, but it was a good program basket weaving in in computer, Facebook, how to how to use your computer to have a Facebook page, how to how to grow flowers, a plant and your horticulture. Those programs are gone and we need them back. And I totally support this. This I had them here and we should put some money behind it. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Vice Mayor Lowenthal.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I wanted to thank Councilmember Andrews for bringing this item forward and for the presentation that came out of his office. I think it was excellent and necessary and really thank the coauthors as well for raising this issue to the council level. Council District two, as many of you know, has a large senior population. And as a result, we have a very, very busy senior center on Fourth Street. Our seniors, they range in capabilities from living active, independent lives to requiring 24 hour care in some of our private facilities. However, with a growing senior population, I know my colleagues share my concerns that many older adults may become shut ins with little contact to the larger community. Perhaps they've lost a significant other, or they're living in the same home for decades. That's filled with trip and fall hazards. Or, like many who have parents can attest, they may not be seeing a doctor on a regular basis because it is too much of a fuss or too difficult to get to. I believe an Office of Aging would be beneficial to helping us achieve the goals and the imperatives detailed in the strategic plan. By focusing on the gaps in service that our group of older adults that don't have assisted care or visit our senior centers. I know of Councilmember Gonzalez were here tonight. She would agree with us that this need was never more real than during our recent set of power outages. I think that really highlighted where our vulnerabilities were with our most vulnerable community members. Once we realized that there wasn't going to be a quick fix, the city's attention turned to the most at risk populations, which included our seniors. My first professional role out of undergraduate was working for the City of Los Angeles Department of Aging and learned very quickly how critical that department was and continues to be for its very large senior population. We witnessed story after story during the power outage of infirmed or sudden seniors that couldn't or would not get out of their homes. There's a lot of fear involved. A lot. And whom do you trust when someone comes to your door to help you? We had a list of seniors, senior facilities provided by the health department. But again, how do we connect services and communicate with that growing population of seniors? I think this is a good start. Councilmember Andrews, I want to thank you for bringing this forward.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Councilwoman Pryce.
Speaker 6: Thank you very much. I want to thank my colleagues for bringing this forward. And I want to acknowledge we have some commissioners here from our senior commission. So I want to thank them who are here. Two of them are third district residents. So thank you for being here and for all the work that you do. I think this is a great item and definitely something that we as a city should be tuned into. On our team, we have been working with our Parks Rec and Marine Department to extend senior services and senior citizen activities to other areas in the city. Currently, we do not have a senior center in the third district and we have actually set aside some money in our one time funds with the hope that we might be able to find a proper venue to be able to host some activities for our seniors. Also, one of the issues that comes up a lot in our district and I think it's probably a city wide issue and very relevant to people in my demographic is working with our Development Services Bureau, which we hope to do to review our granny flat ordinance and to think about future housing options for our seniors. I know that I'm one of those people who is in a situation very close relationship with with my mother. And as she continues to get older, we want to have options in terms of her housing and her quality of life as she grows in this city. So we do have an aging population and we need to make sure that we have adequate services and resources to give them all the wonderful benefits of this city and make sure that they feel supported. I know that I've worked with several community members on coming up with programs that might help engage the seniors and give them a meaningful opportunity to have civic engagement, artistic outlets and other opportunities available to them specifically for their target population. So again, I commend you for bringing this forward. Excellent job by John Edman on the presentation tonight and Councilman Andres for leading the charge on this. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Councilman Orson.
Speaker 7: Thank you. And I want to thank the council members and especially Councilmember Andrews, our elder statesman here on the city council, for bringing this good idea forward. I was had an opportunity to review this plan, the strategic plan. And I got to say, most of what's here is very, very applicable and relevant today. I mean, change out a few signatures from the mayor and department heads and update the data. But this is a great framework to work from. And to be quite honest with you, I didn't know it was was even done already. So thank you so much for for this bringing this item forward. This this also helps us provide key services and engage a key constituency, meaning our seniors in the eighth district. We are about a year ago put together a senior advisory committee of active and engaged seniors in my district with the idea of actually doing this, accomplishing much of what this strategic plan seeks to do for older adults. And so I'm proud that we're headed in the right direction in that regard. In fact, next week, our seniors will our senior advisory committee will kick off their inaugural event and have free services for four seniors at the Expo Art Center. Two night, two days a week. That's a grassroots effort. It's all volunteer. It doesn't cost our city anything yet, but it is it shows us that that we are growing and poised to grow in terms of engaging. And that, like I said, is very key constituency, particularly on the district level. And so Mr. Andrews and council members, I fully support this and look forward to doing a lot more for our seniors moving forward.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Councilwoman Mongo.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Councilman Andrews. What a what a wonderful item to bring before us. Having worked extensively with the area agency on Aging in L.A. County. I know how important it is that housing, transportation, nutrition, our partnerships with our local providers to ensure that our seniors are receiving the fair share of the allocations coming down from the federal government and from the state to make sure that we are meeting the requirements in our deliveries to our seniors and what that means to us as a community. And I think one of the things that Long Beach is excellent at as a whole, but L.A. County has really had some challenges in its transportation and our ability to move seniors around our city. As you look at the demographics or the topography of our city, there's ups and downs. And a lot of the communities were built where you need to have stairs to get into households. And what does that mean for our transportation when we pick up a senior from the household? We can't just do curbside services. We have to do other, more extensive engagements. Additionally, how does that fit into the new health care model of the ACA and what that means in terms of our opportunities when our seniors are released from our hospitals and or rehabilitation centers? What is that follow up and follow through look like and ensuring that we don't have that recidivism back into our health care system. So I look forward to ensuring that the program proposed maintains at least level of funding, if not greater funding if we are to separate from another area agency on aging and hopefully that we can demonstrate through the numbers and partnerships with the providers in place that we would be able to warrant greater funding for the Long Beach community because we really do always perform because we are so innovative. It's a great theme for the night. Thank you, Councilmember Andrews.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Councilman Richardson.
Speaker 5: Thank you. So so as the youngest to the most senior member of the council, I want to say great work on leading on this. And and as chair of the Fed large, I think it's great when we can align our efforts and our realignment in the city with some strategic plan. We're more effective when we bring down resources. We're doing the same thing with violence prevention. Great work in our development services department. We're doing the same thing with My Brother's Keeper, with our boys and young men of color. Our health department does this a lot. So I think it's fantastic that now we're we're reaching back to work that already been done in making it current and placing a greater focus. I'd like to just make sure that some real, tangible recommendations make it into the Fed agenda so that when we go to DC and an advocate , we know what the priorities are of the strategic plan. So those are my comments.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Let me just make a couple closing comments. Open it up for public comment after this. First, I just want to thank the commissioners that are here, because I think you guys are just such great advocates. And it was great to see a couple of you guys a couple of weeks ago at the senior Congress, which was which was wonderful. And I also want to make a request as the council moves forward and to Councilman Andrews and certainly to staff that, I really think that I would like to see our commissioners be kind of like some of the community drivers of this process. And I think as we move forward, I think the commission is really well situated in a place where they can help, really provide some good impact and feedback on on the plan as it moves forward and I think be a great project for them to to be involved with as well as the rest of the community, of course. And so I think that would be great to see. And so I, I think this is a great step for the city and I look forward to seeing it develop. With that, we'll open it up to public comment. Any public comment on the item?
Speaker 12: Good evening, Mayor. Good evening, Mayor. Councilwoman. Were women and councilmen and also seniors. I'm Mary Alice to you. I'm a resident here and I'm also the chairperson for the Senior Citizens Advisory Commission here.
Speaker 1: Would you mind putting that Mike just a little bit closer to you? Thank you.
Speaker 12: I was selected chair for the Senior Advisory Commission in May, and from that time we've been working, working very actively to come up with plans and to be able to serve our seniors. And I'm here to respond to a letter that I received from Councilman Andrews asking for us to look at his plan with the feasibility study that he wants from the Department of Health and Human Services in regards to the senior issues and whether we should develop a Department of Aging. I just attended a summit today with the Department of Health, and it was hosted by our councilman Al Houston and the Art Stone Foundation and also a consultant from Cal State, Long Beach . We need to develop a system to be able to reach out to our seniors and to help them with assessments so that we can fulfill their needs. There is a lot of gaps to be filled, and we also need a website to link everything together. We could also develop the senior program on MLB.TV. I watched that senior program on TV all day Sunday to see, but there's absolutely nothing about seniors there. And we could give out a lot of information to our seniors because a lot of them do watch TV. My recommendation is that the Department of Aging is a necessity. It's not a luxury. We have 65,000 seniors. They deserve to be served. They've served our country. Now it's time. It's our time to serve them. And they are the fastest growing population. The issues pertain to housing, transportation, nutrition, medical, health, and also their quality of life. I want to thank you, Councilman de Andrews, for bringing this forth. And I hope that we can work together on it and find a solution for our seniors. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Next speaker.
Speaker 0: Please.
Speaker 6: Hello. Good evening. My name is Dr. Jane Galloway. I'm presenting as a resident of the third district, and I'm also very proud to be serving on the commission for senior citizens. I wanted to I'm very supportive of this department. I think what MaryAlice just said was fantastic. So I would just say ditto to that for the rest of my time. I want to plant a new idea because this isn't just about getting older. This is about creating a whole new configuration of our culture. So I'm going to read something from a book called Prime Time. It's not just about getting older, but about adding a whole new category to life. As we've understood it, a revolution has occurred within the last century, a longevity revolution. Studies show that on average, 34 years have been added to human life expectancy, moving it from an average of 46 years to 80. This addition represents an entire second lifetime, adult lifetime. And whether we choose to confront it or not, it changes everything, including what it means to be human. The social anthropologist Mary Katherine Bates and she's Margaret Mead.
Speaker 12: Started.
Speaker 6: As a metaphor for living with this longer life span in view, she writes in her recent book, Composing a Further Life The Age of Wisdom. We have not added decades to a life expectancy by simply extending old age. Instead, we've opened up a new space partway through the life course, a second and different kind of adulthood that precedes old age. And as a result, every stage of life is undergoing change. BATES And uses the identifiable metaphor of what happens when a new room is added to your home. It isn't just the new room that is different. Every other part of the house and how it's used is altered a bit by the addition of this room in the house. That is our life. Things such as planning, marriage, love, finances, parenting, travel, education, physical fitness, work, retirement, our very identities, even all take on new meaning now that we can expect to be vital into our eighties and nineties or longer.
Speaker 12: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Speaker, please.
Speaker 12: Good evening, city council mayors, city council members and thank you, council member Andrews and thank you council member Durango and all of you for supporting this. My name is Teresa marino. I am retired from the city of Long Beach Department of Health and Human Services, and I was the lead staff on the strategic plan for older adults , and we started it in February of 2001. It was brought to the council in June of 2005. We did a redo of it in about 2007, 2008, and it has sat on a shelf since then. So it just gives us great pride and honor to see that it's being brought to light again, that all of the time and energy and partnerships from we used to call it the cast of thousands because there were so many partners, resources, organizations, experts. Just ordinary, extraordinary seniors that helped and contributed to this. Many of them have passed away. We just lost Diane Johnson, who was a prime mover of this document and an author of it. So thank you. You're making dreams come true. I think it's long overdue. An Office on aging. Thank you for putting it in the Department of Health and Human Services, because I think that's a good home. It'll be a good marriage with the partnership with the Parks and Recreation and input from the commissions. There was a summit today put on by the Department of Health and Human Services, and it was like déja vu all over again because so many, so many of some of the original partners and many of the groups that contributed to this first document were there, and they were excited to hear that this was on the agenda tonight. And it's going to be exciting. Many of us pledged that we will be a part of the trying to gather data coming up with new with new ideas and and looking at what has happened in the past ten years where we need to move forward and to see that many of us are now part of that aging population. And and.
Speaker 11: And this is, you know, self-serving in some.
Speaker 12: Respects. But again, it's a great thing for our city. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 0: Thank you again, Mr. Mayor. Gary Shelton's my name and I live at 240 Chestnut. That's Plymouth West. It's a building of 200 senior citizens living in affordable housing. We have a residents advocacy network. Betty Chambers, if you could say hi, she's up there. She's the president of the Resident Advocacy Network. And I'm its sort of neighborhood. I'm the guy that brings things in from outside. So that's why we know this is going on. So I appreciate the time. I looked over the 25 to, I guess, 2007 strategic plan and notice that it had five basic categories. They've all been mentioned already. They were safety, transportation, housing, health and quality of life as the key element of interest. And I was thinking, well, what else could there be? Now Councilmember Yarrawonga was kind enough to mention technology should be a highlight. And I want to point out that as as Dr. Lowenthal said, we had issues during the power outage where no amount of technology was helping us, particularly the senior citizens, which were in such we were in such trouble over there. We needed low technology actually. So the the sense that and what by that what I mean but I mean what I mean by that is that if there had been police cars with loudspeakers going through the streets telling us what was going on instead of text messages and Nixon, which weren't working for us, it could have improved our understanding of what was happening. So there's, there's always a couple of sides to each coin. Council Member Price You mentioned entertainment, and I think access to entertainment for senior citizens is always something that needs attention. I know once or twice a year we're invited as guests of the of the theater back here. I guess it's that way. I never know what direction anything is from in this room. And those presentations are wonderful at the at the Beverly O'Neil Theater. Those are terrific presentations every year. Council Vice Mayor Lowenthal, you mentioned mobility is important. And I wanted to stress also that ADA compliant because so many senior citizens end up being disabled. But, you know, there's not such a thing as senior disability. Actually, we need disability accessibility to disabled help. But we unless you become disabled before you're retired, you don't really become disabled. But specifically and realistically, mental health is something that I think needs to be on the list. The whole idea of PTSD for our soldiers who have come back from now from Korea and Vietnam, for folks who are experiencing depression and folks who realistically are entering into years of dementia or perhaps Alzheimer's. And I think that's a category that's going to need special attention. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 11: Good evening. My name is Dr. Cheryl. Mathew and I have a business in Long Beach. I'm a geriatric care manager for about ten years, a member of the for a resident in the fourth District. And I'm kind of in shock. I'm here because I just heard that this was going to be presented last night. We got an email, uh, through the some way that it found its way to me. And that's sort of like how our senior services have been up until now. It's siloed. There's lots of great people out there doing amazing work, but we don't know each other and we don't know what each other is doing. So what's nice is that this is not reinventing the wheel, just taking what we have and organizing it into a single place that can drive it forward. Um. Yeah, that's that's the bottom line. And I really see it. It's not just about frail, low income seniors. They are very important as well. But as a care manager, I've been into the multimillion dollar homes in Naples, and they have the same issues as the low income seniors and their caregivers have the same stress levels as everybody else. So they all we all need to know that information. We talked today in the summit about. And you touch on it a little bit too, creating intergenerational programs. So we all know about this. There's my eight year old, my eight year old daughter. She's been with me and dementia care community since she was an infant. And I see the difference that children make with the seniors and that we can all have fun together so that it's not just, oh, it's time to be a senior over here. It's it's our it's our whole life span. One of the things I saw on the summit vote today that got the most one of the most votes is creating fund with the seniors, but also the gift of aging. So it's not like, oh, we're going to bring the seniors to the Playhouse tonight or we're going to go sing at the nursing home for Christmas. It we embody this all year long. Justin Rudd does a great job with the Community Action Team in Bel Mature and I see myself as someone whose has wanted to take this to the senior community and older adults. And now at 50 I am one of them. I got my card for it in the mail. So here we go. And it was it was ten years ago that I was here presenting on the Long Beach Strategic Plan. I was here at the end when these amazing people spent two years to get it together. The economy took a tank and the council people weren't old enough yet to get it. So I'm just grateful that we're here. Thank you all for your consideration. And I look forward to playing a part in this and making a difference in our city. And together we are brilliant. So thank you very much.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you for having a business here in Long Beach as well. Thank you.
Speaker 12: Excuse me.
Speaker 1: Good evening.
Speaker 12: How are you? Laura Clarendon. I'm also a member of the third district or resident of the third district, and I'm also a member of the Senior Citizens Commission.
Speaker 1: And you have a lovely home.
Speaker 12: Thank you. And I must say that I'm just very delighted to be here. But I must also point out, and would like to thank Councilman Andrews and Ranga for sponsoring this motion of this. Agenda item so that we can move forward and create a Department of Aging. I think that it's I'm not going to repeat everything that the commissioners have said. I think that is not a luxury, is an absolute necessity that is long overdue. And the previous speaker pointed out some of the issues that we as a commission have also faced this lack of integration or communication between a lot of the city agencies in regards to the needs of senior citizens. So I think this this agency will be wonderful to establish and make sure that there is a follow through and there is a process by which we can unify all those resources. And secondly, I can assure you that the members of the Senior Citizens Commission are committed to making sure that we improve the lifestyles of the senior citizens of this city, as well as all of the citizens in general. So I'm happy to be here, and I just wanted to thank you and support the rest of the commissioners.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Next speaker. Another whenever a great commissioners.
Speaker 12: I'm Diane McInnis and I'm from the second district and you've got such wonderful faces at 8:00 at night and you're all alive and energetic. So why did I come for just two or three things? As a Long Beach resident, I wish to commend the entire council, the vice.
Speaker 6: There, and the mayor for.
Speaker 12: Realizing the importance of older adults. You don't have to necessarily call them senior citizens. We're just a little bit older and I'm going to celebrate my 70th in a few weeks. So I wanted to say that the most important thing is that we are a city of innovative thinkers. We are a city of wonderful, innovative thinkers. And I am confident that you as leaders and we as the community can work together to solve this problem. Go Long Beach.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Diane. I saw your other half earlier today.
Speaker 12: Good evening. My name is Maria Bezerra and I'm the senior organizer with Central Asia. I have a we have a group of 25 from Autodesk. I salute you. They are the promoters of aging and well-being. Thank you. Thank you very much for presenting this. Uh, Councilman Austin and also my long term colleague. We will Roberto and I go back from quite the college years, so I wouldn't say that I'm not even a senior. And he's trying to say he's almost there, but he we know better. I was also one of the part of the committee that was part of the part of the Committee for the Strategic Plan way back when I used to be involved a lot with the Health Department, and at that time we were kind of sad because we did all the work and then it kind of it got put on a shelf. So now it's the time when this baby is coming alive. And again, thank you for doing it. One of the things I just want to indicate is that out of those 65,000 seniors that are here in Long Beach, 42% happened to be Latino. And a lot of them are Spanish speaking. And so that's the reason why I decided to come up here to to be their voice and to kind of let you know that whatever services are out there, that we really need to take that into consideration because seniors do face that the need for the need for having company , for having caregiving, for being involved, because isolation is one of the biggest needs that they have with Latinos. It's even bigger even though we have even though they have families, some of them that are that are physically not able to get out. And and many of them are also being they're providing caregiving to their family as well. The families out there keeping to jobs to make make needs met. So, again, I just wanted to let you know to please not forget our Latino seniors and please include us in there as well. And I would like to be part of that agenda item for the group. Thank you. Have a good evening.
Speaker 1: Thank you for all the work you do. Great work with the promoters. Thank you. Next speaker.
Speaker 12: Good evening.
Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 12: And thank you, Congressman. Council member Andrews. I just promoted you. I worked with Diane Johnson for many years. I'm trying to get in the office of an Aging, and unfortunately, she passed away. She was one of my best friends, and one of her dreams was Office on Aging. Theresa marino. Um. Dr. Cheryl MATTHEWS. Dr. Jean Bader. And Dr.. Barbara White and. California State University, Long Beach. She has worked many years. So I think all total it's been about 30 years that we've been asking please for an office on aging. We truly need it. I work with seniors. I'm retired now, but I work with seniors. I'm on the elder abuse prevention team and older adult transportation team agencies and programs on aging and part of IDA. And the most I hear from our senior population is all the services in Long Beach are fragmented for seniors. There is no one place to go for it. And they search and they get very frustrated. So if you can help bring this. In the forefront. It would help our senior population. At the present and going forward for the city of Long Beach. And by the way, I'm not a Long Beach residents. I'm located in Lakewood, but I support Long Beach. The elder abuse prevention team is Long Beach. I, I really respect the city and I truly do believe it deserves it for its community and senior population. Please don't let it be another 30 years that we wait for it. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I have. Oh. It's only 1/2. Oh, come on for real quick. Just cause I'm going to get. I'm going to get married.
Speaker 12: So I completely forgot I had a senior moment. No, I just like to let you know that, you know, our friend Lou Wall, who was running the Latino club at the senior center on Fourth Street, also passed away. She was also one of the members of the strategic planning, and they're actually having the city alone, which police department is having a celebration of life for her tomorrow from 1 to 4 and everyone is invited. Thank you.
Speaker 1: No, thank you very much. Good and good. Important announcement. Vice Mayor Lowenthal.
Speaker 4: Thank you. I wanted to follow Councilwoman Price's gratitude, expressed gratitude for all of your service, those of you that serve on our commission. I know Rita is here and has served as the second district representative for a long time. And I want to thank you, Rita Elmer, for doing that and all of you who serve. And you can't keep using the senior moment excuse. That isn't. Some of our councilmembers use it it doesn't work but thank you.
Speaker 1: And Pat West almost.
Speaker 4: And.
Speaker 1: Soon to be.
Speaker 0: Just plain.
Speaker 1: We're going to we're going to go we have a motion on the floor. We've done public comment. I just something I was just thinking of, you know, vice mayor and I we like to talk about those good public policy moments. And I think this is a really good public policy moment. And I just want to thank everyone that signed on to do this. Councilman Andrews, vice mayor, councilman, superstar and councilmember your during this is a really, really good thing. I'm really glad you guys do this. And so we have a motion because.
Speaker 8: I did make the motion.
Speaker 1: Yes, go ahead, sir.
Speaker 8: Okay, fine. I would like to move this motion. But before I'd even do that is that I want to thank all the young ladies who came up and spoke on aging. So when you do get to be that age, then you can come back and we will accept it. So now I'm just moving this motion and I like all my colleagues to pass that and thank everyone for that.
Speaker 1: All right. Thank you very much. There's a motion and.
Speaker 8: I know that your my young ladies and.
Speaker 1: I've heard stories about you. Yes. Please cast your ballot.
Speaker 2: Councilman Andrews.
Speaker 0: And then they go.
Speaker 2: Yes. Yeah.
Speaker 1: He says he's 75. He doesn't have to vote if he doesn't want to get out. You know, he's voting.
Speaker 2: That motion carries.
Speaker 1: Great. Thank you. Thank you all for coming. And of course, no big surprise being led by women. Of course. Oh, it's always the women. Always the women. I swear. It's just amazing. Next item is 23. | Agenda Item | Recommendation to request City Manager to direct the Department of Health and Human Services to update the Long Beach Strategic Plan for Older Adults and create an action plan to highlight and address priority areas, as well as, the feasibility of creating a City of Long Beach Office on Aging; and report back to City Council within six months. | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_10062015_15-1009 | Speaker 1: Okay. Next item.
Speaker 2: Report from Development Services recommendation. To receive and file a status update on the implementation of the language access policy and adopt resolution amending and restating the language access policy city wide.
Speaker 1: There's a motion in the second. Mr. Senate Majority Manager.
Speaker 0: Mayor Councilmembers. This is a regular update that we're providing you on language access. It'll be provided by Development Services Deputy Director Angela Reynolds and also Tracy Calandra.
Speaker 11: Good evening. Mayor and council members. I'm about to introduce Tracy Kalinga, who actually does all the heavy lifting on the language access policy. We've in the last six months and the last year and a half about we've been working diligently to institutionalize multiple languages, called out in this language access program policy into this diverse community. It's as I've said to you in the past, there's it's somewhat complex. There's very many moving parts. And any time you start a new policy, there are some ups and downs. However, since we've been funded by the City Council, we've been able to do a lot of things. And Tracy will tell you all about them.
Speaker 6: Honor Roll. Mayor and members of the City Council on August 13th is when City Council actually adopted the language access policy, just to give you some historical points. And so as part of the policy, we come back every six months, as Angela mentioned, to provide an update to Council Fiscal Year 2015, council allocated about 250,000 to implement the lap. And since then, we've had a number of initiatives that have been successful in the implementation of the policy. First off, we've developed a directory of all the staff receiving bilingual skill pay in the lap languages that is now available on the city's intranet for easy accessibility. We do update that directory every six months. Also, Development Services has selected vendors to provide court certified translation and interpretation services to implement LAP. Thanks to the Technology and Innovation Department. The Google Translate feature is now available on every Web page. And moving forward, we're encouraging all departments to upload the previously translated documents onto their respective department web pages. In addition, oral interpretation and document translation continue to be available upon request for City Council and Charter Commission meetings. You can see that noted on agendas and minutes. The Technology and Innovation Department has also recorded outgoing messages in the lap languages for the most frequently used phone lines in our city departments, as well as the designated city staff who receive those phone calls. They do have access to the language line for interpretation services, and we're proud to say that language line is now available citywide . Development Services worked with the water department to notify our city residents about the language access policy. We sent out 150,000 newsletters to the households in coordination with the water department to notify about the lap the lap policy, and that was provided in all four LEP languages. In addition, staff receiving bilingual skills pay have received training on appropriate techniques and ethics with respect to interpretation and translation. And lastly, staff worked with the City Attorney's Office and the Public Safety Departments, and we crafted the attached resolution updating the lap to address the use of children as interpreters. That concludes my report.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Let me do any public comment first on this item.
Speaker 0: Thanks again, Mr. Mayor. Gary Shelton speaking. I have a I believe it's a one page handout going across you. The one thing that I'm going to continue to come down here speaking about is the value of Google Translate as a usable and reliable and humanistic failure. It involves consistent errors in gender and number agreement. That means in Spanish anyway, they have masculine and feminine nouns and they have singular and plural. It makes mistakes in making those agree. It has errors in syntax, which is sentence structure. So you understand what's being said. It has errors in vocabulary words that are used incorrectly without the proper meaning. It has errors in accuracy, so you simply cannot tell what's being said. What I've handed out to you is very plain. It's a, it's a screenshot from today. And there's two of them. There's, there's one at the top and one at the bottom. The vertical pink bars are because I was running out of ink. I was going to say it. So you can tell that it's not actually on your computer screen, but it's on a piece of paper. But mine doesn't have the vertical bars. But I want to draw your attention to where it says select language. I think I circled that in the upper right hand corner, more or less. And I want to draw your attention to the word right below that where it says jobs. This is on page one. This is the entry page of the city's website. And where it says jobs and if you opt for Combi, which is what the Bannerman is. Notice what it says for the translation of jobs. It says Steve Jobs. That's how insulting Google Translate is. I didn't bother with a screencap on the Spanish language of the same page, but when you switch notice right next to where jobs is in the top row, it's a department that has all the various city departments, including development services. And when you switched to Spanish, that had completely disappeared. It's not available. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 2: Good evening, Honorable Mayor and City Council. My name is Maribel Cruz and I'm a resident of the fourth District. I am here today on behalf of the Long Beach Language Access Coalition and the Long Beach Immigrant Rights Coalition, because this issue deeply affects people in my community. The city is now entering its third year of implementing the Language Access Policy, which was adopted back in 2013 and is now going on its second year of implementation. While our coalition recognizes the great strides that have taken place since this policy's initiation, we also recognize more work needs to be done to ensure the successful implementation of this policy. The Language Access Coalition has identified the following areas of focus. First, the city needs to improve its direct contact with limited English proficient residents. This includes public displays and signage in AP languages, which are Spanish, Combi and Tagalog. I have provided an example used by the offices of the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, which indicates how one can request translation services. The city needs to complete translated for lines and voicemails, use language lines for walk ins and callers of all languages. Make the city's single phone line accessible in all AP languages and have adequate front desk staffing. Second, the city should train all staff regarding how to work with sleep residents and interpreting should include the new restrictions on the use of children, family members and friends as interpreters. Third, in the future and ensure all departments fund language access as a line item in their budget. And finally, complete translation of vital documents in key city web. Translation Not just Google Translate. There was a time as a young child, I was my parents interpreter. I saw them struggle. And to this day, I see my neighbors and friends struggle to find adequate interpreters. This is why our vision is of a city that is both fully language accessible and welcoming to historically disenfranchized community members so that they can both receive necessary services and participate in their government.
Speaker 12: Thank you.
Speaker 0: Good evening, city council members. My name is John Victor and I am with the Long Beach Language Access Coalition. Tonight I'm reading a testimony by a Filipino community member I work with in West Long Beach. So I'm going to say another name. So that's not me, but this is him. My name is Julius Clark. Son and I reside in the seventh.
Speaker 12: District to begin.
Speaker 0: Not many people know how to access the city's resources. In addition, Long Beach has a huge population of people who possess English as a second language. Both of these reasons, but many people of color are at a disadvantage in participating in key decision making processes in Long Beach. This is why I highly support the continued implementation and need for language and access to be available through all city departments, not just City Hall. Thank you. So Julia shares the importance of language access for many limited English proficiency speakers not only accessing services in city hall, but across city services, from libraries to parks and recreation.
Speaker 12: And so many.
Speaker 0: More.
Speaker 12: With almost over 44% of the city's population speaking a.
Speaker 0: Language other than English, it is important to begin to delve into where there.
Speaker 12: Are gaps.
Speaker 0: In language access into city services. As the Long Beach Language Access Coalition, we are here tonight.
Speaker 12: Because.
Speaker 0: We hope that the city not only looks.
Speaker 12: To ensuring.
Speaker 0: The sustainability of language access.
Speaker 12: In City Hall, but across all city departments. I'd like to share a story.
Speaker 0: From my own experience as an immigrant Filipino. I moved to the Philippines.
Speaker 12: I moved to Long Beach from the.
Speaker 0: Philippines in.
Speaker 12: 1997. And one of the things that in reflecting.
Speaker 0: In this whole process of even language access they remember is.
Speaker 12: I never understood a lot of the signs. I would look up at the streets.
Speaker 0: I would look up. This was the first year when I came to the U.S..
Speaker 12: And I didn't know what they meant. I just saw letters and.
Speaker 0: I would say to my Tagalog accent and didn't make sense.
Speaker 12: And now I'm here and you can speak fluently, but I know that there are many other residents.
Speaker 0: That don't have the ability or have had the privilege to come at a young age and learn the language. And when they come to a door, when they come to the street, they are unsure of what the sign is. They're not sure when they're at a park, when they're at city hall, when they're at the library.
Speaker 12: And and that's unfair. And as the Long Beach Language Access Coalition, we hope that that experience.
Speaker 0: Doesn't happen to other residents. And we hope that the city.
Speaker 12: Can support residents that come from all walks of life, from all.
Speaker 0: Backgrounds, so that they can access not just the source.
Speaker 12: Services.
Speaker 0: But also the resources that people deserve to have. Thank you for your time.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Thank you all for coming out. Take this back behind the rail now so we can go through the council comments. Councilwoman Price.
Speaker 6: Thank you. Thank you very much to staff for that excellent report and thanks to the members of the public who came out to express some concerns. It's my understanding that staff continues to try to find ways to enhance and and meet the spirit of the the policy and all the different things that we've asked.
Speaker 1: Councilman, I'm sorry I made a mistake. I need to go to the maker of the motion to speak first. Who hasn't? And then I'll go to you.
Speaker 6: So I'll sentence Alvin to remember where I was.
Speaker 0: We'll come.
Speaker 5: Right back.
Speaker 0: To, you know, he's.
Speaker 1: He reminded me. So I'm going to go to Councilman Richardson. I make the motion and then I'll go.
Speaker 0: Go, go. Thanks.
Speaker 5: Thanks. And I know it's going late, so I want to you know, and we know this routine because we do it every six months. So we're just going to kind of bang through some of these. First of all, I know that our staff does a does a great job. They're doing a lot. I mean, from this My Brother's Keeper, violence prevention. But all of it's really important. And it gets us to a space where we have a more accessible, more equitable city. So I just want to start by just acknowledging staff on their hard work every six months on this. So. So I wanted to I got the handout and I just shared it with staff because I just want to talk through some of these, you know, and I marked up some of them as Met as well. And I want to talk through these, see where we are, see if there are any changes that might need to be made that I can incorporate into this motion. And then I want to hear from the council if there's any, you know, anything else that they might want to incorporate. So I want to start from the bottom of this list. It asks for completion of vital document translation in key city web pages, not just Google Translate. And I remember I remember in the budget we did fund, I think it was like the top 25 pages of our new website. So can we get just have an update to just address the top 25 pages? We're going to have like a real translation, but not and everything else would have Google translate as I remember it. How, how how's that coming.
Speaker 11: Councilman Richardson? What we did not include in our report, which I would like to actually add right now, is we had about a $70,000 carryover from last year. We had we incurred budget savings that we were very happy about. And so with that and the $80,000 that was appropriated to language access policy for FY 16, we are going to continue to translate documents, utilize language line more throughout the city program, the remaining 16 frequently called phone lines. And that is a very expensive proposition and it's very time consuming as well. Make interpretation services available for public meetings. Conduct annual staff trainings on best practices for translating post notices about lap around the city and about lip services in the public areas of city facilities. I think that's on their list, including evacuation routes. And yes, I think you're correct. We talked about translating top access Web pages and it can be as many as, you know, we will will begin doing that and see how far the budget takes us with that. So those are all the things that we are planning to do and FY16 with the budget that we do have.
Speaker 5: Fantastic. So everything you listed, I would just assume that the timelines f y 16. Correct. Great. I'm satisfied with that. Next. So you mentioned that you are conducting training. I see a number of these items that the coalition is asking for reference training to, in particular one about how to how staff are training on how staff works with interpreters. And I know that that is a skill to develop. So I and so based on your response, we do have that. We are doing that.
Speaker 11: Yes. We've been working with a vendor to prepare a video that can train staff at their desk about that. And we will be rolling that out very soon.
Speaker 5: Perfect. And then the training on use of on it was a win when we got the chow interpreter restriction in there. Is that a part of that video as well.
Speaker 11: No, not at this particular moment, but it is incorporated into the policy.
Speaker 5: Okay. So I know it's in the past. How do we what I.
Speaker 11: Will say is, in order to develop that language, we met with all the public safety folks. Fire, police, who else? City attorney, city prosecutor, people that come in contact with the public a lot. So that's how we did that. I'm thinking you're asking about accountability for that. We can we can actually add that or do it as a separate piece of the video. I think we definitely.
Speaker 5: That would be good if we just made sure we check the box. So the what we do is in alignment with the policy and then under sort of making sure that all points of contact have access to it. I know that we just mentioned exits, entrance, entryways. This was just shared with us. This thing that says, hey, just point to the language. So you want to just elaborate on what we're doing in terms of our sign program.
Speaker 6: Councilman Richardson, what we've done is we we've averaged that we have about 180 public counters within the city. That includes all the floors in city hall, but also our parks and recreation sites, libraries, etc.. And so what we'd like to do is develop a quick and easy, almost like they do at Kaiser Permanente, where you have the four languages, English, Spanish, combined, Tagalog. And it explains that we have assistance in those particular languages, point to the language, and we'll find either a bilingual staff member who can assist you or another alternative, like we mentioned earlier in terms of language line.
Speaker 0: Great.
Speaker 5: And then in terms of the the fall, I know that in this recent budget and this might be a question for Mr. Mayor, the in the recent budget, we talked about going and having one phone number for the whole city. Are we are we going to make sure that that has the four languages accessibility as well?
Speaker 1: You know, that project is very, very early, so I'm not even sure where that project is, but I'm sure that this is as part of our policy. I'm sure that every kind of communication is somehow we're trying to incorporate language access when possible.
Speaker 0: Right.
Speaker 5: Based on these responses, everything on this list and with the exception of number four, which which I don't know that that's you know, I want to talk about this right now, but everything else on this item has been responded to. So my motion is to accept it, you know, accept this update and just to include the one provision about updating the video with the child and interpreters. So thank you so much, everyone, for this. And and that's my motion.
Speaker 1: Councilman Andrews.
Speaker 8: Yes, thank you, Mayor. You know, first of all, I'd like to thank, you know, our deputy director and that's Angela Reynolds and her staff, Tracy Calandra, for their hard work on this policy because at last, you know, our council meeting, I have to see more emphasis on the implementation of these items within the next four or five months, and you got to meet that goal. So when I wrote the assignment back in 211, I knew that it would take, you know, a little time to implement. And I really, really excited to see the new additions to this. So I am also seeing the positive changes and I see the communications. It has instilled a new confidence in our community and I'm very, very grateful to be able to reach out to more of our sixth district, you know, a diverse community. And thank you again.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Now back to Councilman Pryce.
Speaker 6: Thank you. I'm not sure where I was, but thank you to staff and I'm glad we're moving forward. I'm just curious, maybe I would offer this as a friendly to Councilman Councilmember Richardson. The staff has done a nice job of updating us. Would you be open to having their council updates occur on an annual basis with maybe a written update to be provided to Council members and Language Access Coalition at the six month interval so that they are not making the presentation at council?
Speaker 5: I think it's a I think it's a fair ask what I would say, you know, if there was a big work plan initially and it looks like it's starting to become more narrow, it's fair. What I would say is I'd like to just I see a number of people queued up. I want to hear sort of some consensus so that the motion that we put out is, you know, a supported motion. So let's hear what the rest of the council wants to say on that topic.
Speaker 1: Councilman Durango.
Speaker 9: Thank you, Mayor. Good point, Gary. Know, Mr. Sheldon brought up a point that I was going to actually address, and that is the overuse of overreliance on Google translation. It's horrible. I've used to before. I've had people come to me and say, you know, this is this is a great product to use. And what I used it and I saw it, it was just totally in disarray. So I'm hoping that staff monitors that in a way that it doesn't get the message isn't lost in the translation. It certainly can happen. And and an overreliance on such a program would would do more harm than good in the community. And in regard to that, I heard a good thing I heard Mr. Reynolds say that they're looking towards the institutionalization of this program. And I think Councilmember Richardson I think that addresses item number four in that there's going to be institutionalization, there's going to be some funding behind it. And I would hope that every department would. Implement a program that goes towards that in the sense that. What was that? Okay. Okay. Stacy, that. As we go towards institutionalizing this program that departments will, in fact set aside some funds so that it can happen eventually. I think that's what you might have met maybe with some clarification on that. But I think we should we should have we should include it in there. I think.
Speaker 5: So. Just to respond, um, I know that a while back they did articulate like, you know, what is the total amount we spend across the city on, on language access. They had to break down on all of our.
Speaker 0: All of our.
Speaker 5: You know, what was it? Was it the skill pays and all that stuff? So if I'm okay with seeing it broken down by my department, like what people do, I just don't know what it requires in terms of staff time. So I'm okay putting that into my motion to evaluate it. So next time we hear back, we see if that's if that's possible.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I think it's important that mainly because it takes staff, it takes recruiting, it takes job announcements and testing to ensure that the people that we are hiring to provide these services do in fact possess those skills. And having been an English teacher back in the day and having been an assessor of Spanish and English language skills , I know that it is a skill. And you mentioned it. It is a skill. It is important skill. And unless you really know what you're doing, it's like I again, the the the message gets lost in the translation and we want to ensure that that does not happen to.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Vice President Joe.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I wanted to thank the staff for the presentation and Councilmember Richardson for his comments and support. I wanted to also share that I would be in support of having the written report and then a formal presentation annually. And as you said, unless there is a large item that needs to come forward, that that would be that would be something that I would be amenable to as well.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Mongo.
Speaker 2: I think that we've made great progress. I'm glad you're still interested in the single phone number of access. I think that as we talk about seniors and aging and a third of our seniors not speaking English, that that's really a key thing that I look forward to a report on. I'm also in support of Councilmember Price's idea behind moving this to a written report that I think has a lot of of value to the community.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Councilwoman Price.
Speaker 6: So I just want to follow up with Councilman Richardson. I mean, I think certainly if there's issues or ideas brought to the table, we can agenda visit and ask staff to come back. But since this is something that we we think about in terms of funding on an annual basis, I think it would make sense to do so.
Speaker 5: I want to I want to recognize and thank you for the tone and how you how we came to this. And I see that there is clear support for this. I think there I think we need to make sure that, you know, we have we had a larger work plan. It has narrowed. You know, I think we can maintain this focus. I think we're asking for a reasonable semiannual. Every six months we get an update. One of them is in writing. One of them's in at the city council. I think that's fair given the workload on staff. So I'm okay with that. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Okay. So the friendly is that the language access report would come once a year to the council in a in a public format. And then of course, six months would be a two from four from the from the city manager. There's a motion in a second on the floor, please. Member please go and cast your votes.
Speaker 2: Motion carries. | Resolution | Recommendation to receive and file a status update on the implementation of the Language Access Policy; and adopt resolution amending and restating the Language Access Policy. (Citywide) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_10062015_15-1010 | Speaker 1: Thank you. Next item, please.
Speaker 2: Report from financial management. Recommendation to award a contract to Parsons constructors for as needed professional play administration services in an annual amount not to exceed $280,000 citywide.
Speaker 1: Mr. West as the in a second face merely talking to get a second please. Can I get a second? Okay. There's a there's a motion and a second. Mr. West, do you have a quick update on this? I have a.
Speaker 0: Quick update by our purchasing manager, Jason McDonald. Mayor Council members. The item in front of you is for a ward of a contract to support the staff administration of the project labor agreement to Parsons constructors of Pasadena. Following a request for proposals, Parsons response was reviewed by an evaluation panel and determined to have met the required criteria . Additionally, Parsons has prior experience working with the city as well as the building trades and has served as the play administrator for the Port of Long Beach. The team, proposed by Parsons, has extensive experience in working with plays in Los Angeles County. That concludes my comments. I'm available to answer any questions. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Any public comment on the item? CNN members is going to cast your votes. You're not kidding. Do you want a Cuban? Okay. Go ahead, Councilman Ringa.
Speaker 9: Thank you, Mayor, for regulating me. What? My own. In reviewing the report, I see that there were a number of businesses, women, business owned entities, disadvantaged entities and minority enterprises as well. What is Parsons? Where does it fit? In those categories.
Speaker 0: Councilmember. I don't I don't know. Off the top of my head, I can look it up here. We probably have it in the report. But I don't know.
Speaker 9: Because one of the things I want to I've said it before and I want to encourage it again is that we need to be sensitive to minority owned businesses when we do our contracting out. We don't have enough. I don't think we're even close to even 5% or 10% of contractors that do business with the city. And it's a it's going to be an ongoing issue for me as I review these that we make sure that we are addressing our need to hire and contract with women owned businesses, minority owned businesses and enterprises as well as disadvantaged enterprises. So I'm hoping that with this number of applicants that we're there and this one one out. We need to create a better way of being able to identify that we get enough minority women on and disadvantaged businesses into our contract cycle. I'm more like on a pedestal. I'm not one of those.
Speaker 1: Think accounts. Remember, we had the motion to approve the motion in the second. If I can just please cast your vote on that.
Speaker 2: Oh. Motion carries. | Contract | Recommendation to adopt Specifications No. RFP FM15-167 and award contract to Parsons Constructors, Inc., of Pasadena, CA, for as-needed professional Project Labor Agreement (PLA) administration services, in an annual amount not to exceed $280,000, for a period of one year, with the option to renew for four additional one-year periods, at the discretion of the City Manager. (Citywide) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_10062015_15-1016 | Speaker 2: The motion carries. Item 33 Report from Public Works Recommendation to execute and a public walkway occupancy permit with a sidewalk extension Parklet for sidewalk dining at the working class kitchen located at 1322 Coronado Avenue, District four.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Councilmember Supernova.
Speaker 0: We look forward to this project and urge my council members to join me in voting for it.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Councilman Mongo.
Speaker 2: Excited to have the outdoor opportunity. I hope that they'll allow dogs.
Speaker 1: Councilman Price.
Speaker 6: I have no comment.
Speaker 1: Okay. I just wanted to say, if you've not been a working class kitchen yet, you're missing out on one of the best Long Beach spots in the entire city. So, so good food. So any public comment on this? Nope. Please cast your.
Speaker 2: Councilwoman Pryce. Vice Mayor Lowenthal. Motion carries. | Contract | Recommendation to authorize City Manager to execute a Public Walkways Occupancy Permit with sidewalk extension parklet for the purposes of sidewalk dining at the Working Class Kitchen, located at 1322 Coronado Avenue. (District 4) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_10062015_15-1015 | Speaker 2: Motion carries.
Speaker 1: 35.
Speaker 2: Report from Public Works. Economic and Property Development. Recommendation to adopt resolution to allow the installation of angled parking on Shoreline Drive. Approve the expansion of parking meters Zone 20 and request the city attorney to prepare an amendment to the Long Beach Municipal Municipal Code relating to parking meter zones, District two.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Vice Mayor Bill Giovanni comments.
Speaker 4: I to just briefly, I wanted to just share that the existing angled parking on Shoreline Drive has been a big hit so far. So I'd like to thank our public works team for making this change. Not only are we increasing the capacity for restaurants, we're making the area more pedestrian friendly by taking less lanes away from shoreline and reducing the overall vehicle speed. So, Ira and your staff, thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Any public comment on the item saying that? Please cast your vote.
Speaker 2: Council. Motion carries. | Resolution | Recommendation to adopt resolution to allow the installation of angled parking on:
a. The north side of Shoreline Drive from Chestnut Place to
Cedar Avenue;
b. The north side of Shoreline Drive from Aquarium Way to Pine
Avenue; and
c. The south side of Shoreline Drive from Pine Avenue to
Shoreline Village Drive;
Approve the expansion of Parking Meter Zone 20; and
Request City Attorney to prepare an amendment to Section 10.28.130 of the Long Beach Municipal Code, relating to parking meter zones. (District 2) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_09222015_15-0959 | Speaker 4: Thank you. I'd also like to make another announcement, and that is that hearing item three has been withdrawn and item 16 will be considered under the consent calendar. So, Madam Clerk, hearing item.
Speaker 1: One. Report from City Manager Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record, conclude the hearing and adopt the resolution. Continuing the Fourth Street Parking and Business Improvement Area Assessment for the period of October 15 through September 16, and authorize the City Manager to extend the agreement with the Fourth Street Business Improvement Association District to.
Speaker 4: Leicester City manager. Assistant City Manager.
Speaker 2: Vice Mayor Lowenthal, members of the City Council. The staff report will be provided by Mike Conway, Economic and Property Development Director.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much. This item is the annual approval of the Fourth Street Parking and Business Improvement Area Annual Report and Ongoing Assessment. On August 11, 2015, City Council approved a resolution granting approval of the annual report and set today's date for the public hearing. The recommended action on this item continues the assessment for another year. There are no proposed changes to the basis of assessment nor significant changes in the proposed activity. Therefore, staff requests that City Council received the supporting documentation on the record. Approve the resolution, continue the letter of the assessment and authorize the city manager to extend the agreement for one additional year. And this concludes my report.
Speaker 4: Thank you. I don't believe there's an oath required here, so I'd like to move to receive supporting documentation, conclude the hearing, and adopt the attached resolution, and authorize the city manager to extend the agreement with Fourth Street Business Improvement Association for a one year term. There's been a motion and a second. Is there any member of the public that wish to address Council on hearing item one? SINGH None. Members Cast your vote.
Speaker 1: Motion carries. | Resolution | Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record, conclude the hearing, and adopt resolution continuing the Fourth Street Parking and Business Improvement Area assessment for the period of October 1, 2015 through September 30, 2016; and authorize City Manager to extend the agreement with the Fourth Street Business Improvement Association for a one-year term. (District 2) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_09222015_15-0960 | Speaker 4: Item two.
Speaker 1: Report from City Manager Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record, conclude the hearing and adopt resolution can continue in the Belmont Home Parking and Business Improvement Area Assessment for the period of October 15 through September 16th, and authorize the city manager to extend the agreement with the Belmont Shore Business Association District three.
Speaker 4: Staff Report.
Speaker 0: Vice Mayor Lowenthal Members.
Speaker 2: Of the City Council. The staff report will be provided by Mike Conway, Economic and Property Development Director. Thank you very much. This item is the annual approval of the Belmont Shore Parking and Business Improvement Area Annual Report and Ongoing Assessment. On August 11, 2015, City Council approved a resolution granting approval of the annual report and set today's date for the public hearing. The recommended action on this item continues the assessment for another year. There are no proposed changes to the basis of assessment nor significant changes in the proposed activities. Therefore, staff requests that City Council receive the supporting documentation into the record, approve the resolution, continue the levy of the assessment, and authorize the city manager to extend the agreement for one additional year. This concludes my report.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Councilwoman Price.
Speaker 6: Thank you. Vice Mayor. I have moved to approve this recommendation. Belmont Shore is a stellar example in the city of Long Beach of what a successful business improvement district can do to energize a business corridor. Recently, Second Street has attracted notable restaurants such as St and Second Nicks on Second and Simmons's. Additionally, we have had a great balance of local retail as well as nationally recognized chains. The Belmont Shore Business Association hosts many family friendly events like Stroll and Savor the Chocolate Festival, the car show, which we recently had, and of course, the annual Belmont Shore Christmas parade. I want to recognize Deedee Rossi, the executive director of the Belmont Shore Business Association, and President Mike Sheldrake with Polly's Gourmet Coffee for their dedication to this business district. I also want to acknowledge the diligent efforts of our city staffer Jim Fisk for his hard work in supporting this organization. Their collective hard work and that.
Speaker 1: Of the SBA board clearly drives the success.
Speaker 6: Of the Belmont Shore Business District, and we thank them very much. I'm happy to approve this recommendation or move it forward.
Speaker 4: Thank you. Councilwoman Price, is there any member of the public that wished to comment on hearing item two seeing none. Members Cast your vote.
Speaker 1: Councilwoman Mongo. Councilmember Richardson. Motion carries 9080.
Speaker 4: Thank you. That is all we have for hearings. Next is our consent calendar items four through 11 and item 16. And is there any member of the public that wishes to address the Council on consent? Motioned by Councilman Austin and Councilmember Richardson. | Resolution | Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record, conclude the hearing, and adopt resolution continuing the Belmont Shore Parking and Business Improvement Area assessment for the period of October 1, 2015 through September 30, 2016; and authorize City Manager to extend the agreement with the Belmont Shore Business Association for a one-year term. (District 3) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_09222015_15-0975 | Speaker 4: Thank you. I appreciate that clarification. And that concludes public comment on items not on the agenda. We've done consent items for three, 11 and 16. Madam Clerk, next item. Is 12.
Speaker 1: Item 12 Communication from Councilman Andrew's Recommendation to approve the use of Sixth Council District Fiscal Year 2015. One time infrastructure funds in the amount of $10,000 to fund community improvement, healthy eating and community engagement activities for a two year period.
Speaker 4: There's been a motion and a second. Is there a staff report? Or Councilmember Andrews.
Speaker 9: Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. You know, the sixth District is part of the home of approximately 50,000 residents. As the host of many outstanding institutions and public facilities. Districts are also rich in culture, due in large part it is rich in ethnic diversity. While there is much to celebrate their continued challenge, such as healthy eating choices, access to healthy food and healthy activities. We also like food services, grocery stores and farmers markets where residents can buy a variety of fruits, vegetables and whole grain. A low fat diet produce instead. Residents, especially those without reliable transportation, may be limited to shopping at a small, neighborhood, convenient and corner store, where fresh produce and low fat items are limited, if available at all. For this reason, I would like to use a portion of my. District wide 15 one times. Infrastructure funds to transfer to the Department of Parks, Recreation and Marine to provide much needed community farmers markets that provide healthy choices as well as healthy activities and encourage residents to exercise. This I would like to move, you know, if I can get okay from the council.
Speaker 4: So there's been a motion and a second. Councilmember Your Honor, did you want to address the motion as well? Okay. Is there any member of the public that wish to address Council on item 12? Seeing None members. Cast your vote.
Speaker 1: Motion carries. | Agenda Item | Recommendation to approve the use of Sixth Council District Fiscal Year 2015 one-time infrastructure funds in the amount of $10,000 to fund community improvement, healthy eating, and community engagement activities in the Sixth Council District for a two-year period. | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_09222015_15-0978 | Speaker 4: Thank you. Item 13.
Speaker 1: Communication from Vice Mayor Lowenthal. Recommendation to approve a deviation from existing policy and procedures for naming of city owned land, buildings and facilities to allow the Center Theater to be renamed the Beverly O'Neill Theater in honor of her contributions to the city of Long Beach.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Madam Clerk. I'd like to thank the International City Theater for suggesting that the Center Theater be named after former Mayor Beverly O'Neill for her lifelong dedication to the city of Long Beach. With us in the audience, we have several members of the act board, and they may not all be here at this time, but we were expecting Jim Pruitt, the act board vice president. Dr. Minnie Douglas, A.C.T. Board Vice President. Dr. Felton Williams Board Member. Steve Dodge Board Member. Julie Larkins Board Member. Karen Deci Ikt Artistic Director and Producer. Dennis Negros Icon Staff. Amanda Soto I City Staff. And Jan from Camerata Singers. As my colleagues know, Long Beach has an administrative policy that guides the naming of land, buildings and facilities affectionately called 8-7. It is customary for City Council to name parks and other city assets in the honor of individuals no longer with us, but the policy does not allow for exception does allow excuse me for exceptions in cases where council deems it appropriate on the basis of a significant contribution to the nation, state or city of Long Beach. Former Mayor O'Neill certainly fits in this category for all of us. That have benefited from her four years of dedication to education in Long Beach through Long Beach City College and Cal State Long Beach and her leadership as mayor during some of Long Beach, his most difficult years as the city and its economy, struggled with the departure of the Navy and aerospace jobs. As we continue to experience the benefits of her good work in support of nonprofits, arts, culture throughout the city during her lifetime, Beverly O'Neill has exuded a sense of optimism, competence and grace. I've always thought that she put Long Beach on the map at a time when many people did not know if we were Long Beach, California , or Long Beach, New York. And she did this in approaching challenges and inspired our city to believe in itself. And that's something that's palpable. Here is her ability to have inspired our city, to believe in ourselves. So we are indebted for her work as a public servant. Now, the timing of this item is such that if Council and the Housing and Neighborhoods Committee approved the name change, it can actually occur immediately, since there's construction currently taking place on the exterior of the center theater building. So with that, I'd like to make a motion to approve the changing of the Center Theater to Beverly O'Neill Theater and send the recommendation to the Housing and Neighborhoods Committee. There's been a motion and a second councilmember. Your.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Mayor. I'm proud and honored to second this motion. You said at all in your presentation that there's no question that the Beverly O'Neill has been an icon for Long Beach and it's well-deserved and earned. And I completely support this motion.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Councilwoman Pryce.
Speaker 6: Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor Lowenthal, for bringing this item forward. I consider Mayor O'Neal to be a mentor, and I am happy that we are honoring her work with the arts community and the city of Long Beach. Mayor O'Neal was instrumental in guiding the city after the Navy left Long Beach by focusing on the three T's tourism, trade and technology. Mayor O'Neal was a visionary leader, and she had shaped our economy today by making important investments in our airport, the port of Long Beach, our convention center, and numerous organizations that she touched during her 12 year tenure as mayor. I am honored to support the renaming of the theater in honor of Mayor O'Neal. She is beloved in our city, and I'm so proud to have her as a resident, to have her as a mentor and to be able to take this step. So I thank you for bringing this forward.
Speaker 4: Thank you. Councilman Andrews. Yes.
Speaker 9: Yes, thank you, Vice Mayor. I, too, would like to thank you for bringing this, you know, to the diocese. Beverly O'Neal was one of our city's greatest mayors, you know, to this day. She is still working for Long Beach. And I remember how she led Long Beach through the transformation from a Navy town to a tourist destination, a hub for international trade. She took on the challenge to let our city into a new direction. Mrs. O'Neal will always be the favorite of mine, and she always will be. Polly's Geographic. I'm in favor of this item. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Councilwoman Gonzales Yes, I am working with the ICC board members Karen and Jim and Dr. Williams. It's been a pleasure and I'm so very glad that we're here at City Council now talking about renaming this after Beverly O'Neil. And I look forward to many years with them, with you all and talking about the wonderful theater. Councilwoman Mongo I too, am here to support renaming the Center Theater for Beverly O'Neil. She has been a mentor and a leader for this city that we should all be very proud of. And in addition to being a holly jackrabbit, let's not remember that she's also a Long Beach City College Viking.
Speaker 0: Oh, sure.
Speaker 4: And so it starts. Councilman. Councilman Austin.
Speaker 8: Thank you very much. I want to also thank you, Vice Mayor Lowenthal, for bringing this forward. I want to thank the act board of directors for having the vision to honor such a I'm such a such a hero, hero in our community. Beverly O'Neal is is arguably the most one of the most respected elected officials ever to serve the city. She served with grace and honor, and she put Long Beach on a national map in a lot of ways. She's my favorite mayor because she appointed me to a commission that got my my my public service career going here in the city of Long Beach. And so I thought support this 100%. Thank you.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Councilmember Richardson.
Speaker 7: I also rise in support of this. And I want to acknowledge Vice Mayor Lowenthal for for understanding that our code doesn't allow doesn't stop us from, you know, recognizing people have done who have done really special things in our community. And I think this is very appropriate to do so. So so thank you so much for for really exercising the right that the city council has to do that.
Speaker 4: Thank you. There's been a motion and a second. Is there any member of the public that wish to come forward and address council on this item?
Speaker 1: I'm Karen Deci, artistic director and producer of International City Theater. And I appreciate this vice mayor and city council for.
Speaker 4: This opportunity.
Speaker 1: And to speak on this subject. Beverly O'Neill has devoted her life to public service, as many of you have stated, and is appreciated for many things on many levels. Her appreciation and support of arts and education, her understanding of what it does for our community, our children and our future are truly noteworthy, especially as it applies to renaming the theater. Theater is art, and theater is about education. Theater supports a more educated and a more harmonious society. As you know, International City Theater's home is at the Center Theater. The board of directors and I hope you will support this change. The center theater name has no significance to the facility or the community. Renaming it the Beverly O'Neill Theater is appropriate and is fitting recognition for a very deserving woman. It is a wonderful way to say thank you to someone.
Speaker 4: Who has loved and.
Speaker 1: Cared for this city and its residents for so long. I want to thank you for supporting this on behalf of the board and myself. Thank you so much.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Karen. Seeing no furthers speakers members, please cast your vote.
Speaker 1: Motion carries.
Speaker 4: Thank you. | Agenda Item | Recommendation to consider naming the Center Theatre to be renamed the "Beverly O'Neill Theatre" in honor of her contributions to the City of Long Beach. | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_09222015_15-0970 | Speaker 4: Item 15.
Speaker 1: Report from police recommendation to receive and file the application of Maritime for an original application of an ABC license at five, five, five East Ocean Boulevard, Suite 101 District two.
Speaker 4: Thank you. I'd like to make the motion to approve. To receive and file the application for an original ABC license. It's been in motion. And a second. So staff report.
Speaker 2: Deputy Chief Hendricks can provide the staff report.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Good evening, Vice Mayor. Members of the Council. The item before you is an original application for a type 41 on sale beer and wine license to be used at a restaurant at 555 East Ocean. Police Department does not anticipate any adverse impact to the community or to city services. This concludes the staff report.
Speaker 4: Thank you. Is there any member of the public that wish to address Council on item 15? Seeing nonmembers cast your vote.
Speaker 1: Councilman Andrews. Motion carries.
Speaker 4: Item 16 was taken. Item 17. | ABC License | Recommendation to receive and file the application of Phatreeya, LLC, dba Naree Thai, for an original application of an Alcoholic Beverage Control License, at 555 East Ocean Boulevard, Suite 101. (District 2) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_09152015_15-0918 | Speaker 2: Actually, I just got the new updated schedule. If the council doesn't mind. I'm sorry, I just saw it. We're going to take one item before this. If you don't mind, I apologize. We're going to take item 22/1 so that we can get these folks, our commissioners that are waiting. Moving on. And then we'll go up and then we'll move on to item 23. Then we will begin the budget process with Vice Mayor Lowenthal. Okay. So item 22.
Speaker 1: Communication from Councilman Austin, Chair Personnel and Civil Services Committee recommendation to receive and confirm re appointments to the Harbor Commission and Water Commission.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Councilman Austin.
Speaker 7: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And it is my pleasure to announce that the the Personnel and Civil Service Committee did meet last Tuesday and made recommendations to reappoint the following individuals to to the Harbor Commission, Lou. Ann Bynum to an at large seat. Doug Drummond to an at large seat as well to the Harbor Commission. And on the Water Commission, we'd like to reappoint Arthur Levine and Harry Salts, cover all our outstanding standing residents. All have contributed to our city, both as commissioners, but also in their private lives as well. And so I recommend. Approval of the committee's recommendation. I so move.
Speaker 2: Okay. There's been a motion and a second to approve Councilman Richardson on price.
Speaker 8: Just want to congratulate our commissioners. You're doing an excellent job for us and at least two of you are residents of the third. So I thank you for being active members of our community and for your service on the commissions as well as and so many other things like Councilmember Austin just mentioned. So thank you.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Councilman Andrews.
Speaker 4: Yes, thank you, Mayor. You know, I'm very impressed with vote of the individuals, Lou. And and the job that they've done as leaders is really impeccable. And she is a great role model. And I feel that Long Beach is so lucky to have her on the Harbor Commission. And Doug Drummond has been one of the greatest leaders as well, and that Mr. Drummond is doing just as almost every event that I've had in my district, you know, which is makes it very, you know, exciting for the individuals, you know, from the sixth District that we do have, you know, an individual in the harbor department that is really in favor and they are with our community. So I really want to think that and Mrs. Suzanne and all the rest of the individuals from the Harbor Commission to let you know that we are really, truly behind you. And we hope you continue to be, you know, behind us. Thank you very much, Doug. Congratulations to both you and the way.
Speaker 2: Thank you. If we can just please have any public comment on the item. Say Nonmembers, please go ahead and cast your votes. And of course, I want to congratulate you all. I've already done it in person, but congrats again to our re-appointed commissioners as they continue to serve. Everyone's locked up waiting for one workout. There we go.
Speaker 1: Motion carries.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Congratulations again. I look forward to to the service. Now we'll be moving item to 23 before we go back to the to the budget process. Thank you. | Agenda Item | Recommendation of the Personnel and Civil Service Committee to receive and confirm reappointments to the Harbor Commission (2 reappointments); and Water Commission (2 reappointments). | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_09152015_15-0938 | Speaker 2: Thank you. Congratulations again. I look forward to to the service. Now we'll be moving item to 23 before we go back to the to the budget process. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Communication from Vice Mayor Lowenthal, Chair Budget Oversight Committee Recommendation to receive the summary of Responses to the Long Beach Budget Priority Survey and the Long Beach Budget Challenge.
Speaker 2: Thank you. However, motion in a second. So to turn this over to staff and have them do the report. We heard council members, thank you very much.
Speaker 5: We had the opportunity to make this presentation to the Budget Oversight Committee recently, and we're happy to do it before the Council addresses the full budget. Geoff Hall of my office will walk us through the items.
Speaker 9: Honorable Mayor and members of the city council. The Budget Priorities Survey and the budget challenge were implemented in response to the City Council's interest in obtaining resident feedback regarding their budget priorities prior to the adoption of the FY16 Budget. The survey tools went live on August 1st and the results were summarized based on the responses received as of yesterday afternoon, September 14th. It's important to note that the survey tools do not preclude multiple responses from a single individual, nor do they attempt to balance the responses from all segments of the community. For the Budget Priorities Survey participants were asked to rate 35 city services as being very important. Somewhat important, not very important or not at all important. The survey was available online and through hard copy handouts, which were distributed at community budget meetings. Hard copies were available in English, Spanish and Tagalog. 610 survey responses had been received as of September 14th. Looking at the demographics of the sample, why we did have participation from residents in each council district. The majority of residents were respondents were located in districts three, four and five. As far as age is concerned, two thirds of the respondents were 50 years or older. And for household size two person household was the predominant category. To provide a means of comparison of the results. Each response to each service was assigned a weight very important to four points. Somewhat important three points. Not very important two points and not at all important one point. The total points for each service was divided by the number of responses received for each service to obtain a weighted average. When considering the results, it is important to remember the general demographics of the respondents. The results may have been different if a scientific sampling methodology had been utilized. This slide shows the highest rated services with the line signifying the top ten. I won't take the time to read them. But I did want to to make note of the fourth item listed. Maintaining or repairing public buildings rated higher than one might one might have expected. We believe this can be attributed to the fact that more than 40% of the survey respondents submitting comments expressed a desire that the city fund infrastructure improvements at Rancho Los Alamitos and this service directly speaks to their interest. This slide shows the services in the lower half. It is interesting to note that only six of the listed services had an average weighted score under three. In other words, it could be said that services are generally viewed by the survey sample as being at least somewhat important. Again, the ranking of the services should be viewed in relation to the demographics of the sample. 321 written comments were received. As I mentioned a moment ago, the supporters of Rancho Los Alamitos were very well organized and trying to call attention to its needs. The remainder of the comments considered a wide variety of topics, big and small. They include, but are not limited to public safety parking sidewalks, traffic libraries, survey format and pensions. An updated summary of these comments have been provided to you for your future reference. The budget challenge provides the participant an opportunity to balance the city's general fund budget while deciding if existing funding levels should be changed. It is worth noting that the budget challenge was designed to be an educational tool, as well as a means for gathering public input. Participants are exposed to the complexities of balancing their interest with available budget resources. It requires a fair amount of effort to complete, and the choices may be difficult for some. For each department or group of departments, participants could choose a status quo cut by 2%, cut by 5%, increased by 2% or increased by 5%. Participants could also choose to increase revenues to enhance services without reducing services in others. Revenue options included a sales tax increase, duty increase or partial tax. 200 responses had been received as of yesterday afternoon. Only 60% of the participant participants actually completed the challenge. Many simply abandoned the budget challenge after taking a look at it or completing one or two sections. With such a small sample, the results should not be considered to be representative of the public at large. Looking at the Demographics Council districts, three and five had the largest number of participants with complete responses. And the 50 plus crowd were again the most active in the in the age categories. Several other demographic questions were asked, such as education level and homeownership. But the response rates were insufficient to warrant summarization. Looking at the results. 52% of participants increased both expenses and revenues, with revenues being sufficient to offset the expenses or and or to produce a surplus. 18% just cut expenses to create a surplus. 17% cut expenses, but also increased revenues, thereby producing a surplus. 5% opted for the status quo. 6% increased expenses but did not increase revenues. Creating a deficit. Lastly, 2% left expenses as they are, but increased revenues creating surplus. In summary, 71% of respondents increased revenues to support increased expenditures and or to increase or to create a surplus. The results by Department of Revenue type can be found in the original report. There are no significant changes to the present percentages due to the increase in the number of participants. A few comments were also received through the budget challenge. These included police and fire deeds, pensions and benefits. Budget challenge format. Increased fees. And tax increases. This concludes my report, and I would be happy to answer any questions you might have. But.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Vice President Did you have any comments?
Speaker 6: Me too. I just wanted to share that. The BBC felt it important for our colleagues in the public to hear the outcome of the budget survey and the challenge. So I want to thank staff for that thorough report. I know it's a short timeline for development and marketing to the public, but we did feel that there were lessons learned for the next year's budget cycle and we thought that we were off to a great start. So I want to thank you for your efforts and. That's it for me, and I'm happy to make the motion.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Councilman Richardson. Give me comments. Nope. Councilman Mongo.
Speaker 1: I, too, want to thank the the staff who put this together. And I want to thank the over 100 residents of the fifth District who took the time to take the survey. I see that there was a comment about how many people filled out the survey. I calculate it by counting on page four that it's actually closer to 500 participants, which is is really remarkable. And oftentimes people say that when they're happy with government, it's when they participate the least. And I think that this is a good group of individuals who really were passionate. I know I received calls in our office and they realized that these are the tough decisions. You can't abandon the budget process in the middle of the survey when you're sitting up here. So thank you to those who took the time. 52% increase in taxes. And that's surprising. I know that I'm going to continue to stand by not increasing taxes as long as we can, because I know we have a lot of needs. But increasing taxes is a rough go. And I'd love to see in the future where when someone marks the box such as increased sales tax revenue, that there could be some maybe comments that say it shows that when sales tax amounts increase, sales change or what those look like because it's never just a straight comparison, there's always equilibrium that really go into play. So I've enjoyed this and I look forward to it growing into something a little bit shorter and more robust next year so that people won't abandon the survey. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Councilwoman Pryce.
Speaker 8: I, too, want to thank staff for your excellent work on this. This agenda item came to you in June requesting some assistance with survey methodology, and the staff really pulled this together in a very quick time frame. And I know that with additional time, you would have had the opportunity to do more outreach. But I find survey data to be very useful. It does it answer all questions? Absolutely not. But it does provide me some insight into what the majority of my residents who are engaged are thinking and where their priorities are. And I have to say, there were very few surprises in the results that that I saw. So I thank you for putting this together. I look forward to enhancing it and making it better and disseminating it on a broader scale for next year. So thank you very much.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Councilman Austin.
Speaker 7: Thank you. And I, too, want to thank our staff for for making this information available to us. I want to thank all of the residents who attended the budget meetings and took time to give us this feedback and also want to thank the council members led by Councilmember Price for for bringing this forward and I think assisting us with this this budget process this year when we've had budget meetings in the past in my district, we've always done a survey. I never thought to do it on a citywide level. And so now that we're doing that, we have some consistency. But it also gives, you know, some of our our groups who are poor, who want to have a voice in the process, a greater voice. It gives them an opportunity to to, to to advocate for the special projects that they'd like to see in our budget and the direction that they'd like to see us go. So great job all the way around for everybody. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Thank you. We have a motion and a second. Is any public comment on the item? Seeing none. Please cast your votes.
Speaker 1: Motion carries.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Now we're going to move on to the continued hearing, which is continued hearing one, but beginning with item 15, which Vice Chair Lowenthal will walk us through the next few items and then we will take a break from the budget and then come back to it after we've gone through public comment and some other items | Agenda Item | Recommendation of the Budget Oversight Committee to receive the summary of responses to the Long Beach Budget Priority Survey and Long Beach Budget Challenge. | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_09152015_15-0891 | Speaker 2: Thank you. Now we're going to move on to the continued hearing, which is continued hearing one, but beginning with item 15, which Vice Chair Lowenthal will walk us through the next few items and then we will take a break from the budget and then come back to it after we've gone through public comment and some other items . So. Vice Mayor Lowenthal.
Speaker 6: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Frank is just handing out. Some material for us. So Councilmembers Item 15 is the mayor's fiscal year 16 proposed budget. It corresponds with a Dash ten and the motion is to approve the mayor's proposed budget.
Speaker 2: And investment advice. If you want to just walk through, even the emotions are, Oh, no, no, I want to make sure that.
Speaker 6: I will go through the item. So for the mayor's recommendation, we have $600,000 from general fund fiscal year, 15 state mandate reimbursement funds, and the use will be toward opening three branch libraries on Sunday for a total of $183,000. Increased crime analysis resources for a total of $100,000. My Brother's Keeper Project for a total of $30,000. Arts Council Support for a total of $50,000. Be Safe program for a total of $186,000. And then improvements to 309 Pine Avenue for $51,000. Secondly, there's $100,000 recommended, which is a drawdown from fiscal year 16, general services beginning funds available. And this would be for the telephone system at $100,000. Lastly, $95,000 drawing down from fiscal year 16, refuse beginning funds available to be used for one time purchase of two clean team trucks at $95,000, and the amount is in total those three items, $795,000. Those three source items.
Speaker 2: Okay. So we have a motion in a second. Any public comment on the first item? Saying None. Please cast me. Please. Oh, yes, please. Absolutely. Come forward. Sorry, I will.
Speaker 0: Good evening, Mayor Garcia. Vice Mayor Lowenthal. Council members. My name is Margaret Smith. I reside in Long Beach, 6516 East Bay Shore Walk in the third district. And I am speaking tonight as a board member and vice president of public affairs for the Long Beach Public Library Foundation on behalf of libraries, supporters and users throughout the city . We are extremely pleased, pleased that Mayor Garcia has included in the 2016 budget recommendations the $183,000 for expanding sun hours to three branch libraries. We fully support the recommendation of library director Glenda Williams to select Bayshore BURNETT and North Libraries. We thank Mayor Garcia for his leadership and commitment to expand library access. We thank Councilmember Susie Price for initiating the pilot program that opened Bayshore for Sunday hours last February. It was a huge success, drawing over 400 people per Sunday to a small branch library. And these 400 people checked out over 250 items every Sunday, 400 people in 4 hours. That's a hundred people an hour coming into a small Bay Branch library on a Sunday afternoon. We hope the council will support this recommendation so that the value of Sunday hours to our community can be further demonstrated and documented. And we hope that in future budget discussions, we can expand Sunday hours in each council district so that all our libraries will have access on Sunday in this information age. Libraries and branch libraries especially, are more important to all our residents of all ages. Thank you very much.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Councilman Richardson.
Speaker 9: Thank you. I'd like to just take a moment to acknowledge a number of things in these recommendations that I'm proud to have an opportunity to support tonight. I think we just heard a little bit about the three branch libraries. I made a request that we spread these out across the city. I was very glad to see that Library Services put out a memo that really distributed these Sunday hours across the city. So everyone in town has access to library hours on Sunday. So I'm glad to support proud to support that and want to acknowledge Councilmember Price for taking the initial step to get this process, move this process along. Secondly, the My Brother's Keeper resources, a lot of times we take part on we embark on initiatives, but we don't put the resources behind it to make sure it's successful. I think this is a very worthwhile cause to invest in our boys and young men of color throughout our city. And this recommendation of $30,000 I am proud to support tonight. I'm glad to see the resources to be safe, invest it tonight. Which which is significant and and where by once we adopt this, we're going to go ahead and start thinking about having the be safe games next year like a competition multi-week competition, the be safe games at Highland Park for all ages. So this is something I'm really excited for, for the whole community. And then finally, I think it's really smart that we're investing in the to clean teams. Dumping is a significant issue across town. So that said, I'm very pleased to cast my vote in support of the mayor's recommendations.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Councilwoman Pryce.
Speaker 8: I want to thank the mayor for the recommendation for the Sunday library hours. I, too, hope that this is something that we can incorporate into our city throughout all the districts. I'm not sure if all of my colleagues would be interested in having Sunday hours at their branch libraries. But I can tell you from personal experience, it has been such a huge success at our branch library and I hope that it is citywide. I was there this Sunday and I was there with my family for about an hour and a half. My husband was reading a book. My two boys were reading a book. One of them explored the computer for a little while, and during the time that we were there, we heard the librarian announce every, you know, 10 minutes or so that another computer had opened up, which made me realize how many people in the city go to the library because they don't have computer access to Internet, which is something that a lot of us have and take for granted. And every single computer station was packed. There were people there from age 3 to 90 in the library, all within the same space, all residents of the same community enjoying the space together. And it just to me, that's what those are the kind of programs and values that we should be promoting in the city. Just a space for people to congregate that is sponsored by their city, brought to them by their city, supported by their city. I think it's just a really great offering. So I want to thank the mayor for for making that recommendation and to my colleagues. I would say that I urge you to to think about this for your district. If if one of the libraries isn't going to be yours for next year, because you will absolutely have my support if that's something that you want to bring to your district. And I also want to thank our library staff for the recommendations that they made, because I think the libraries that are selected are spread out in a in a geographically desirable way so that residents throughout the city can have the opportunity to enjoy the Sunday hours regardless of where they live, without having too far to travel. And I really am grateful that the that the geographic spread is so wide. So thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you to our library team. And I support this motion completely.
Speaker 2: Councilwoman Mungo. Thank you.
Speaker 1: It gives me great pride that the city of Long Beach and our libraries are so successful. Today on KNX 1070, when many of us were sitting in multiple hours of traffic, they did a report on library usage in the region, and our Long Beach statistics far exceed that of anyone else. As other libraries are on the decline, our libraries have been innovative and we have several successes in the technologies we've brought into the libraries, including our 3D printers and our ability to download either digital books or audiobooks through our Overdrive media program. And even though we are offering this great service on our own, we are still in a cooperative partnership with L.A. County to continue to expand and be able to use our library cards in all of the libraries throughout the region. So this is this is really an amazing thing. As this came up on the agenda, I had the opportunity to talk with a bunch of neighbors about homework help. And I know that was in our budget study. And homework help is available online through our our county with our Long Beach library card after school each and every day. And then you can still go into our libraries and get that one on one help. And those are the things that are really, really important in being able to deliver to our youth the opportunities to learn and our seniors to share that space. So I'm very excited about this. I'm very excited about all the great work that the Library Foundation did over the last year, and I really appreciated working with you to raise those funds, and I look forward to the projects that will be delivered. So thank you. Continue to be innovative.
Speaker 2: Thank you. And just as a reader, I know this was discussed A, B or C, but I think it's worth just restating. My recommendation was to fund three libraries on Sunday hours. The recommendation on which libraries were selected was left up to the librarians and the library staff. And so that was something that was that was done through their work, separate of of of the council. Councilman, you ringa.
Speaker 3: Thank you. I want to add my voice to the kudos that's going out for the recommendations that are stated here. I want to especially focus on the three that Councilman Richardson mentioned, the be safe, the the My Brother's Keeper and of course, the libraries. Those three are addressing our issues with our youth. That's very important. I also want to mention that in the BC program, there's a big concentration in the West Long Beach area, an area that needs a lot of support. And I hope that this B.C. program can really be expanded in that in that district. I had the honor and privilege yesterday of participating in a program put together by the Job Corps yesterday. It was called the Youth to Youth Initiative. It's a new program that the Job Corps is putting together to basically address the issues of youth, to youth, get used to youth violence, whether it's gang or not, doesn't matter. It's talked about bullying. It talked about relationships with kids among themselves. And it basically addressed all the issues that youth face while in school or well in the community. And I would like, if we can somehow next year look at that program. It's an initiative that is taking place. And one way that we can support how we can support that program in the future and other programs such as that that address the the youth and the violence between youth and among youth so that we can address our future crime. Because as we know and I can't remember the eye, it is a tired kid. It's good kid. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Councilwoman Gonzales.
Speaker 8: I got a lot of stuff over here. Mayor, thank you so very much, as well as our financial services team and all of our community, community members and departments. This is a very comprehensive recommendation that we're bringing forward, and it touches every single one of our districts, but also creates a very citywide approach as well for the first district, which also means for the whole city of Be Safe is very important for us and our kids, like Councilmember Muranga mentioned LED lighting. We've talked about that so, so very often streamlining our street, sweeping. There's far too many individuals that are waking up way too early just to move their car. Welcome to Long Beach Science, which is important, and I think those need to be made in Long Beach. So I hope that certainly happens. And our innovation hub, which will be in downtown but will be open and available to every single resident and business owner. And I hope it really becomes a real center for innovation. So, again, thank you to our mayor for all this.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Councilman Austin.
Speaker 7: Thank you. And I just wanted to weigh in and say and I'm glad that we got to this point, this has been a relatively smooth process. And that is a good thing and certainly a. An improvement over years past where we were dealing with very tough budgets in the Army when I first got here. And so kudos to Vice Mayor Lowe and to the BRC. Mr. Mayor, your budget in itself, I think it's thoughtful, it's balanced. And when I say balanced from a standpoint that it addresses many of the needs that we have as a city. And I'm particularly enlightened by the support for the BCA program. Obviously, the My Brother's Keeper project, the three libraries, the branches need that. I mean, I wish we could do do more. I think this this budget does no harm. It could be better. But in light of what we know in the future, it's a safe budget and a responsible budget. I did want to just just just weigh in on the, um, the strengthening our policing citywide. I mentioned this in our, our hearing a few weeks ago that, you know, there have been some, some remarkable gains by our police department. I see Chief Luna in the crowd. Hello, Chief. Our police department, I think, is is top notch. However, I think with the the uptick of gun violence that we are experiencing as a city, that we we need to really dial in and pay attention to doing all we can to to prevent gun violence in the city as well. And I know I know that there is a $2.2 million allocated to one time funds, and that's rather open ended. I'd just like to just express my my desire for a portion of those funds to be least allocated toward getting guns off the street through prohibited possessors. I'm not I'm not convinced that gun buyback programs are necessarily the answer this time. But we, we did a, um, earmark and actually, um, I believe it was $250,000 in the budget before last to go after prohibited possessors. Our chief actually laid out some, I think some very impressive data on the work that our police department did in getting those those guns off the streets from, I would call it the low hanging fruit. I mean, that's that's what we need to be going to be to begin with and obviously doing more to mitigate and and and deal with the gang violence as well. So those are my comments and I'm looking forward to supporting this budget. But the chief is available. Could you possibly respond in terms of how you expect to use these resources?
Speaker 2: And we'll let Chief Luna come down and make a few comments.
Speaker 7: Good evening, Mayor, and members of the City Council member, council member Austin. The if you're referring to the.
Speaker 9: $2.2 million, I would I would like to see as your chief is for that to be discretionary.
Speaker 2: As this year progresses. Every year we address.
Speaker 9: Excuse me and will continue to address emerging crime trends. And because our system in the police department is to be very visible and accessible in our community, we're consistently out in every part of the city. And from that perspective, we're very responsive not only to our community, but to all of you in regards to things that come up. It can be a burglary problem. It can be an auto theft problem. It could be a a gang violence problem, whatever the issue may be. We have been very fortunate in that all of you have given us the resources and the discretion to use them as we see fit. And when I say as see fit, it really is responsive to our community needs.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Chief. And I think also at the councilmembers is is just adding is that, you know, he's interested as part of the program and as part of all the work you're doing that we're also looking at how we remove guns and remove access to guns within our community. And I think that's something I know you and I have talked about. I know it's part of the work you're doing and perhaps there's a conversation that council can have. There is other things from a policy point of view that we could be looking at in the future as well. So I think he's referring to as long as that's part of the mix. Chief. Yes. Okay. Thank you, Councilman Andrews.
Speaker 4: Yes, thank you, Mayor. First of all, I think this is extremely robust, you know, budget item, because I think I also would like to thank our vice mayor and the mayor, you know, for this, because I think each one of these items, it seems to me that you have really taken time and looked into it and took a look at the whole city and looked at things that we need. And it's very important, especially the three that I really think of, like as My Brother's Keeper and the one with the library. Because the fact that I could only think that individuals who cannot afford to go places, you can go into the library and travel all over the world. And I just want to thank, you know, our staff and everyone who's really taken time with this budget and letting everyone know, because I can remember so much money was taken from our libraries, but that that has been put back in because of the mayor's, you know, situation, I think we're going to be able to do things that we wasn't able to do. And hopefully that this year will come out the way we're hoping and everyone will be, at least for a moment, satisfied. So thank you again, mayor and vice mayor, for this again.
Speaker 2: Thank you. And then to close this up, Vice Mayor Lowenthal.
Speaker 6: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. It's been said many times, but I wanted to also express my thanks to you for taking a very holistic approach to these expenditures. It does touch every aspect of our city, whether it's the libraries or the crime analysis or the programs such as My Brother's Keeper or Be Safe. It does take a very broad stroke across our city, and even though it's not a lot of money, it does end up impacting all nine districts. And so I want to personally thank you for that, for taking that approach. And it also shows that you've been listening and hearing from not just your council colleagues here, but also the constituents. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Thank you. And we've done public comment. And so please go ahead and cast your votes on the motion.
Speaker 1: Motion carries.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much. Next item, please. | Agenda Item | Recommendation to adopt the Mayor’s proposed budget recommendations, as amended, to the FY 16 Proposed Budget. (A-10) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_09152015_15-0892 | Speaker 6: Item 16. I'm sorry. Yes. Item 16, this is the budget oversight committees proposed funding recommendations to the fiscal year 16 budget. The first part of of the motion is a affirmation of what we just did, which is a motion to approve Mayor Garcia's recommendations as originally proposed. Even though we took action on it. I do want to share that the Budget Oversight Committee felt it was important to articulate. Mr. City Attorney, I have one, two, three, four, five, six motions under this item. Do we take them separately?
Speaker 5: It would be helpful for me to follow that.
Speaker 6: And I want to be helpful.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Okay.
Speaker 6: So the first motion is to approve Mayor Garcia's recommendations as originally proposed.
Speaker 2: And Mr. City Attorney, I believe that we can do public comment. Can she just read all the motions and then we do it as one?
Speaker 5: Yes, you could you could go through all of the motions, take public comment on any of the items of the six, and then walk through and have individual votes on all six.
Speaker 6: Okay. So let's do that. Item two is a motion to appropriate any unspent fiscal year, 15 year and general funds surplus in the city prosecutor's office up to $250,000 for the PATH Program and other city prosecutor programs. Item three is to fully restore the proposed fire department's reduction of one full time FTE Marine Safety Sargeant boat operator in the Tidelands Operation Fund and to offset the cost of $140,000 by reducing the Tidelands funds in the city manager's department by $25,000. The Parks, Recreation and Marine Department by $46,000. And the Economic and Property Development Department by $69,000. Item four is a motion to forward to council from BFC the appropriation of a total of $2,666,000 for capital infrastructure programs to be divided by nine for city council districts. From the following sources 950,000 of supplemental funds for streets and sidewalks, 675,000 of unallocated fiscal year 16 temporary surplus. $341,000 of general fund fiscal year state mandate reimbursement funds $300,000 of fiscal years 16 General Fund Beginning Funds Available $200,000 of fiscal year, 16 uplands beginning funds available and $200,000 of funds for document imaging project. Item five is a motion to recommend using fiscal year 16 General Fund Beginning funds available to appropriate $50,000 for Rancho Los Alamitos Plan Check and to appropriate up to $30,000 for municipal band to match 1 to 1 additional funds raised above $85,000. In addition. In addition to those to those amounts just mentioned, we would allocate $50,000 to Rancho Los Cerritos, as well as $50,000 to a weekend to instate to initiate a weekend graffiti abatement program citywide.
Speaker 2: Thank you. And I think the last part of your motion is the last sentence. Correct?
Speaker 6: Yes, I have the motion to recommend using $200,000 fiscal year 16 General Services Fund Beginning funds available for the Document Imaging Project.
Speaker 2: Thank you. There's a motion in a second. I just I clarified with the city attorney. And so we can actually take one vote on all these items and put one public comment on all the items.
Speaker 5: That's correct. Mayor and if I could just ask for a clarification from the vice mayor. I was given a sheet with the items, but I, I don't have the two items.
Speaker 2: There's two items missing on that sheet. So it's everything on this sheet. Post edition of 50,000 for Rancho Los Cerritos. I So.
Speaker 5: The Rancho Los Cerritos is there for.
Speaker 2: The top and top on top of the Alamitos.
Speaker 6: And I failed to mention the source. I apologize. Okay. So the 50,000 for Rancho Los Cerritos and then the $50,000 for weekend graffiti abatement citywide. And the source would be from the Small Business Incentive Program, which has just started. And so in the start up, we anticipate that there would be about $100,000 unused. And so that's the source. If if the program itself becomes highly subscribed, we will make an adjustment that during the year.
Speaker 2: The thought is, as per staff, because the program just started, we're only going to use 100,000 of the 200. So that's where to go. And then we can always do the adjustment later on. So that is the motion. So you have those two additional pieces. Mr. CITY Attorney.
Speaker 6: Mr. Mayor, I'm sorry. And on the municipal bond item, there was a friendly amendment which was accepted at budget oversight that if the matching funds are not fully utilized, the balance of the funds would be used to improve any park locations hosting the concerts so that there would be improvements to the concerts, I'm sorry to the parks made as opposed to releasing the funds.
Speaker 2: Okay. So that's the that's the motion on the floor. And I'm going to first take public comment and then I'm going to add, is there any public comment saying none? I'm going to go back to the council. Let me start with the second or the motion, which is Councilman Mongo.
Speaker 1: I want to thank city staff for working very diligently to find ways that we would be able to fund all the priorities throughout the city. I think that it's important that when constituents reach out to us and tell us their priorities, that we are able to respond. And so I thank you for your hard work on this. I also want to appreciate the members of the committee who we've worked alongside one another for such a long time to get it right, to make sure that the community felt involved, to give them their voice and to get to where we are today. So thank you to everyone. This has been a very worthwhile process.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Councilwoman Price.
Speaker 8: Thank you. I have a question for the city manager on the plan tracks for Rancho Los Alamitos. I understand that they have a potential seismic issue and that they have to submit plans to the city. The city has to review the plans, determine the scope of the project, what the potential costs of the project would be. And, you know, in terms of the city's maintenance requirement, make a determination as to, you know, what those infrastructure needs are. Is this this money contemplated to go to the city to fund the costs associated with obtaining a permit and and having those plans checked? Or is it to go to the entity?
Speaker 5: Mayor councilmembers. This money will actually go to the ranch, on the ranch, and will use those moneys to pay the fees for the plant checking. So during this seven month process, as we go through that. So at the end of the $50,000, at the end of the process, we should have the ability for the rancher Apollo building permit.
Speaker 8: I see. Okay. And so I think it's it's definitely my desire. And I know there are others on the council who obviously believe that maintenance of the ranchos both ranches is an important priority for the city. And so I would be supportive of the motion. And I want to thank the vice mayor and committee member Mongo for their efforts in getting us to this point. So thank you.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Councilman Richardson.
Speaker 9: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I have just a few comments and some questions. So within these recommendations, there are a number of things that I'm really excited and eager to support tonight. One of which is, as most of you would remember, we came to city council with a proposal to fund a program, a young adult, 18 to 24 year old diversion program called Path. Promising adults tomorrow's hope that uses that uses education and workforce as a means to and in lieu of criminal prosecution in certain cases. And so I'm glad that over the last few months, we worked to craft this program and we proposed a a budget solution to help get the program off the ground. And so I'm glad to see that the EEOC recommendation includes that solution. So so that's something I'm eager to support tonight. Secondly, I know that I've met with the lifeguards and a number of I know the council has met with the lifeguards. So I'm glad to see that there's a solution to the lifeguard issue. I have a number of questions with some of the other bills or recommendations. So first, I see that we have a number. We have 2.6 million allocated four divided by nine, and that all exceptions to this must go to city council for approval. Now we. Every year it seems like we've had different rules to the divide by nine resources. And fortunately I've been able to see how that's impacted certain vision, certain goals. Like if, if I have a train trust, train trestle, whatever it's called, and, and it gets painted with graffiti or if I have a utility box that's, that's been vandalized, a lot of times I have to figure out which year of resources we can use to actually impact or improve that. And to me, the condition of our the actual esthetic condition of our infrastructure is just as important to many folks as whether it works or not. So I'd like to make sure that and I want to hear from some other council members on this, but I want to make sure that whatever isn't legally restricted and also there are some sidewalk funds we want to make sure go into infrastructure, but I want to make sure that council offices in conjunction with departments are able to make flexible decisions on how these resources are spent without having to come to city council. For every small decision, every small decision here. So so that's something I that's a question I would say I would pose this to the EEOC chair. How would you respond?
Speaker 6: Councilmember Richardson I think that's a very fair question. And if we can ask Miss Erickson to identify how much of the 2.666 million is absolutely restricted and where there might be some flexibility.
Speaker 1: Vice Mayor Lowenthal Right now, the boss recommendation was for capital infrastructure programs. As the Council member stated, in past years, City Council has chosen to have a carve out of a certain amount for program existing programing. So last year that was $50,000. So right now there's the recommendation stands. It is for capital infrastructure programs and it would be up to city council to to identify if there would be any exceptions to that. It should be noted, and the city attorney can speak to this more. There is a process for how this funding can be designated. It really does need to be department. Existing programs, existing capital, infrastructure needs. And and so that would stay and no matter and so any exceptions to that would need to come to city council.
Speaker 6: So before Mr. Attorney answers, I just to be consistent, I think that portion that we had slated for economic development, I think that was the catchall flexibility. I'm sorry.
Speaker 5: There was I'm not sure that there was not approved in the economic times.
Speaker 6: But in our conversation for the carve out, examples of economic development projects came up, such as developing bids along new business corridors, major business corridors. And so I think if if the council member would like to see that retained in this process, we could ask our council colleagues to consider that.
Speaker 5: Mayor and Vice Mayor. The the problem with having the carve out for the economic development, those would have to come back for a vote of five members of the council to spend that money. You couldn't make that decision tonight under the charter because under 208, the body acts as a whole to identify those projects and approve those projects. The individual council officers doesn't do not have the authority to make those decisions and spend those funds here. How will you divide by nine? You have the capital infrastructure program divide by no money, which is approved by the council and then existing programing which has already been adopted or approved. But outside of that exception, you while you could bring those projects back, you do need five votes of the council to act.
Speaker 6: Okay.
Speaker 9: So just to give some examples. Last year we didn't see it coming, but we were blessed enough to receive some funding to host the beach streets. And the whole city came to North Long Beach and the funding received the 250 $300,000 was fantastic. We received it, but the investment was much greater. And so we had to go through the process, identify which of our one times was flexible, which we're not to be able to support our business district to actually host an event of that magnitude. And it was good that I was able to look back, identify some of those resources that have flexibility to do to respond to those things. Another example would be, I know that there's been sort of inconsistencies about whether one time resources can be spent on planning efforts. Right. So I know there's been a number of planning efforts across town and know that I'm planning to I'm working on a planning effort now. Some of those years we did not have that. Some years. We do. And there's a direct impact on infrastructure. But the interpretation, you know, depending on who you speak with in city staff, is that doing a master plan for a corridor is not necessarily infrastructure, whereas it has a direct connection to infrastructure. Right. Another example I brought up an example of murals. Well, I've heard inconsistent examples of of of murals, whether a mural or using art to mitigate graffiti is an accessible use of your one time infrastructure. So what I'm asking is if there's a if we have the legal ability to do tonight, I think we should say no more than say I would propose something like no more than 50% of your District nine funds, no more than 50% can be spent. You can have the flexibility in partnership with your with the appropriate departments to have to basically have that flexibility on those things. So like a fifth. So instead of like a $50,000 threshold for whatever is divided tonight, 50% of it infrastructure as defined by our city attorney, the other 50% can still be infrastructure, but if it ends up being murals, programs, anything that does not require direct vote of city council, like if you're going to give away money to a rancho or something that probably would need to come to city council, a public, public benefit projects. That's the way I would define it. So how would you respond to that? Ms.. Madam Chair. Vice Chair, Budget Committee Chair, Vice Mayor.
Speaker 1: All of it.
Speaker 0: All of that.
Speaker 6: All of it. So when we've had this discussion before, the 50%, because we have such a dire need for infrastructure. Council members have been reticent about that. So I think it's helpful to hear from Alice. Um, um. I just know that. When these resources are used for infrastructure, it has such a lasting impact and we don't have the infrastructure repair and restoration schedule that we'd like to. There was a time when we talked about whether it was tree trimming or the streets or the curbs, you know, can we be on a certain number of years doing it? Every certain number of years. And so being able to spend it as council districts really helps carry us through until the public works department can take the overall approach. And so. I think it'd be helpful to hear from other colleagues, but I, I struggle with that 50% because it's such a small amount as it is. I mean, you can spend $200,000 on one ADA block, right? So I think that becomes challenging.
Speaker 9: So. So I'd like to come back to that. Just have one or two other things I'd like to just comment on and then we'll hear from the rest of our colleagues. So. So I think it's important that we do invest in things like our like our Rancho. And I hear the the information about plan check and that all make sense. We've got a number of facilities across town that absolutely need those sorts of resources. I would ask, what would be the difference if, let's say we wanted to do some other plan effort, right? If we wanted to do a master plan on a corridor. Versus right now. I need to use my district nine one times to do a master plan or a plan check or something like that. I have to use that. So why are we taking a different approach here? By allocating $100,000 to something that our one times can be spent on. So maybe we can just elaborate whoever the maker of that motion is. Maybe just elaborate on why these particular projects are exceptions to the way that the rest of us treat our district assets.
Speaker 6: Yes. Can I. Yeah. Okay. So the question was, what is the difference between the corridor planning efforts that may be funded through one time funds?
Speaker 9: Is there a certain particular reason? And it's not a huge deal to me, but is there a particular reason? We've carved out these two specific locations and I get their historic significance relevance to our city.
Speaker 6: You mean the ranchos?
Speaker 9: Yeah. Right. Why did. Why did we specifically spell these out? Whereas. I just think we're not necessarily and I would like to for the sake of conversation, I'd like to be consistent. I understand that certain people feel that certain things are citywide assets. But the reality is, some people would say that the restoration of the clubhouse at Houghton Park is a citywide asset.
Speaker 0: Or so some.
Speaker 9: Would say, a public art piece of city.
Speaker 6: Warehouses. And I knew that. I'll go ahead. Yes.
Speaker 9: So if we as council members determine something as a priority in our district, I've seen over the last five years we've spent our own one times to make that happen. If that's so, I'm guessing what I'm struggling with is how is how are these two projects different from any other projects important to a district that might have a citywide value?
Speaker 6: And I know Councilmember Austin and Price might like to address that. If I can just briefly state, because there are several of those examples in the second district as well. You have the aquarium, you have the Queen Mary. And how I've regarded that is their city owned property. You know, we talk about assets, maybe having financial value as well as other benefits, but when we just look at them as city owned property, if we don't contribute to their upkeep, it's deferred cost, right? It's deferred maintenance, it's deferred costs. And at some point that dollar amount becomes larger. And it's still our responsibility because they're city owned properties. And so maybe assets might not be the right word to use because we're not clearly specifying that we own these pieces of property and it is in the city's best interest to ensure their upkeep.
Speaker 9: So I think that makes that makes a lot of sense. I don't I think that's a good response for me. And I would say I can absolutely support that. Let's make sure we remember that to forward the whole council. Well, let's remember that, because I would say there are projects that maybe haven't received that level of maintenance that are very significant to our city and maybe we just haven't had the exposure to it or the education to it. So let's just remember that moving forward, the last thing I would say is I think it's great that we're investing in municipal band and in those things. I would say that just to provide a little bit of context, the concerts in the Park series have really emerged and local communities have adopted them and embrace them and put their own brand on them. The communities that do not have municipal band performances, and I can say that to a municipal band performance, would likely be like into our Latin Jazz Festival at Highland Park. It's to me it's the same thing. Thousands of people show up. It's a great way to to get involved in your community. So in the same spirit of the last of the last item I think is great we invest in our ranchos I think is great we invest in municipal band but this is yet again two items here in these recommendations that have that are not like they're geographically not located in certain portions of town. And so I would say I can support. Making investments in municipal bond. But I'd like to hear how we can also invest in our concerts in the Park series and the way and the way that we've done it here that incentivizes raising funds, external funds. I think that's great. There are actually fundraising efforts going on around town to support things like our festivals. So I'd love to hear Madame Vice Mayor, like, what could we do to support our concerts in the park in the same way that we support our municipal band?
Speaker 6: I think that's a fair question as well. You know, we have areas throughout the city that the concerts in the park are just better received. And I agree that we should provide some level of support currently. How would you say it's currently funded? Is it?
Speaker 9: I think that would be a better question for for park staff. I know that personally that some of the concerts in the park were not as well-attended as, say, a muni band. So we invested in certain ones to bring in the art, bring in the the talent and the entertainment that really brought it up to that level . So I think there was a memo that Parks and Recreation sent out that said that a muni band I mean, excuse me, a concert in the park, they they likened it to about $6,000, was what it cost to really invest in that. So even so, if we were to make some sort of an effort, I would like to look at those areas of town that aren't particularly impacted by the Muni band and see if we can find some resources maybe that recommend that number that staff put out in the memo, the $6,000 per area would be something to help support those efforts and think that would just be fair.
Speaker 6: Absolutely. And I think Mr. Scott is sitting right behind you, if we can hear from him.
Speaker 0: Mayor, members of the city council, Councilmember Richardson.
Speaker 3: You are correct. The community band concerts or community concerts run roughly $6,000. I do want to point out, though, since 2012, the Department of Parks, Recreation and Marine has not provided a community concert series. Any of the community concerts that occur throughout the community are either led through community organizations or other fundraising activities.
Speaker 6: Council officers and council officers?
Speaker 3: That is correct.
Speaker 6: Do you know, Mr. Scott, how many concerts we had this last fiscal year? Four concerts in the park series. Five. Four.
Speaker 0: It looks like about five. Okay.
Speaker 6: So. I agree with you, Mr. Rich. Councilmember Richardson I do think that and I can point out communities where a concert in the park would go a lot farther than than a municipal band. And I think this council should look at that.
Speaker 9: Great. Let's say we hear from more councilmembers, but thank you for acknowledging that. I think those are the rest of my comments at this point.
Speaker 2: Okay. Thank you. We're now moving on to Councilwoman Gonzales.
Speaker 8: Yes. Thank you to the bossy Vice Mayor Lowenthal Council, Stacey Mungo and Suzie Price. I know this has been you know, you have to be very diligent because so many different priorities come about. But this is, I think, a very fruitful discussion we're having. And I see here where it could be very, you know, important going forward and how very important it is for much of our district, but again, city wide. And so, uh, I want to. Sorry. I'm just losing my train of thought here. My apologies. So first I wanted to clarify, actually, as we're talking about the municipal band, I believe there was discussion about adding it to other districts. So Stephen, can you discuss that a little bit more? I guess I'm not clear as to I know Districts one, District six and District nine do not have concerts in the park currently by the municipal band. From what I understand.
Speaker 3: Mayor, members of the City Council, you're correct. There are several districts that do not have municipal band concerts, council districts, 167, they'll close to Los Cerritos Park and Council districts nine. And so the series right now.
Speaker 0: Is split across the third, fourth.
Speaker 3: Fifth and eighth districts. The additional week of municipal band is slated to maintain the existing schedule or nightly schedule for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. But that's something that we could look at for the additional week for that Tuesday night concert in additional location outside of the five week schedule.
Speaker 8: Okay. And that would just be one additional location. So perhaps rotated between the the districts that do not have or what I mean, is there any thought in that as to what would how that would be implemented?
Speaker 0: Well, there would there would only.
Speaker 3: Be one additional concert through this six weeks. So we are all very hopeful that the friends of the municipal band are going to be extremely successful with their fundraising efforts. I think they have goals to even exceed a six week and I think in the future.
Speaker 2: As we look.
Speaker 3: At those at their fundraising, if it's an opportunity to expand even.
Speaker 0: Further, there would be additional.
Speaker 3: Opportunities to expand.
Speaker 0: To other areas of the city.
Speaker 2: Just to clarify, I know we consider a concert, but we're really talking about four additional performances. If you include the 30 and the 30 will be fundraiser. That's I think that's right.
Speaker 8: Sees that every Tuesday four. So that would be every Tuesday of the month, correct?
Speaker 2: I think it would depend whether you add an additional week and multiple concerts or whether you added an additional concert to every week. So it just would really depend. Right.
Speaker 8: Great. Um, okay, good. So I just wanted to clarify to ensure, I mean, again, I kind of reiterate what Councilmember Richardson is saying. I do believe, you know, we should have it widespread. And I think it's also a very big city asset. And people love seeing the municipal band and it's very apparent. And to have that in different areas would be would be great. Um, so secondly, I have a, let me think here had my notes and then now they're, they're gone for some reason. Okay. I also wanted to mention the appropriation for PATH, which I think is very important. Our city prosecutor does some great work, and I think it's been very important to to have this this program available. And then lastly, the graffiti abatement, I just wanted to thank Vice Mayor Lowenthal for bringing that up, because I know that graffiti abatement in all of our city sometimes oftentimes does not happen over the weekends. And I think it's important to get tagging down, especially if they're gang related and get them down in a very fast and a very expedient way and I think are a million for for for that information actually are if you want to come up , I just want you if you can just clarify what that will mean, because I know some residents all over the city have asked about graffiti abatement on the weekends. And so this $50,000, what that breaks down to in terms of weekends and what that looks like.
Speaker 7: Honorable Mayor and honorable council members are a graffiti program currently is between Monday and Fridays. This additional 50,000 basically will cover the weekend. So we're estimating about $500 a day. So weekends will be about $1,000 and 52 weeks. Our original estimate was $52,000. We're grateful for 50 if it's approved. And that will take care of all the graffiti abatement during the weekends. Just want to give you some more data. We're averaging about 250 tags a day, translates to about 7000 a month. And that's that's the effort that's being to to to mitigate the graffiti. And unfortunately, you know, I don't have the data with me, but it's it's tags. It's by location. And we we use square footage to cover them up. We have a very robust graffiti program. I'm very proud of that. It's very advanced. And we use Go Long Beach. We use different methods of transferring that information to the contractor to abate the graffiti. We are even to a point that we match the colors when they're painting. This is high level of service compared to the other city. So I have to say that we have a great, great program and buy this additional 50,000 of council awards that we will be having a seven day a week program.
Speaker 8: Great. That's wonderful. Thank you very much for the information. And what I will mention, I think Vice Mayor Lowenthal and I were discussing this is a better outreach program to let people know that there is this opportunity now on the weekends should this pass, because I think that would be very important for our residents to know and feel like they will call they will do go Long Beach and it will actually be taken care of. Thank you very much.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Councilmember your income.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Barry. First of all, obviously, I want to thank the BBC for its work. It's difficult work. It can be very contentious, obviously, and can be very. Important in terms of what we come up with. But I got to say that we got it right. I mean, the B or C got it right in terms of making some adjustments that needed to be done, providing money for the additional for the additional rancho that we have with that did not exist before and also for funding the municipal band. However, everything comes with some with some issues in regards to the ranchos and the discussion that that had previously, I think it's important that when we fund these kinds of of city assets that we put some, some, some restrictions per se. I can't find the right word right now. But to put some some elements of citywide responsibility, for example, making sure that there are opportunities for our youth to visit the ranchos, to provide additional educational programs there, to provide additional historical perspectives of what the ranch was mean, where they came from. We originally know that they were Spanish land grants, Mexican land grants, in fact, back in the day. That is not adequately shared in that. Well, no, I think we need to expand on those things and we need to have the ranchers be more receptive to providing additional feedback. Let me rephrase it. Additionally, additional educational opportunities for people to learn about the history of the ranches and their and and the history of the Californians as a whole. The the municipal ban. We're adding some money there for them to expand their opportunities to have more concerts, which is fine. I totally agree with that. The issue I have with that is that I think they've been such a bit ingrained to visit only certain parks and on certain dates, on certain times that certain music. We need to have a variety. We need to diversify where the concerts in the park are held. I share as an example, I share a Municipal Ban concert with the eighth District at Little Cerritos Park. I have nothing in the website. I would love to see something happening in the West Side in West Long Beach. And you will always hear me talk about West Palm Beach, because when you look at my map and you look at my district, the West Palm Beach area is isolated. It's an island in Long Beach. You can only reach through crossing some bridges. And they have a lot of needs out there and there's a lot of cultural activities that don't take place out there because they're simply not provided. And we need to have that outreach out there. And I'd like to see some additional money go down there. Councilman Rich Richardson had a great jazz fest at North Long Beach that he put together himself with his. With his. One time funds. You know, I'd like to be able to do that, something like that in West Long Beach. I have a very diverse community in West Long Beach, something that I could provide if I had the resources. A great concert that would that would focus on that diversity of that West Palm Beach community. So I would love to see something like that. Which brings a final to my third point, which is, are these one time funds that we're talking about divide by nine? You know, if it's divide by nine and I have responsibility in my district to use those funds, I want to use them like I feel like I can use unrestricted. I want to be able to decide if I need it for for a sidewalk fight, if I needed to. A tree, a trip tree, a trim, trim, a tree. I want to be able to use it. Or if I need it to knock off a mural, put a mural up there, or do something beneficial that's going to end up being beneficial for the community or for public safety purposes or whatever. I want to be able to have that discretion. Now, does it mean that I want to do it on my own or that I'm going to do it unilaterally? Of course I would talk to my two department staff, those that are involved. Of course I would do that. It's my responsibility to be responsible as a council member, but I also want to be responsive. To my community. And my community has a lot of needs. They they want to see a lot of things happening out there. I met with a constituent today who wants to put put a Christmas tree in the middle of Willow and Santa Fe. I can't do it. Not right now. I don't have the discretionary funds to do it. But if I were able to have that discretionary fund in the future, certainly I could help support that because it would be a public benefit not only to that community, but to the city as a whole, especially when it's a main artery like Willow that comes into the city of Long Beach. So I. I'm going to support this budget, no question. But I do want to raise those issues for future discussion. We do have a fiduciary, fiduciary responsibility to accept it tonight. And and delaying anything would put us in trouble. I know that. But certainly something for future discussions of future royalties, maybe even a mid-year adjustment that we could make come March or so that we can put some aside money to to address some of the issues that that have been raised by my colleagues here today. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Councilman Andrews?
Speaker 4: Yes. Thank you, Mayor. First of all, I'd like to thank Councilman Richardson to bring it up. You had him about two divided by nine. I think all of us, you know, would like to think that if we got that, we would be able to spend it as we please. But we doing it with responsibility. And I think in your communities, everyone would like to you to do things that they ask to. But you have to understand, we don't have that type of money. But I think right now we'll get in there. This budget is one of the best I've had since I've been on this council deal because all of a sudden we're solving for 4 to 6. The biggest point I'm asking for right now is that. Lena, I know you were talking about the graffiti program. This that you just brought up, I think is one of the best things that we've had here on this council since I've been here, because when I leave on Friday and all of a sudden I can go down the street and see graffiti everywhere that needs that. We probably won't get that until Monday. This I missed. Or I would just like to know where do we call in? Who do we get in touch with? If in a situation we do get this money in order to be able to do it on the weekends? Who do we get in touch with? The vice mayor or Ms..
Speaker 6: Who I think Mr. Malloy in was clear from Councilmember Gonzalez's request that that has to be part of the promotion, because most of us don't know now that it would be available on the weekend. And so we hope to test that with him and his department to make sure that residents are aware that they can call the graffiti hotline on the weekend as well. But I think Mr. Malloy is here to answer that.
Speaker 4: Well, no, that's that that's that's fine. That's good to know. But I just want to, you know, really thank you, Lena, for doing that, because I think it's a great idea. And I think it really benefit the city of Long Beach because some of it's really out of line. So those are the only thing I have to ask in this budget. I would totally support it.
Speaker 6: Mr. Mayor, may I ask just on Councilman Andrew's point, are most of the requests coming in through go Long Beach or are they phone calls or. Mr. Malloy.
Speaker 7: Honorable mayor and honorable council members. But 90% of the calls go through the hotline and about 5 to 10% goes through the language.
Speaker 6: So on the hotline, is there an outgoing message? For instance, you know, you've received you've reached the hotline and. Wait for a customer service rep. Is that what it says?
Speaker 7: I don't know that. Okay. The answer to that question. But to also expand on Councilmember D's question, this will be an extension of existing programs. So whatever's happening today on Mondays, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Fridays will occur on Saturday and Sunday. So.
Speaker 6: So there are ways internally that we can promote this one is the scrolling messages on our city TV. Two is when you call City Hall, there's that hold time message. And in that message we could say and now we're open on weekends as well. So I think there are lots of ways that Mr. Malloy can identify that this could be marketed.
Speaker 7: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Councilman Austin. Then I'll make some closing comments. Councilman Orson.
Speaker 7: Thank you. And I want to thank my colleagues for all of their great comments and been a lot of insight here. I do. You know, as a as a district city councilmember, we are very fortunate to have a lot of great tradition in our community. We do benefit in my community. It looks forward to the municipal band playing every year. It wasn't just a few years ago that we were talking about eliminating that from the budget altogether. So to be having a conversation about restoring and actually doing extra more, more municipal band concerts is a says a lot about where we are as a city today. And I think the I actually would support expanding this tradition to to other areas of the city. Hearing from council members Gonzalez in Urunga and in Richardson in that regard, I think this budget actually can accomplish that and seeks to do that with provisions for extra concerts matching with the municipal band, doing some fundraising themselves. And it would only helps them by expanding their scope to other areas of the city. And so that's something I think we should look at doing. The tradition that I talk about is rich with the ranchos as well. I mean, these these ranchos are really the the genesis of our of our city and require our attention. Those ranchos are no longer maintenance then managed by the city of Long Beach. They are managed by the foundations, which I think make them unique in that regard. They don't get a whole lot of funding. They do get a an annual allocation. But when it comes to some of the maintenance issues with these these historic gems that we have in our cities, I think it is our responsibility to to pay attention to them. And so I'm glad we we're doing that as well in this budget. And I wanted to speak to the the the conversation regarding discretionary flexibility for council offices. I think that's important for us to have that in our infrastructure. I don't I've been a big voice for for infrastructure on this council since I've been here. I'll continue to do that. I know we have dedicated a great deal of one time funds and even our discretionary dollars, the eighth District, toward infrastructure improvements, streets, sidewalks. We're making progress. However, I do agree that the one size fits all model isn't necessarily the best model for for our city. Our districts are are different. Our city is diverse. We have different needs. And I think as council members, we should seek to to to recognize that as well in this budget as well. So I would hope that we can get to a place where there's a little bit more flexibility with the discretionary dollars that are coming our way. And I look forward to to supporting this budget with those.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Councilman Price.
Speaker 8: Thank you. I'll be very brief. I think it's important to I agree with the comments that my colleagues have made. I would encourage my colleagues to to.
Speaker 1: Really look.
Speaker 8: Holistically at the things that we do do as a city council, the projects that we support one another in. Sometimes there are projects that are very important to a specific.
Speaker 1: Group.
Speaker 8: Of residents in our community that may not impact other residents at all. And yet we support them because we understand that this is a very diverse city with different interests and different needs and different services that their constituents take advantage of. And I think it's important for us to all support one another. And and rather than saying, well, remember this, the next time something comes up, we should think more holistically about how we're allocating money citywide and supporting one another in the programs that we're trying to bring to the communities. I do want to highlight, we do have a legal contractual relationship with the ranchos that requires us as a city to provide some maintenance to those two facilities. And, and I completely agree with Councilman Yarrawonga regarding what the ranchos do in terms of giving back to the community. I know he knows this, but I think it's important to highlight that every student in the Long Beach Unified School District goes to both ranchos every year. It's a mandatory requirement and it's something that the ranchos put on in addition to the free tours that they give to the community and the fact that they open up those two facilities as a museum to every single member of the public. So I think that's really important. But the fact that our children tour that facility and learn about the history of and of that facility and its roots in Long Beach, and that that's part of the curriculum. At Long Beach Unified School District, as is the Long Beach Museum of Long Beach Art Museum, is also part of the Long Beach Unified School District curriculum, as is the symphony. So those are it's not just city resources or city assets that we've called them. They actually are facilities that our partners in the Long Beach College promise are utilizing to help deliver our end of the Long Beach College promise, which is inviting our children into those facilities. So I think that's really important. Never mind the liability that we may have in terms of these being city, city actually facilities. So with that said, I agree with all the comments that my colleagues made. And I think it's important that we, you know, support all the different programs, services and facilities that help every single one of our residents. I don't think you'll ever see me opposing something that any of my colleagues feel is going to benefit their constituents and their community in a positive way. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much.
Speaker 6: Mr. Mayor. I'm sorry. Yes. May I make a slight amendment to the verbiage of the motion?
Speaker 2: Yes, I was actually just.
Speaker 6: Trying to address that.
Speaker 2: Thank you. No, but I'm going to let I was going to just have the city attorney kind of repeat that piece and then you make the the adjustment that needs to be made. I just want to say a couple a couple comments. One, I want to start out by thanking the BBC. They've done really great work. And I think it's it's a lot of additional work to be part of that budget process. And so I want to thank all three members, especially Vice Mayor Lowenthal, for for walking us through that project. The second thing I want to mention is just so that everyone's aware, the municipal band is actually very much interested in expanding their programing to other parts of the city. And so I think that is a core part of what they're trying to do and discussing is how they expand their reach. And so that's something they've talked to me about. I know they've talked had a conversation with many others as well. And so we we all encourage that. And we're we're very hopeful that that will be occurring. And we want to thank them for for their commitment to doing that. Just a quick note about our ranchos. I think this is something that's always interesting to me is, you know, our ranchos are literally the birthplace of Long Beach. That is where our city's history was developed. And the great the great assets, of course, for for the entire city. And so I want to I want to thank both the council members who've been advocating for both of those of those ranchos as part of an important part of our of our history. Mr.. Mr.. City Attorney, there was a friendly amendment in discussion about the the amount of of the discretionary one time divided by nine money that the Council's proposed. I know that legally we want to make sure that we're working within the legal framework right now as the motion is presented by the boss. Can you just repeat at one time.
Speaker 5: Mayor remembers that council. The motion as proposed by the Bossie allows the use of the $2.666 thousand for capital infrastructure programs divided by nine. And that would include programs that, you know, are consistent with the city staff recommendation, with the normal capital and maintenance programing and decisions.
Speaker 2: And I think Vice Mayor 11,000 is going to do a perhaps a friendly amendment to that.
Speaker 6: Yes. So in addition to the language about capital infrastructure programs, can we add and existing programs.
Speaker 5: If I understand the existing city programs? So that would include operational expenditures for programs that are originated and developed by city staff and directed.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 2: Perfect. Okay. All right. Public comment on the item before us. Say Nonmembers, please go ahead and cast your votes. I do. Where do I see somebody from the left. Please come over here. Actually, you have to come up front if you have a comment.
Speaker 1: I just. I didn't prepare anything.
Speaker 2: You have to just state your name and converse.
Speaker 0: And what?
Speaker 2: State your name for the record, please.
Speaker 1: Carl Gunter. Okay. I have not prepared anything, but I. I was I had an issue of concern. So I'm also not really familiar with your program here, but I wanted to speak to these gentlemen of the room. I wanted to make a comment to the gentleman, if I could please.
Speaker 2: To the gentleman. Actually, right now we're only dealing with the the Budget Oversight Committee's recommendations so that you can comment on that. Or if it's something else, it would have to wait till the second public comment period.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Okay. Thank you. I see no other public comment. Please cast your votes.
Speaker 1: Motion carries.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Next. Exciting Vice mayor. | Agenda Item | Recommendation to adopt the Budget Oversight Committee’s proposed funding recommendations, as amended, to the FY 16 Proposed Budget. (A-11) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_09152015_15-0893 | Speaker 2: Thank you. Next. Exciting Vice mayor.
Speaker 6: The next item is item 17, which corresponds to a dash 12. This is the recommendation to declare ordinance amending the Depart Mental Organization Ordinance. Mr. City Manager, do you have a staff report for that?
Speaker 5: Ms.. Erickson.
Speaker 1: Mr. Mayor and members of City Council before you is the organization ordinance which provides for implementation of the budget in terms of any changes to departments and divisions and bureaus in this. The main change was the the reconfiguration of the Economic and Property Development Department. The other items are minor changes.
Speaker 6: Okay, thank you. So with that, I'd like to make a motion to approve.
Speaker 2: Okay. There's been a motion and a second. Is there any public comment on the item? See. Now, please cast your vote.
Speaker 1: Motion carries.
Speaker 2: 18. | Ordinance | Recommendation to declare ordinance relating to adopting an amendment to Ordinance No. C-6496, adopted July 5, 1988, and amended on January 24, 1989, July 11, 1989, December 5, 1989,
March 20, 1990, July 3, 1990, September 18, 1990, July 2, 1991,
July 7, 1992, January 26, 1993, August 24, 1993, June 28, 1994,
July 18, 1995, November 28, 1995, October 1, 1996, March 25, 1997, October 7, 1997, October 27, 1998, April 20, 1999, October 19, 1999, October 17, 2000, October 30, 2001, March 19, 2002,
November 26, 2002, January 6, 2004, February 8, 2005,
November 1, 2005, December 5, 2006, March 20, 2007, May 22, 2007, December 18, 2007, July 15, 2008, September 21, 2010,
September 13, 2011, September 11, 2012, October 3, 2013, and September 9, 2014 relating to departmental organization of the City of Long Beach, read and adopted as read. | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_09152015_15-0897 | Speaker 2: Thank you. Item 21, please.
Speaker 1: Recommendation to declare the Appropriations Ordinance for Fiscal Year 16 creating and establishing the funds of the municipal government and appropriating money to and authorizing expenditures from said funds and for set fiscal year as an emergency ordinance read and adopted as read and laid over for the next regular meeting of the City Council for Final Reading.
Speaker 2: Thank you. And with that, you all have the documents in front of you as prepared by our our finance staff. If I can get a motion in a second. Okay. There's been a motion or a second. Is there any public comment? On it, Mr. City Manager And I believe that anything else to report it. This is just the final documents from which what we voted on before. Please cast your votes.
Speaker 1: Motion carries.
Speaker 2: Thank you. So with that, we will return back to the start of the agenda and I'm going to do public comment. I have in this order if you can just please come up. Lineup, Elizabeth Jones, Patty Daughtry, Steven Gratz and Michael Varella. | Emergency Ordinance | Recommendation to declare ordinance approving and adopting the official budget of the City of Long Beach for the Fiscal Year 2015-2016, creating and establishing the funds of the municipal government of the City of Long Beach and appropriating money to and authorizing expenditures from said funds for said fiscal year; declaring the urgency thereof, and providing that this ordinance shall take effect at 12:01 a.m. on October 1, 2015, read and adopted as read. (Ordinance No. ORD-15-0025) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_09152015_15-0925 | Speaker 2: Thank you. Item five relates to our agreement with the L.A. EDC on the minimum wage, as well as the nonprofit and business incentive agenda item that passed out of this council, I think unanimously. The only change here is going to be in discussions with L.A., EDC and staff. They're recommending that we add a contingency even though we think we're going to stay within the 65. If there is additional outreach that needs to happen to the business community in particular, include more of their of the of that voice or workers. We want to make sure we have that in place and don't have to stop the process and come back to council. So this is the recommendation from the city attorney and city staff. So the contingency would be a $10,000 additionally to the 65, of course, to be used only if necessary as part of the contract. There is a motion any second, any public comment on concerned calendar item. Say Nonmembers, please cast your votes.
Speaker 1: Motion carries.
Speaker 2: Thank you. And moving on now to item. And I believe we're going to do the first source item, which, if I can have the clerk read, should be item number 11. | Resolution | Recommendation to adopt resolution authorizing City Manager, or designee, to execute an Agreement with the Economic Development Corporation of Los Angeles County, a California non-profit corporation, for the commissioning of a report regarding the potential implications of a minimum wage policy for the City of Long Beach, in an amount not to exceed $65,000; and
Increase appropriations in the General Fund (GF) in the Economic and Property Development Department (EP) by $65,000. (Citywide) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_09152015_15-0927 | Speaker 2: Thank you. And moving on now to item. And I believe we're going to do the first source item, which, if I can have the clerk read, should be item number 11.
Speaker 1: Report from Human Resources recommendation to implement a first source hiring pilot program to apply to awards for nonprofessional services above $100,000 and construction projects between 100,000 and $500,000 citywide.
Speaker 2: Okay. Thank you, Mr. City Manager.
Speaker 5: Mayor Councilmembers. I'm going to turn this over to our executive director of the Workforce Investment Board, Nick Schulz. This is a fantastic program that we've been working on since back when we were first starting with the play. This was something that we're doing on a parallel course. Our time energy went to the play and then worked over to two local hires, and I think we have something we're quite proud of. I'm going to turn this over to Nick and I understand the new name is not first sources. Now Long Beach. First source. Nick. Long Beach first. Good evening, honorable mayor garcia and members of the City Council on April 7th, U.S. Pacific Gateway to lead a study on how the city could qualify local residents for employment opportunities generated by city contracts for services and construction projects not covered by the recently executed play. You also asked us to engage the community with regard to our research and to return back with a recommendation, which I'm happy to do tonight in our secondary and some primary research we found promising and expanding practice across the country called First Source or FCA. It's taking root and what it is, it's a pipeline process, process to move locals to job opportunities created through municipal contracts. We actually studied seven cities in the secondary research portion and some outreach that we did to the cities directly to understand their program or their ordinance. And just for your information, those cities were Somerville, Massachusetts. Cleveland, Ohio. Berkeley, California, Baltimore, Maryland. Denver, Colorado, Washington, D.C. and city of Richmond, California. We chose those seven to focus on because in in the course of our research, there was something on paper, a specific program or ordinance that the city had either a report or a specific frame of reference for, rather than just an effort that had been labeled. As we went through our research, we found fundamental tenants. Present in all those seven cities that we thought were important to bring and weigh the value of with the public so that those seven best practice sites all had a defined city action, either an ordinance or a dedicated program related to first source hire. There were specific compliance requirements required of contractors in relation to the first source program. The outreach and the recruitment mechanisms used to push the opportunities out to the community and the residents was clearly defined. The types of positions and number of jobs in those in those first source programs was also clearly defined, and the threshold at which a contract would be made subject to first source was also clearly defined. After we did our secondary research, we set about to gather community feedback and present that research in a manner so that the long, Long Beach residents and interested parties would have an opportunity to respond to that and let us know what specific requirements would be acceptable or they thought would be best utilized for the City of Long Beach program. We're now referring to that program as Long Beach. First and just briefly, our outreach included a 1 to 1 or facilitated dialog with the Ministerial Alliance. On April 30th, 2015, we did three community outreach events on July 27, 28th and 29th in the guidance center on center in central Long Beach District nine field office in North Long Beach in Silverado Park in in west Long Beach . After these sessions were completed, we came back and. Put together the following recommendation for you to consider. I won't read you all the bullets, but the highlight of our recommendations, and again, consistent with what we find to be best practices nationally, are that Long Beach First would apply to all contracts for non professional services above $100,000 and also city construction projects including right of way between threshold amounts of 100 and $500,000. Long Beach first program will require qualified city residents be given first consideration for hire through a referral system. That referral system would be administered by the Workforce Investment Board, Pacific Gateway. Long Beach First would cover all net all net new jobs created through the awards of the contracts previously referenced. The period of reservation held for Long Beach residents to get the first crack at those jobs would be ten calendar days. The ten day local reservation period would run concurrent with other contracting processes in order not to delay the beginning of any work or contract or preparation. All outreach methods, including canvasing, traditional social media, activation of existing networks, email, mailings, etc. would be used to. Mask the community to refer residents to the opportunities. Again, Pacific Gateway will act as the essential intermediary between all the potential sources for referral noncompliance with Long Beach. First will result or may result in liquidated damages assessed per day at the discretion of our city manager. And as we move forward, we also found that we believe there will be minimal administrative costs associated with the implementation of a pilot process. We're asking that you consider this recommendation as a pilot process for two years when we would come back to you with a subsequent report that would include administrative and overhead costs that we would track during that time. That would conclude my report at this time, and I'm happy to answer any questions.
Speaker 2: Thank think I'm actually now going to turn this over to Councilwoman Gonzalez, who's the maker of the motion. And I guess she's going to make some comments and then we'll go from there. Thank you.
Speaker 8: Yes, thank you, Nick, for your staff report. First of all, I just want to say I'm really thrilled that we're bringing this full word. It has been renamed as Long Beach first, because I think it will truly represent that Long Beach locals receiving Long Beach jobs first. And so, you know, I've often said and I will say it again, you know, as far as us being able to create jobs, we can't do that directly. But we can certainly look at good policies that can support those good jobs. And so while this is a pilot project, we must also work to find creative ways to fight high unemployment rates, especially in places like the 90813 with rates of 19%. But also, this is a program for all residents and also localizing our economy where the play doesn't cover. I think this will do a good job of that. So hiring local language residents can create so many more benefits, as many of us know, improving quality of life for those families, adding to our economy and tax base and much more. It's also of great benefit to our business owners as well, who have local residents in their employee group. So I want to thank the folks that are here, the Ministry Serial Alliance, Local Hire Coalition, the PHC Building Healthy Communities or Cambodian associations. There were so many community groups that came together in various parts of the city to be able to put their opinions in place, to talk about how to formulate a good plan for local jobs. And while that is all said, I also want to thank PG, Wynn, Pacific Gateway and Nick Schultz for their hard work in this as well. I think we learned, you know, the place served a different purpose. Construction jobs over $500,000. The first source, the Long Beach First program, looks at taking a different approach with different professional services, with different types of jobs. So I have a few questions. Nick, I can barely see you there. First off, I wanted to ask about how I know there's been a lot of talk about youth and perhaps maybe a gap in finding youth employment. Can you emphasize how this would help or how we can maybe collaborate with other programs? What can we do in this sense for from the first source program?
Speaker 5: Well, it certainly dovetails with some other efforts in the city and specifically some other efforts that we're involved in. I know the mayor's internship initiative comes to mind, so the opportunity for us to engage with with the contractor at the point that they're ready to to do business with the city, gives us another avenue or another venue for it to talk about the benefit of internship and engage them not only in their hiring needs, but also in helping us to find a place for an intern in the city of Long Beach.
Speaker 8: Great. So we could certainly partner with that program to make this a more robust program, especially for local youth. And I think it's important, as we've worked on the play, we're now undergoing a study for the minimum wage. I think it's important that we emphasize local are our local youth. Next, I wanted to clarify a few things, because there's a few things that seem a little unclear in the report. So what would. I mean, many of us know, but just to clarify or give examples. What would be non professional services and also the referral system, how that would work?
Speaker 5: So I'm going to defer to the city attorney on the distinction between the professional and the non professional services. But let me let me handle the piece. As far as the the excuse me.
Speaker 8: The referrals.
Speaker 5: The referrals, yes. So it would work typical to to how we do with either our internship program or the PATH program that we're building with with Councilman Richardson's office. So there are various sources that are that have an expertize with with target populations who are disconnected or who do workforce development services for people looking for a first job or to to change and actually move to move to a higher wage job. So just as in our name, Pacific Gateway would act as that intermediary or that gateway. So at the during the ten day reservation, we would use the available forms of outreach to outreach to our community partners, let them know that the position was open, what, what the requirements of the position were, and then arrange to handle that referral of all the clients to the community as a single point of contact to the contractor or the given employer at that point in time. There's two advantages to that. One, again, the single point of contact aspect for for the employer, the opportunity to open and close the windows seamlessly. And second of all, it's Pacific Gateways ability, given some of the tools at our disposal through our federal funding to actually be able to track the higher forecast or look out over time and see that the person is still retained in the labor force in subsequent quarters, post employment and see that they're earning wages if there's increased wages, those type those types of things.
Speaker 8: Okay.
Speaker 0: Councilman, there's also a question on what's.
Speaker 2: Not professional.
Speaker 0: Services. Yes, that would be.
Speaker 5: Primarily custodial work that we would offer landscaping and tree trimming, things like that, as opposed to professional services, which would include engineers, attorneys, nurses, things like that.
Speaker 8: Okay. Great. And then the noncompliance. How would that be enforced? If a business is non-compliant. And I see that there's. A discussion here about that. But I don't know what the enforcement would be on the back end.
Speaker 5: So I cannot speak to how the liquidated damages would be calculated. I think that specific to size of contract in each individual circumstance. But we would move to have the process of a liquidated damage being assessed and initiated by the fact that the specific employer or contractor completely failed, neglected or refused to engage with the first source process.
Speaker 8: Okay. But we would have some sort of we would have a tracking mechanism. We would be able to know if if it was clear that they didn't. Participate or had. No, uh. Opportunity or no inclination to participate.
Speaker 5: Right. Right now, what we've engaged with procurement to do is actually to embed the first source language in in bid requirements and then actually to have the first source language at Long Beach versus, excuse me, language in the act, the actual contract. And there would be an introduction or a bridge to Pacific Gateway at the point in time when the contract would be executed with procurement and they would already be cognizant of the requirement and have the opportunity to reach out to us to ask any questions when the bid process was initiated.
Speaker 8: Okay, great. Thank you. And another couple of questions. What I just wanted to clarify that at this point, we can identify a significant fiscal impact. I mean, of course, there will be staff costs, but I mean, there's nothing on the front end now that we can foresee would be a major impact to the city.
Speaker 5: Our our major concern when we did the research was could we find anywhere that this limited the number of bids or increased cost of bids? And in the cities we studied, we could not establish that that was the case. The other thing, in terms of staff time, it's mainly staff time in a modified process and some of that process is in procurement, but that's somewhat negligible. Once the language is in inserted into the documents and this is core staff time for Pacific Gateway with with a private employer or somebody who engages with us to source talent . This is the process we use with with any employer. So the city and a city contractor would be no different. And it's just an enhancement of the of the number of employers in our portfolio.
Speaker 8: Okay, great. And then last question. Last question was the departments and the separate legal entities that are excluded, can you or someone explain what those are exactly and why they're excluded?
Speaker 5: The two that are excluded would be not under the jurisdiction of City Council, the harbor department and the water department.
Speaker 8: Just and it's just those two at this point, I think.
Speaker 5: And also the affordable housing projects, I think those are federally regulated.
Speaker 8: Perfect. Um, okay. Cause there was also, I think there was a, uh, perhaps I was getting it mixed up with something else, but harbor water and affordable housing. Okay. Thank you. Well, I would encourage my colleagues to support this. I think, you know, this is certainly a win for the city. I think this is similarly what we've done with the play, but it's looking at other nonprofessional, uh, opportunities for people that certainly need these jobs. So I would ask that my colleagues support and thank you very much.
Speaker 5: Mayor, if I could expand on the answer to the Councilwoman, I think other separate legal entities may include the successor agency or the CIC or the oversight board. So there would be possibly other non entities that aren't subject to the jurisdiction of the council.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Councilman Richardson.
Speaker 9: Sure. Thanks, Mr. Mayor. And I want to start by thanking Councilmember Gonzalez and the other signers. I believe it was Councilmember Ranga and Councilman Brand Jews, I believe and we worked really hard for a number of months on this to make sure that it's meaningful and it's tangible and that it has an impact on folks. We intentionally asked to call this Long Beach first because that's just it. We are. This gives Long Beach residents a shot at going through the process for all net new jobs first. And I'm confident that if Long Beach residents are given an opportunity, I'm confident they will rise to the occasion. So I am in complete support of this. The focus group in North Long Beach was very well attended. I believe staff did a fantastic job, so I'd like to acknowledge Pacific Gateway and their whole team on all of the work that went into putting together a really comprehensive focus group and making it and making the results of that reflect in this in this pilot today. President Obama's My Brother's Keeper program that we've talked about for months now. Milestone five is providing youth and young adults access to jobs and the White House and Policy Link List's first source policies and agreements as the top recommendation to meet Milestone five and have a direct impact on youth and young adult employment employment. And I think that this is smart that we this this policy allows us to align policy with some of our initiatives, like My Brother's Keeper and like the PATH program, which which diverts disconnected young adults into the workforce as an alternative and keeps them on the right track. So for those reasons, I'm in complete support for this. There were some comments that compare this to the project labor agreement. I'm a bigger fan of this than I am of the project labor agreement because I think this is what broader and more impactful to get directly to jobs. So I'm really interested in this and I want to see see how this rolls out. I have a question. I see that we're asking for to a two year pilot. Are we? I would like to see some some check ins on how we're doing, some analytics on how this process is rolling out, maybe on a every six month basis. So. Mr. City Manager And maybe, maybe could you respond to that?
Speaker 5: Councilmember We can certainly provide you a report every six months on.
Speaker 9: The.
Speaker 5: Performance measures of the program.
Speaker 9: Sure. What sort of measures would you think that reflect?
Speaker 5: The number of people that have applied, put up their names with the workforce, number of people who have been referred to projects, the number of net new hires that have been created when we award contracts, things like that.
Speaker 9: Great. And then the second thing is, I know that Councilmember Garcia excuse me, Gonzalez mentioned that the other agencies it may not it may not include. And that's and that's fine. But I want to just have clarity that it doesn't stop them from doing something similar, having similar agreements at the same time. They could very well do so. Correct.
Speaker 5: I believe they could very well do so. And I think in the research we've seen maybe similar entities to to those that we're excluding initially voluntarily participate.
Speaker 9: Great. So so that's it. Again, I'm in complete support Ion and I want to thank again Councilmember Gonzalez on her leadership and all of the city council members for their hard work on this. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Councilman Munger.
Speaker 1: Yes. I want to thank Mr. Schultz for his hard work on this. I appreciate the dialog that we've had. Many people cite statistics that only a third of those that are employed in Long Beach actually live in Long Beach. And I think that this is a great step in the right direction towards helping our local and helping our neighbors work close by and reducing our emissions, helping them spend their money where they live, not having to venture out into other cities for those jobs. And so this is fantastic. I'm very supportive, great work and I look forward to the reports. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Councilwoman Price.
Speaker 8: Thank you. I've had the opportunity to meet with staff regarding the recommendations. And from what I understand, this policy will allow for workers throughout all of Long Beach to be given the first opportunity to obtain jobs that are tied to our city projects and programs. I believe this is sound policy. I support this policy because, one, it applies citywide and is not limited to any particular area where the applicant lives. And two, it gives companies an eligible pool of local candidates, but still allows them to exercise their discretion in accepting or declining to hire candidate based on the company, culture and environment . This discretion and making hiring decisions is critical to a sustainable policy, in my opinion. I thank my colleagues for bringing this item forward and I will be supporting it tonight.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Count summary Ranga.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Mayor. I have a few questions. I know some of them have already been addressed by Councilwoman Gonzales. When we're looking at the point with the, the, the noncompliance issue, um, I still have some issues. Issues questions about what is that definition of a non-compliant contractor. Um, there are, you know, it's complex. There's a lot of issues going on here. For example, when we're looking at a contractor making a, an appointment or giving being given names of qualified residents that Pacific Gateway has already vetted to a certain extent, what is that good faith effort, quote unquote, as it says here, that they're going to look at these individuals and then hire them? What is what is the definition of a good faith effort? What is.
Speaker 5: So as as the recommendation is presented, it is actually to to that the resume and from their decision on the resume either bring that candidate in for interview or decline to interview that particular person. The freedom of the hiring decision is still in their corner. But again, they would need to take time to sit down and that the referrals, the qualified referrals that were passed along.
Speaker 3: And when you say you have the a local reservation period of ten days, is that I see it in the portion where you have maybe two portions. We're talking about unions like you have regularly. Isn't that too short of a period? I mean, most contractors and most employers nowadays require that an applicant go through a life scan or some kind of background check, a drug test before they get they get selected, which is ten days enough.
Speaker 5: Ten days has nothing to do with with the process when when they choose a candidate. The ten days is the is strictly the reservation period. So they cannot open that vacancy up and begin to source other applicants for the ten days or we or until we notify them that the qualified pool of local residents is exhausted.
Speaker 3: So it would be your responsibility to get Pacific Gateway responsibility to vet these potential employees.
Speaker 5: So it's it's a joint responsibility. It's a joint responsibility between Pacific Gateway in our community partners and again, to get the most access to the available jobs to the most residents. We need that community partnership to finalize folks. We need time to activate that. We need time to make sure they have the job description in hand to do the screening of their database of clients. We would actually then be the single point of contact to make the comprehensive referral list of the folks from the community who qualify to be evaluated for the position.
Speaker 3: Okay. And when it comes to the non professional definition, I heard custodian, tree trimmer, gardener, those types of things, those are. Low wage occupations. Is there a of an opportunity here to create a living wage type of opportunity for these contractors? I know some of these contractors are going to come in and in nonprofessional $10 an hour, not a living wage. Is there going to be a requirement that they provide at least a living wage opportunity for these individuals?
Speaker 5: Again, some of the things that you referred to will be subject to prevailing wage anyhow. So that's that's certainly a living wage. When you look at union jobs that that aren't covered or are below the threshold of of a play, I believe those are already living wage jobs. So I think we have we have that covered in those regards. The other thing I would say is that there are some residents who will qualify for work who need a first job, who need some stabilization service, stabilization of a first job. And we wouldn't want to exclude any of that in how we approach that. But yes, as always, and our metrics are driven by ensuring that the majority of folks we serve are in living wage jobs.
Speaker 3: Well, I certainly hope so. That's that's important to me in regards to individuals that we are hiring, especially at entry level positions, that there's an opportunity for not only to provide for their families, but to also have an opportunity for growth in that area as well. Other than that, I want to thank the participants here, the building of the Community Alliance, Legal Aid Foundation and others who participated in the in these work groups. Certainly your input was very important and I hope that nothing's perfect. I know that because it never is. It seems like, you know, the city council where we're trying to do things right and most of the time as I think we get it right. However, I'm looking forward to two comments from from the audience.
Speaker 2: Councilman Andrews.
Speaker 4: Yes. Thank you, Mayor. First of all, I'd like to thank our Lena for bringing this forward on the diocese, because the fact that I, I think everyone realize how important it is for jobs and we talk about first, you know, I want to thank the Pacific Gateway as well as all of the organizations involved in the community feedback session. And I would also like to thank the Ministers Lyons for their involvement, because sometimes it still takes a village. Every day I've had, you know, young men approached me on, you know, the streets, you know, I need a job in this program like this allows me to give them, you know, the young people, you know , an answer like where you truly deserve that. And, you know, and the biggest part about all of this, I think that in vetting all of these jobs, I'm hoping that we can even go even further because, you know, and I know that most of these jobs they will be speaking about, the first thing you're going to ask you about your background check, you know what that involves in various individuals and that will almost eliminate them completely from these jobs. I'm hoping that we will take this and take it very seriously to let you know that we talk about Long Beach versus job offers, that these individual have enough, you know, a passion and concern and know that if you say you're talking about hiring me, please, when you vet this, you know the application that these people will not be thrown out because of their background. You know, a lot of it is because of the fact that, you know, first time, you know, they ask you, have you ever been involved? You know, I have a felony. You know what that does to any, you know, applicant, it throws them out of the loop. So I would just hope that we can go a little further and hope that we can get a little more to help these individuals get further down the line. And thank you again, Nina, for bringing this forward. And I think this is one of the better things that we've done for the community, for the city of Long Beach, giving them a chance to know that we do have a program that we will be hiring here in our local cities first. Thank you again.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Public comment now. Any public comment?
Speaker 7: Good evening, Mr. Mayor. Council My name is Derek Simpson, resident of District two, executive director of the Long Beach Community Action Partnership. And also tonight is a member of what has been a local hire or coalition started coming to these meetings and speaking on this subject on April 7th and been very involved since that date, speaking with many of you as council one on one, try to understand this process so that I could speak intelligently to the community about what's going on, how they can get involved and how they can be supportive. I have to tell you that even though I was really involved, I was also disappointed to find out that as I attended some of the meetings that were mentioned, that though I thought we were going to be able to speak to the local hire policy as a part of the play. We were told, no, that's not going to happen. And because Long Beach first was the subject at hand, and I applaud the staff for the work and the energy that they put in to it. But the fact remains that we have a public project labor agreement that's passed without a local hire policy. And just as the councilman just asked Councilman Richardson, how will we measure this? Can we get six months reports on this? I don't know that we have a report that will come back to you that says, in fact, with this play being passed as it is, how will we measure that jobs are being made available through the play, such as they will be made available with this Long Beach first. So I would ask at a minimum that you consider tonight, just as you've considered adding a reporting process and six months for language first that you consider adding also maybe an annual report to see that maybe some of what we've been expressing is our concerns for six months in these meetings and as a result of even what one of the councilperson said about showing up for something only when it's about their agenda item. I showed up for meetings even when I didn't need to be here because I wanted to see what was I missing, as intelligent as I think I am. Clearly something was not clicking with me on this whole subject. And so, though I'm no longer a member of PG when the only commission that the mayor appointed me to. I'm here as an individual representing Long Beach Community Action Partnership, representing this local hire coalition to say to you as a city council, we indeed need to at least consider how we measure what is said is actually getting done when it comes to a policy that's local hire policy for the project labor agreement. I stand ready to help anyone behind the rail in this process and any member of this city management team in this process to make sure that it happens. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Derek. Next week, a police.
Speaker 0: Good evening, Mayor. And city and city council members. My name is Brian. There's a meeting. Um, I live in the first district, and I'm current instead of Columbus City College. Um, I'm happy to say that the City Council is taking up the issue of jobs for our community. It's important that we have policies that prioritize hiring Long Beach residents, especially those living in areas of high unemployment. And I'm speaking tonight because many people in my community, including my mom, struggle to find work. Um, as a result myself, I think that it's very important that there are jobs available because having a job is key to a better future and a better life. Whether it's this first source hiring program or the labor agreement that targets work hours for local residents and disadvantaged workers, it's important that the residents of most cities jobs get them. We also need to be able to evaluate how well this policies are working to benefit residents who live in parts of the city that are most impacted by unemployment and the problems that go and the problems that go along with that. And with our age, it's going to be important to develop ways of doing outreach that find those who are hard to reach and who might not have regular computer access. These policies are just the beginning of what we need to do to address joblessness in Lombard. As a city, we need to continue to look for ways to build upon the strategies, efforts with our jobs available. The unemployment rate goes up and residents can see a brighter future. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much. Thanks, public speaker, please.
Speaker 10: Good evening. My name is Alexander Herndon. I'm an attorney with the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles and our Long Beach office. I'm here tonight to raise just a few important points that should be addressed through a local hire policy. And we feel merit discussion one last time. What we understand it's not the current will of the council. We feel the local hire policy item represented a missed opportunity to resolve some key unanswered questions regarding implementation of the place local hire requirements. These unanswered questions include what steps a contractor needs to take before they hire outside of Long Beach and what the penalty would be if they don't follow those steps. How the city will monitor the success of the place. Local hire requirements through periodic reporting by contractors. The city specific roles and responsibilities with regard to ensuring proper implementation and success of the local hire provisions, and how the community can participate in oversight, monitoring and evaluation of the play. Resolving these questions in a local hire policy could translate the good intentions of the play into meaningful hiring for Long Beach residents. And so therefore it echoed the recommendation for an annual report to be given regarding the PLA local hiring component and for that report to be given at a public meeting, a meeting of the Council so that the public has an opportunity to review that information and to weigh in from the community perspective. I would also urge the Council to appoint community representatives to the two vacant seats on the Joint Advisory Committee called for by the play again to ensure community oversight and transparency in this process. This would give the community and the Council the opportunity to learn from any failures and build on any successes as these policies unfold. So what? We applaud you for taking the first steps to establishing local hire programs for the city of Long Beach. We feel that more can and should be done to ensure that Long Beach jobs go to Long Beach residents. Thank you for your time.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 1: Okay. My name is Tania Reyes Ranga, and I'm a former city councilmember and a 25 year workforce development professional, ten years here in Long Beach and ten years in West Orange County service delivery area. Working with the Workforce Investment Board, I was first director of the first Work Stop Center Workforce Center in the County of Orange and later consulted with the Department of Labor on how works for centers can be more integrated with union apprenticeships and nontraditional careers for women. A little of my background and why I'm so concerned about this report, this report submitted to you either gives the council members from the one, six, seven and nine districts what they requested and it was seventh. Nor did it give the community what they needed in regards to assurances that the city understands and has the will to develop a local hire plan. The request on April 7th specifically stated, and I quote, for a specific, comprehensive local hire program that will work to give people the tools and resources to secure a good job with good wages and benefits. The report was neither specific nor comprehensive. One local hire was never addressed or defined. What is local hire? No definition can. No definition, even through the council even know that the council requested. The Council request included an attached map delineated delineating unemployment clusters by zip codes. No definition of local hire was given or even referred to in the report for purposes of play and non-players. Two. There was no definition of low income and no verification process for low income eligible residents. It was neither outlined nor suggested. Three The scope is so narrow 100000 to 500000 nonprofessional and construction projects and did not include any detail regarding the scope of the universe and universe and the number of jobs that may be available for the definition of local hire jobs and how they would be quantified on any tier one hires was submitted, as it were, for non-player hires. Five. There are no goals, no measurements, no enforcement, only good faith efforts and first considerations. And most of all, there was no job coordinator identified other than the vague reference to the Pacific Gateway Center. Six. Utilizing the Pacific Gateway Center as an essential intermediary is duplicative as workforce centers are already charged with this task. And this report doesn't provide the Pacific Gateway with details and specifics on goals or measurements of success. The community had high hopes for this report, but soon after the first community session, it was clear that the city had no intention of having a local hire policy. And the first source hiring pilot program does anything but make Long Beach first for those most in need. I want to thank the local hire coalition and the ministerial alliance and the over 20 churches who were involved in the push to get the city to detail a local hire program. I also want to thank councilmembers Gonzales, Andrews, Warren and Richardson because they were doing what they were supposed to do, and that's watch out for the well-being of their constituents. I'm only sorry that the city could not deliver. I expected much more because, quite frankly, our residents deserve much more. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Thank you. I'm turning it over to a public comment. Please come forward. Is there anybody else in public comment? Because I mean, of course, the speaker's list. Okay. Speaker, this is close your last one. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And Council. My name is Steve. I am a fifth district homeowner and fourth district business owner. My only suggestion here is that the service industry, bartender servers and all of that throughout our city are included into this whole process, especially through the convention center and its contractors that locally that were we're forcing those agencies or contractors to hire locally. These bartenders and servers make approximately 15 to $30 an hour once you include earned tips. And it's a very, very good living. And I just want to make sure that that's who were included into all of this. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Richardson.
Speaker 9: Thanks, Mr. Mayor. I just wanted to take a moment and just respond to Derek Simpson cap and ask the city manager just to respond to the question about the question about the Pele's actual live reporting. I remember that there was report back mechanisms put in and and these are separate things. But I just want I don't want to sort of run over that. So. City Manager, could you just quickly respond to that?
Speaker 5: Mayor Councilmembers are required to come back with an annual report.
Speaker 9: That's what I thought. So there there are these are distinct issues, but the play does have annual report mechanism. And this what we're asking for isn't, you know, an elaborate report, another convening at city council. What we're looking for is a report like a written and analytical report here to City Council on the results of a, you know, first source or Lambie's first. So I just want to make that distinction. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Councilman, Councilwoman Gonzales.
Speaker 8: All right. Well, I thank you for the comment. I mean, you all are, you know, telling it like it is, which is always so wonderful. And I know that many of you have been here for so long. I still do think that this is a program that we can all stand behind. I really do believe that. And it's not perfect. We have opportunities now to look at it. The play, it's never you know, nothing is ever going to be perfect. But I still do believe that we will. We have a local hire element in there that was pretty fruitful. And we have a lot of many of our city staff here who are Long Beach, local residents themselves. They live here in Long Beach and they care and they're invested in this as well. They are staff members that have really put together a great framework for our residents and our business owners and in making sure that they are keeping your your community input in mind. And although, you know, we'll continue talking about this and make sure that it evolves and it's a progressive policy that will encompass all of the things as as it goes along. I do still thank you for your comments in that sense. So thank you again to Nick. I know that he worked very, very hard on this. I think after the play was complete, I think we talked about an alternative. And his experience in organizing an FSA in Alameda County I think was very important for us. So I just want to thank him again for that as well as our city staff. And I failed to mention my thanks to my council colleagues, Councilmember Andrews and Councilmember Suranga, who really worked hard on this as well. So appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Before we go to the vote, I'm going to a couple of comments. The first is I want to thank start by thanking Councilwoman Gonzales and the members that brought this forward. It's, you know, within the span of of eight or nine months, the city has had have gone from having no project labor agreement and no local source hiring agreement to having both. And we don't you know, we don't always get exactly what what everyone wants out of every agreement or ordinance. But I think this is something that the city should be very proud of. I think the community put in a lot of work and want to thank the community members. That did put in a lot of work. I'm a little disappointed that there is some disappointment from from some members of the community. And I think there's this actually is a very good effort. And I want to thank the councilwoman, but also the members that were involved. I also want to thank Nick Schulz and the entire team at Workforce Development. You guys did great work with the outreach. There was a lot of effort. I know the amount of hours you guys put into into doing this. And and I'm pretty proud of the fact that Long Beach after tonight will have both a project labor agreement and a first source for local hire agreement, which I think both are pretty significant. And so I want to thank you again, Councilwoman, and the other members that were involved. And please cast your votes.
Speaker 1: Motion carries.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Let's go to item ten. Is item ten or is that item. Actually. Item ten. Ten, correct. All right, Madam Kirk. | Agenda Item | Recommendation to authorize City Manager to execute all documents and take all actions necessary to implement a First Source Hiring Pilot Program (Long Beach First), to apply to awards for non-professional services above $100,000, and construction projects between $100,000 and $500,000 for a period of two years. (Citywide) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_09152015_15-0928 | Speaker 2: Thank you. Next item, please.
Speaker 1: Item 12 Report from Human Resources Recommendation to execute the renewal of eight contracts for health, dental, vision, prescription and disability to maintain current benefit levels and remain in compliance with state and federal laws on all plans citywide.
Speaker 2: Thank you. There's a motion in a second. Is attorney any public comment on 12? Councilman Mongo.
Speaker 1: Thank you. This item is really important. A year ago, when I brought it to the attention of the council that we were experiencing a $4.2 million increase in our annual benefit costs, I think that we forget how prudent we've been, and I appreciate the meetings that I've had with the city staff to really get a grasp and understanding on what this means. I think it's important to recognize that since 2013, our medical costs have increased by $13.9 million. What does that mean to a city employee? What that means is that the city has absorbed almost 20 $700 per employee. And when you compare that to the average civilian salary of the employees of the city of Long Beach, that's nearly a 4% increase over the last three years. And so I know these are tough, tough, tough times. And we are working really hard with our employee groups to ensure that we can be the employer of choice of all cities. And we want to create a positive work environment and good paying jobs and also. Take into consideration the millions of dollars that we as a city continue to absorb year after year, because this 20 $700, while it does not show up in your paycheck, it is an additional cost that we as a city have had to incur. I want to thank the Human Resources Department and the work that they've done in the benefits management. There are many other large cities and smaller cities that have experienced larger increases than we're talking about today. Thank you to the employees of the city of Long Beach who are staying healthy and active and going out of their way to make efforts to improve their health. Because the partnership that you're doing in being healthy is a really important component of our ability to keep these costs under control. And I don't know about you, but I'd love to have an additional 20 $700 check every three years, and we aren't able to do that. Instead, we're absorbing these costs, and it doesn't seem like we're able to increase wages every year. But this is an important component. And our health has been our health care has been a big part of what makes this employer a great employer. So thank you very much to the city staff, the new benefits coordinator. Welcome. Our new H.R. manager. I'm sure you'll learn how much I care about this item as much as our previous H.R. manager. I keep a tight look on these costs. They can skyrocket up, as we've seen in the past, over 10% increases in a single year. So we need to work on that. Is there anything else that, ah, our H.R. team would like to add or the city manager.
Speaker 0: Alex, Michelle, anything?
Speaker 1: No other than.
Speaker 6: We'll certainly take your comments to heart. And it's certainly.
Speaker 1: Something that we'll look into for the following year. Thank you so much appreciation to all our city employees who are helping stay healthy and keep our costs low.
Speaker 2: Thank you. See? No public comment on the item. Members, please go and cast your vote.
Speaker 1: Councilman Andrews. Motion carries. | Contract | Recommendation to authorize City Manager to execute the renewal of contracts with Anthem Blue Cross, the City’s Third Party Administrator for the Preferred Provider Organization (PPO) and the Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) group health plans and Medicare Supplement plan; United Healthcare Medicare Advantage Plan; Scan Health Plan for the Medicare Advantage Plan; Delta Dental for the fee-for-service dental plan (DPPO); Medical Eye Services (MES) for the vision plan; CVS Caremark as the Prescription Benefit Manager (PBM) for the Prescription Drug Plan; The Standard Insurance Company for life insurance and long-term and short-term disability; and Union Mutual Life Insurance Company (UNUM) through Larry Lambert & Associates Insurance Services for long-term care insurance; and any subsequent amendments necessary to maintain current benefit levels and remain in compliance with state and federal laws on all plans. (Citywide) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_09082015_15-0913 | Speaker 0: Okay, thank you. We're doing a couple of items, and we're gonna go to our regular agenda. One, a couple items quickly out of order. Just left some folks here we do item 17. Real briefly. First, Madam Clerk, for an item 17.
Speaker 1: Item 17 report from Financial Management and Development Services recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record regarding the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act, a public hearing and adopt resolution approving the issuance of revenue bonds by the California Municipal Finance Authority in the amount not to exceed $60 million. District seven.
Speaker 0: Okay. There's a motion. Can I get a second? Okay. There's a motion and a second. Mr. West, you want to add to that?
Speaker 6: Yes. We have a quick staff report by our treasurer David Nakamoto, and Amy Bodak, our.
Speaker 8: Development services director. Thank you, sir. Honorable Mayor and members of the City Council before you is a recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record regarding the temporary hearing and adopt a resolution approving the issuance of revenue bonds by CMB to benefit the Abode, Communities.
Speaker 2: And American.
Speaker 8: Gold Star Manor Partnership in an amount not to exceed $60 million. The project. Current current affordability covenants are expiring are and are at risk of reverting to market rates. CFM will issue tax exempt bonds to finance the acquisition and rehabilitation of the apartment building known as American Gold Star Manor. The intent of this acquisition is to preserve 337 affordable senior housing units for 55 years. There is no fiscal impact on the city associated with this action. The city has no financial obligation or liability associated with this financing. The project is expected to provide approximately 50 jobs during the rehabilitation. City action is requested on September 8th, 2015 to facilitate CMF forthcoming bond issuance. This concludes staff's report.
Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you. Is there any public comment on the item? Come forward.
Speaker 8: Very good. I'm not quite clear, obviously, if we can provide that type of housing for that number of citizens. That's great. But if we have no liability. Why are we even discussing this tonight? That that hasn't been explained. What's the city's role?
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 4: Here we go. I live in Long Beach and run the manor. And this is a second step of our plan to do the renovation. The first one was getting all of the vouchers we need from HUD for all of our goals, for all of our veterans, all of the seniors. And this is the one you voted on not too long ago to have the housing authority certify all of that. That program is going 180 miles an hour. This is step two, which provides the funding then to do all of the renovation for $58 million. It will make the manor the safest, the greenest and certainly the most comfortable facility of its kind in all of Long Beach in a manner will truly become the jewel of Long Beach. Thank you for your support.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Any other public comment? One more.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much, Mr. Mayor. Members of the council, Gary Shelton at 240 Chestnut Avenue. I just wanted to remark that this is yet one more fabulous moment moving forward in the maintenance and and assurance of affordable housing in the city of Long Beach for senior citizens. I live in a senior citizen affordable housing project, and when these things come into that danger period of when the affordability is about to expire, oh my gosh, everybody begins to panic. And the fact that Goldstar Manor is stepping up and saying, let's do this, and the the city is saying and I believe to help Mr. Goodhew understand it, simply because this is within the city limits and the city council has to say, yes, we know this is happening. I think that's the extent of it, is how these bond issues, which is a tough road bond issues work. But in any regard, I just wanted to express that as a watchdog over affordable housing. I'm so glad to see this happening. And by the way, in case you're not sure, this is like the fourth time in the past 12 months or so that there has been a last minute saving of affordable housing toward 50 to 55 years into the future. The affordable housing advocates in town couldn't be any happier. Thank you so much.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilman Mongo.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to thank Gold Star Manor for hosting Councilmember your night. He wasn't available this evening. He's out. But thank you for all that you do to the community and and thank you for all your work.
Speaker 0: Did either the makers of the motion have any comments? Nope. Okay, great. Have a motion on the floor. Please cast your votes.
Speaker 4: It's not.
Speaker 0: Is there is there an issue or.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I'm a yes, but.
Speaker 0: Yeah, it's coming in. I would say.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 0: There we go. The motion was Richardson. The second was Pryce. It's well we'll we'll fix on the record. On the record. What did the. Did it go through or. Yeah. Let's go and take a while. We're figuring this out. We're just going to go and take a vote. I was in favor of the motion. Say I. And you oppose any abstentions? The motion carries unanimously. So we're good there. Why don't we do my announcement? Then we'll go back to the agenda. Motion passes, it's up. Okay. So the announcements that we had was I want introduce our new h.r. Director for a second time. This time we're going to get it here. And I want to introduce and welcome alejandro vasquez who is here. Alex Vasquez, please step up here for a second. Just say hello. And I'm going to say a few things about her. As we all know, Debbie Mills, who's next to her, has done a great job. Let's give Debbie a big round of applause, first of all. And and Miss Vasquez is coming to us from the city of Los Angeles, where she was the assistant general manager in the personnel department. So she has worked in large scale personnel and H.R. environments. She is loves loves. Long Beach holds a master's degree in public policy from the University of Chicago, Bachelor of Arts degree in Social, Social Ecology from the University of California, Irvine. And she, I think, starts today or pretty or pretty soon. Is that that sound about right. And I know has a lot of experience in Long Beach as well. So thank you. Ms.. Vasquez, did you want to say anything to the council or. You don't have to. I'm putting you on the spot. Come forward and just say hi really quick. You have very big shoes to fill. And as you know, it's a it's a very big job.
Speaker 1: Yes. I'm just I want to just want to say I'm really happy to be here. I. Debbie's been great. She's been with me all day, making sure I have a great transition. And I'm looking forward to working with all of you as well as from the Human Resources Department. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you and welcome you as well. Want to go out and do now because there's a big group of them here. We're going to ask the presentation from Candice Taylor Sherwood and Tom Leary, which I know they pull the speakers card. And we've got a big group, so come on forward.
Speaker 1: Hello, everybody. My name is Candace Taylor Sherwood. And while I am a Long Beach City employee today, I'm here.
Speaker 5: As a resident of the.
Speaker 1: Third district. Suzy Pryce, we love you and a proud volunteer and a certified member of the Community Emergency Response Team.
Speaker 8: And hello, everybody. I think we're gonna have to put this away.
Speaker 6: Hello, everybody. I'm Tom Leary. I'm also a city employee, and I'm here as a volunteer to help the fire department with the CERT event.
Speaker 1: So in response of National Preparedness Month Ready Long Beach 2015 is an annual Community Preparedness Expo that promotes a whole community approach to emergency preparedness and readiness.
Speaker 8: Ready. Long Beach will educate.
Speaker 6: Demonstrate and promote current efforts and programs.
Speaker 4: Within the city of Long Beach that support, preparedness, response.
Speaker 6: Recovery and resiliency.
Speaker 1: During a large scale incident. The use of volunteers may be essential to provide support and response when local first responders are overwhelmed and may not readily be available. | Resolution | Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record regarding the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act (TEFRA) public hearing; and adopt resolution approving the issuance of revenue bonds by the California Municipal Finance Authority (CMFA), to benefit a partnership to be formed by Abode Communities and American Gold Star Manor, a non-profit corporation, in an amount not to exceed $60,000,000. (District 7) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_09082015_15-0881 | Speaker 1: Report from Financial Management Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record, conclude the public hearing and make the actions necessary to adopt the fiscal year 2016 budget citywide.
Speaker 0: Thank you. We have the the hearing. I'm going to go ahead. And, Mr. West, did you have anything to introduce as part of this budget hearing first? No, sir. Okay. Then what I'm going to go ahead and do is I'm going to turn this over first. Any public comment as part of the hearing? Please come forward.
Speaker 8: Very good. You click as the address. Full disclosure I have not studied the entire budget, but from what I can see it is but ugly. It's the only way to describe our financial situation. So much so. I'm going to suggest that notwithstanding the tremendous effort and tremendous results that our good chief of police are doing is doing , is that this be the last? Council meeting held in the city hall. Given the number of shootings in close proximity and that we consider having. The City Council meetings, perhaps out in the fifth District. Well aware away from the gunfire. Period. And I see this situation continuing. And in addition to that, I would suggest this, that the council declare a state of emergency. And take the necessary steps to dissolve the office of full time mayor. And wait, you know, until next year when obviously we will be having a new mayor and a new city manager anyway. The financial situation in this city, I think warrants that type of action. But particularly relocating the city council meetings to a district where there's not gunfire within four or five blocks away and the number of killings that are at a record level. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Now we're going to move on to the budget hearing item. So I'm going to turn this over actually to Vice Mayor Lowenthal, who is going to walk us through the items as a remembered reminder to the council. There's a these are a series. There's going to be a series of recommendations on a variety of items, and there has to be a vote on each one. Vice Mayor Lilienthal.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I wanted to acknowledge that we don't have member Your Honor here. And so for for the City General Fund related items, we will wait for Council Member, Your Honor, and take those up at the next council meeting. We've had a series of Budget Oversight Committee meetings with co-chair, Councilmember Mongeau and committee member Councilwoman Pryce. And we've had lots of discussion about items that council members have raised earlier and during the budget presentations when we've had departments make these presentations. And so we've also had community members come out and speak for issues that are important to them. Notably, Mr. Aaron Fletcher was there at every single budget oversight committee meeting, as well as each of our offices, reminding us of the importance of of what lifeguards do and what cuts to that department or that division mean to all of us in the city, not just along the coast, but our entire city. So with that, Mr. Mayor, what I'd like to do is ask our council colleagues to consider adopting a certain number of these items. They're more or less ministerial items. And if I may ask Mr. City attorney for his opinion on whether I do have the items correct. I am looking at items 1.1 through 1.9 as ones that we can take today. That would be non. General fund items, which I hope to hold for next week.
Speaker 4: That's correct.
Speaker 3: Okay. So I proceed. Mr. Mayor.
Speaker 0: So we thank you.
Speaker 3: Okay. So I'd like to recommend to receive the supporting documentation into the record and conclude the public hearing and take actions to adopt the following items. Item 1.1 Actually, Mr. City Attorney, do we need to do item 1/1?
Speaker 4: Yes, we need to do. Well, you can start at 1.1.
Speaker 3: Okay. Thank you. Item 1.1 recommendation to adopt resolution approving the fiscal year budget for the Long Beach Harbor Department as adopted by the Board of Harbor Commissioners on May 27th, 2005. | Public Hearing | Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record, conclude the public hearing and take the actions necessary to adopt the Fiscal Year 2016 budget as listed in Attachment A. (Citywide) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_09082015_15-0890 | Speaker 3: Item 1.9. And finally for this evening, recommendation to adopt resolution establishing the GAD appropriations limit for fiscal year 16 pursuant to Article 13 B of the California Constitution.
Speaker 0: There's been a motion and a second. Is there any public comment? Seeing none. Please cast your votes.
Speaker 1: Richardson.
Speaker 3: Councilmember Richardson.
Speaker 1: Motion carries.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Mr.. To the jury, do we need a motion to move the other items forward to the next meeting? Or we can just leave the hearing as is.
Speaker 4: I think he limousine and bring him back as the next budget hearing at the next week.
Speaker 0: Okay. So we'll resume at the budget hearing for next week for the other items. Councilwoman Mango.
Speaker 1: Mr. GROSS, would it be better to discuss the parking fee next week? I know that it's technically general fund. I know that it's confusing, though, when people know that partially is being passed, but not the whole fee structure.
Speaker 4: Do you mean the the local neighborhood parking fee?
Speaker 1: Yes, sir.
Speaker 4: I think I think tonight would be okay.
Speaker 1: I'll defer to Vice Mayor Lowenthal. Is that okay?
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 1: Could we hear that staff report now?
Speaker 4: Mayor. Members of the council. I believe you've already adopted the master.
Speaker 3: The math just continues.
Speaker 1: We only adopted the component that's relative to the special funds, not the general fund.
Speaker 4: I believe you adopted the entire resolution, the master fee and charges schedule for specified city services and citywide fees and charges.
Speaker 1: Then I may have misunderstood because I thought we started with we're only approving things tonight that are not general fund because Councilmember Urunga is not here.
Speaker 4: No, I think the question was if you wanted to change either the mayor's proposed recommendation, the Budget Oversight Committee recommendations, obviously the council could take action on the entire budget if they wish. But I think they decided to have a breaking point at item nine so that you could adjust your budget items later. But the master fee resolution could be discussed. Still, you could do a motion to reconsider, vote on it, open it up again and have another motion.
Speaker 0: And and excuse me. So Councilman Mongo is still going to want to have a staff report so that that would.
Speaker 1: Put the community can know the outcome. Yeah. And if there is public comment, would we be able to take that again?
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 0: Okay. So city staff. Yeah. There's no there's no motion to reconsider. This is just a staff report on the item first.
Speaker 1: To Mr. Chair. Councilwoman Mongo at the last. Time that the master fee and charges schedule had come up. We had received a request from Councilwoman Mango to explore changing the preferential residential parking program. And right now what it is, is it's 30, $33 per permit. And the question was whether or not it made sense for it to be $33 or some amount for the first permit in some amount lower for the second, third or fourth permit for each vehicle. The staff did look into that request. We did find that while it was a slight savings to process the second, third or fourth permit per residence, overall, the program was not covering its full cost. And so it would just great it would increase the subsidy to the general fund to change the fee. In addition, when we looked at the other benchmark cities that we we had looked at, not a single one had actually had a reduced fee for each subsequent permit. In fact, one city had a more regressive or a it cost more for the second, third or fourth permit, in fact, to decent disincentivize residential parking permits. So for those reasons, we did not recommend changing the fee structure at this time. Thank you. I appreciate you having met with me and my office to discuss the report and the detailed study you went into. I think it's important for residents to know that the current parking neighborhood parking permit program is subsidized. And with that, I'm still comfortable with my vote.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Okay. The rest of the budget hearing is has concluded. And we'll go to we'll go to those items at the next next meeting. So I want to go ahead and now go back to the regular agenda. We did the first hearing. We're going to go now, I believe, to. Is it? Is it 2021? Is it? Okay, Madam Clerk. | Resolution | Recommendation to adopt resolution establishing the “Gann Appropriations Limit” (Limit) for FY 16 pursuant to Article XIII (B) of the California Constitution. (A-9) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_09082015_15-0868 | Speaker 1: Item 21 Communication from City Attorney. Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record. Conclude the hearing. Declare ordinance relating to the temporary limitation of certain construction and development activities in the r1l zone in the Lo Cerritos and Virginia Country Club areas of the City of the City read adopted as red and laid over to the next regular meeting of the City Council for final reading, declaring the urgency thereof and declaring this ordinance shall take effect immediately citywide.
Speaker 0: Mr. MESA. Anything to add to that?
Speaker 6: Not unless someone would like a further staff report. We did amend the ordinance to reflect the action of council on September 1st, which was basically to provide an exemption for those folks that were able to get a an application approved application on file basically by close of business today, September eight. And other than that, the moratorium language remains basically the same. During the moratorium period, there will not be any construction permitted in excess of 1500 square feet, whether that's new construction on a vacant lot or additions to existing buildings, those folks that got their applications in by today would be exempt from the moratorium and can move forward with their project of now. They can answer any questions anyone might have.
Speaker 0: Thank you. I think we're going to have a couple of motions. Their motion. But I think if I had seen one. Councilman Austin second. Right. Councilman Richardson, is there any public comment before I close to hearing. CNN counterpoint. Also do have any other additional comments or what sort of a vote? Okay, great. Let's go and go to a vote.
Speaker 6: And just to be clear, the vote includes the voting, a separate vote on the urgency of the ordinance. So that will take effect immediately commencing today.
Speaker 0: So, Mr. Mayes, you want to take a different a second vote right now?
Speaker 8: Okay. Separate a separate vote.
Speaker 0: So we'll take the second vote on the urgency. We have a motion by Councilmember Austin and a second by Councilman Andrews. Any public comment on the second than the urgency? Okay. So none. Gordon, cast your votes.
Speaker 1: Motion carries.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Item number 13, please. | Emergency Ordinance | Recommendation to declare ordinance relating to the temporary limitation of certain construction and development activities in the R-1-L zone in the Los Cerritos and Virginia Country Club areas of the City in order to foster and promote neighborhood character stabilization in said area; declaring the urgency thereof; and declaring that this ordinance shall take effect immediately, read and adopted as read. (Ordinance No. ORD-15-0024) (Citywide) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_09082015_15-0915 | Speaker 1: Report from police recommendation to execute a new agreement between the Long Beach Police Department and the Long Beach Unified School District to staff school resource officers for an amount not to exceed $920,799.
Speaker 0: Can we get a short staff report on this? I think this is important.
Speaker 8: Commander Lopez.
Speaker 7: Mayor Garcia. Members of council. Since 1999, the police department has worked with the Long Beach Unified School District to staff the School Resource Officer Program at five high schools. This agreement will cover the current school year 1516 at the cost of $690,599 to the school district and the cost of $230,200 to the general fund.
Speaker 0: Thank you very much. There's a motion and a second Israeli public comment on this. Councilman Price.
Speaker 5: I just out of curiosity, do we keep any stats on the types of arrests and or investigations the resource officers might get involved in at the high school campuses?
Speaker 7: Councilwoman Price Not to my knowledge. We don't track it statistically. Anecdotally, I think it's generally pretty minor offenses, disagreements between students, sometimes drug possessions, sometimes possession of weapons such as a knife. Kind of a typical things that we see.
Speaker 5: I was just curious if if and if we don't have the data, maybe there's some potential. I'm just curious of how many drug related arrests we have in the city, at the high schools or drug related activity? And how much of that involves prescription drugs, marijuana or other more illicit substances like meth or heroin? I'm just curious as to whether or not we as I think, by the way, this is a great partnership we have with Long Beach Unified. But I'm just curious as to whether or not we receive data that helps us kind of identify trends in our and our students and our younger population in terms of drug use, addiction sales, that kind of thing.
Speaker 7: We can definitely provide that information to you.
Speaker 5: Great. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Councilwoman Gonzalez.
Speaker 5: Thank you for the report. Commander Lopez Which schools will the resource officers be deployed to?
Speaker 7: Councilwoman Gonzalez The schools are Cabrillo Poly, Jordan, Milliken and Wilson.
Speaker 5: Okay, great. Thank you very much.
Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you. And you probably see no public comment on this. Please cast your votes.
Speaker 1: Councilman Richardson. Motion carries.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next item, please.
Speaker 1: Report from Public Works Financial Management. Recommendation to award a contract to our Amex group for the Terminal Avenue Greenbelt Restoration. For a total contract amount. Not to exceed $260,757. District three and four.
Speaker 0: Thank you. I have a motion. Can I get a second? There's a motion and a second. Is there any public comment on the item? Seeing Nazis cast your votes.
Speaker 1: Motion carries.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Item number 22. | Contract | Recommendation to authorize City Manager to execute a new agreement between the Long Beach Police Department and the Long Beach Unified School District to staff School Resource Officers for an amount not to exceed $920,799, with an estimated net cost to the City’s General Fund of $230,200. (Citywide) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_09082015_15-0916 | Speaker 1: Communication from Councilwoman Mongo Vice Mayor Lowenthal. Councilman Austin recommendation to request the city attorney to draft a resolution providing for a temporary amnesty program, waiving late penalty fees for dog licenses through September 30th.
Speaker 0: Councilman Mongo.
Speaker 1: Under the leadership of Vice Mayor Lowenthal, the city has moved forward in providing a stand neuter ordinance. Within the context of that. Councilmember Austin and I felt passionate that people who are currently following the rules should be given the opportunity to maintain that status, but also that we want to have a call to action that now at the end of the summer, it's a good time to go get your pet vaccinated and become in compliance with the rules. And so we have Mr. Ted Stevens here from Animal Control Services to give a little bit of an overview of what your opportunities are to register, by what deadlines.
Speaker 8: Yeah. So we are.
Speaker 0: Since the new mandatory spay neuter.
Speaker 2: Ordinance will be taking effect October 1st. I think the goal of this was to give people the opportunity before then to come into compliance with their licensing. So this is something that would take place and around September 30th and maybe help just kind of give people an incentive to come get their animals licensed.
Speaker 1: And Mr. Stevens, this is for spayed or neutered and intact animals. Yes.
Speaker 2: Yes. This was to be open to all animal owners, is my understanding. So, yeah, unaltered, altered.
Speaker 8: Senior, everybody.
Speaker 1: Wonderful. Well, I hope that we can all encourage our neighbors to get their animals in compliance. It's a great time of year. There's a lot of low cost vaccination clinics. I know my dog is up for vaccination between now and September 19th, so I'll be renewing my license before I become expired as well.
Speaker 0: Thank you. There's a motion and a second. Is there any public comment on the item? Seeing that. I'm sorry, Councilman. Also, you have any comments?
Speaker 9: Obviously I support.
Speaker 2: This item and encourage everybody to get their dogs.
Speaker 4: Spayed or neutered before October.
Speaker 2: 1st.
Speaker 0: Great. See no other public comment? Please cast your votes.
Speaker 1: He totally. Motion carries.
Speaker 0: Thank you. We're going to go to move on to some announcements. Well, well, well. People are getting queued up here. Why don't I take the second public comment period, if there is one? Anyone that hasn't made any comments earlier on the agenda. | Contract | Recommendation to adopt Plans and Specifications No. R-7023 for the Termino Avenue Greenbelt Restoration; award a contract to Aramexx Group, Inc., of Ontario, CA, in the amount of $237,052, and authorize a 10 percent contingency in the amount of $23,705, for a total contract amount not to exceed $260,757; and authorize City Manager, or designee, to execute all documents necessary to enter into the contract, including any necessary amendments thereto. (Districts 3,4) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_09012015_15-0868 | Speaker 1: Hearing one recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record. Conclude the hearing. Declare ordinance relating to the temporary limitation of certain construction and development activities in the r1l zone in the low Cerritos and Virginia Country Club areas of the city read adopted as red and laid over to the next regular meeting of the City Council for final reading, declaring the urgency thereof and declaring this ordinance shall take effect immediately. Citywide Communication from the City Attorney.
Speaker 0: Thank you. I'm going to turn that over now to Mr. City, attorney.
Speaker 2: Mayor, members of the city council at your meeting on July 21st, 2015, pursuant to Chapter 2150 of the Long Beach Municipal Code. The City Council voted to direct the city attorney's office to prepare a moratorium ordinance on certain residential construction in the R-1 flood zone. That ordinance is what is before you tonight. And in essence, if you pass it as written, it would create a one year moratorium period against certain large residential construction in that area of the city, which is primarily or exclusively in the eighth Council District. It would be a moratorium for a one year period. There would be certain exceptions to the moratorium, which would allow folks to do construction during the moratorium if the total amount of the construction did not exceed 1500 square feet, and there could be either new construction or an addition to existing construction. The item is here for first reading tonight, and if you have any questions about the ordinance, I'll be happy to try to answer them.
Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you. I know we have a a motion and a second already on the floor. Let me. As per per hearings, I'm going to take city comment and we'll go back to the deliberations. Any public comment on the hearing? Please come forward.
Speaker 1: Hello?
Speaker 0: Yes.
Speaker 3: My name is Polly Thomas. I live at 4121 Cedar Avenue in the.
Speaker 1: Virginia Country Club.
Speaker 3: Area. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to you in opposition.
Speaker 1: To this.
Speaker 3: Ordinance. There are several points I'd like to make. The ordinance states one of its.
Speaker 4: Purposes is to.
Speaker 1: Promote neighborhood character.
Speaker 3: Stabilization. I'm not sure what it is you're attempting to stabilize, I guess its size based on what.
Speaker 1: The city attorney just spoke. The Virginia Country Club and the lower Cerritos areas are eclectic neighborhoods there. This is part of their charm. They have modern homes next door to Tudor homes, Spanish next to traditional and Mediterranean, right next to a California bungalow. The homes are custom homes that were built in the twenties and.
Speaker 3: Thirties, and.
Speaker 1: Some have been.
Speaker 3: Rebuilt in the seventies. Just recently.
Speaker 1: Our business corridor is also eclectic with the signage, different buildings, different make up of the buildings. And even the buildings are painted different colors, neon green.
Speaker 3: This again, is, from my perspective, enhances the charm and uniqueness.
Speaker 1: Of the Virginia Country Club and the Lowe's three Rose area. Moving to Virginia Country.
Speaker 3: Club in this area is not for everyone.
Speaker 1: It doesn't appeal to everyone.
Speaker 3: It is unique and it is an.
Speaker 1: Eclectic.
Speaker 3: Neighborhood. The urgency you speak of in this ordinance.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure why it is urgent. Are there projects that are pending or in the middle of being built? I can attest to the fact that there are a number of building regulations already in place that can adequately deal with the concern for overbuilding.
Speaker 3: All it needs to be done is enforcement of.
Speaker 1: Those regulations by the Planning Commission instead of granting a variance. Mr. Mays, the assistant.
Speaker 3: City attorney, was present at a meeting before a planning commission where several.
Speaker 1: Such ordinances were sought by my neighbors. And despite the objection of myself and my husband, these variances were granted five of them, and one of them.
Speaker 3: That was denied has since been granted. Or a variation thereof.
Speaker 1: The moratorium. Why not conduct a study without the moratorium? If homeowners have permits pending, then perhaps a reminder.
Speaker 3: Of the Planning Commission to not approve variances.
Speaker 1: Unless there is some compelling reason for health and safety.
Speaker 3: Would be enough in the interim. The Manson ization.
Speaker 1: Which is supposed to be.
Speaker 3: Of the utmost concern.
Speaker 0: Let me. Yes. Think that your time is up 3 minutes.
Speaker 3: Oh, I'm.
Speaker 1: Sorry. I thought there were lights.
Speaker 0: Oh, no problem. Right up there. But it's okay if you have a closing sentence. Go ahead.
Speaker 1: Well. Hypocrisy is defined as a pretense of having a virtuous.
Speaker 3: Character that does not one does not really possess.
Speaker 1: The very individuals that are behind.
Speaker 3: This ordinance are the same ones that have been.
Speaker 1: Granted. Variances of their own have built very large homes.
Speaker 0: Thank you, ma'am. Time to time is up, so we've got to wrap it up, please.
Speaker 3: Oh, and. We just want other people.
Speaker 4: The opportunity to.
Speaker 3: Come into our neighborhood. Thank you for your consideration.
Speaker 0: Thank you, ma'am. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 2: My name is Richard Ivey. I'm a board member of the Las Vegas Neighborhood Association, and I would like to express my support for the moratorium and the amendment which preserves the spirit and intent of the neighborhood. As amended. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Any other public comment? Please come forward.
Speaker 6: Hello, Mr. Mayor. Council members. My name is Edward Bullion. I am an owner of the architectural engineering firm of Guerlain Design. We submitted plans on a home in this area about a month ago. Little more than a month ago at 46, 71 North Virginia Road. I partially support this this moratorium, but I also agree with Ms.. Thomas's comments. It is an eclectic area and it's very unique. And by saying that is there's there's separate areas of this area. There's the General Bixby Knolls area, which I call this is that little Cerritos area and which is affected by homes being built too tall and to too much density. And then there's an area where ours is being built, and that is on the golf course. We're down a private road about a half mile away from the general area of the neighborhood. There's nine lots in this little tract and we are the furthest north. The lot that we're building on is like three quarters of an acre. It's 25,965 square feet. The home we're building is 6380, which is only 24% of the floor area ratio when you're allowed in 60. So after extensive research, I never got any kind of word from the city that this was going on until the 11th hour when they were checking our plans. And they called me and told me that nothing over 1500 square feet can be built on three quarters of an acre. That's kind of a postage stamp. After my client had just put a lot of his eggs into this basket, basically 2 million of his eggs. So but the height we're doing, you know, you're allowed 25 feet. We're going one story which is going to be about 15 feet. The lot coverage is allowed 40%. We're only going 18%. The usable area is 23%. And we're we have over close to 80% of open area on this lot. So we're well below the radar. We're trying to build something that's going to fit into this area. So all I'm asking you my question after this long is to allow us to continue with our project since we are following the guidelines that I feel are going to be acceptable for this area.
Speaker 0: Thank you very much. Thank you. Next speaker, this is our final speaker, my closing to close the hearing. Go back to the council. This will be our final speaker.
Speaker 3: Good evening.
Speaker 4: Mayor and city council. I'm Barbara Schrag, 4120 Locust Avenue.
Speaker 3: We've lived in.
Speaker 4: Our home in the Virginia Country Club area since 1972 and love the neighborhood. My understanding is that there were two exceptions to the rule, which will be in an amendment tonight. And the party that just spoke.
Speaker 3: And another one.
Speaker 4: Will be excluded from.
Speaker 3: The from the moratorium because of the amount of work that's been done, and they're already in the planning department.
Speaker 4: So my I would urge you, with those two exceptions, to pass the moratorium and to preserve the wonderful character of our neighborhood. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. With that, I'm going to turn this back over to the council to deliberate Councilmember Austin.
Speaker 7: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I want to thank all those who took time out to come out and speak on this issue. I really appreciate the residents of the Lawson Widows neighborhood who have worked hard, gathered signatures and met with me and my staff and city staff on this issue, as well as the assistance of our development services staff and the city attorney's office. The temporary moratorium before us will provide our planning staff the opportunity to work with the community and develop recommendations of any changes to the current standards for the R-1 zone that will help maintain the character of the Los Cerritos neighborhood. I expect the planning staff to work diligently to get this done in a timely manner. In the meantime, anyone who wants to make an addition to their home up to 1500 square feet, which is a significant addition most average home in Long Beach, I think, has about 1500 square feet. We'll still be able to apply for permits to do so. As I stated when this item was before us in July, it was my intent also to not penalize current property owners who have invested significantly in their plans and were ready to submit plans. And I believe it's only fair to those who have been working under those rules, the current rules, and and have a complete set of plans to be able to proceed with those plans, provided that the proposed plans are. This thing with the character in the neighborhood and preserve the large lot sizes. Therefore, I'd like to make a motion to amend the ordinance to allow those applications that are already that are ready to submit. We'll still have the opportunity to do so while including the safeguards that the proposed homes are consistent with the neighborhood. I believe this is a win win solution for the entire neighborhood. So I moved to receive the supporting documentation into the record. Conclude the hearing and amend the ordinance as follows In return the amended ordinance for the first reading. I'd like to amend Section four of the ordinance to include the prohibit the prohibition. I'm sorry. The prohibitions contained in the ordinance do not apply where an application for said development or construction is on file and deemed complete by the Department of Development Services by September eight, 2015. And that application, number one, does not include any lot mergers to does not exceed a floor floor area ratio of 35%. And three does not require any standards variances for new construction. And then obviously.
Speaker 0: There's a there's already a second on the motion. Okay. Do you want to speak to your second council member or am I going to the vice president for.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I wanted to ask staff and this may have been made clear earlier, but do we have any 1500 square foot residences such as the law's going in downtown that may that may be impacted by this ordinance?
Speaker 2: Vice Mayor Lowenthal. No, this would only apply in the r1l, which is residential large lot zones. And that zone, as per my understanding, is only in the eighth Council District.
Speaker 4: Perfect. And we had clarified that the last time or the first time this came up. And so thank you for the confirmation.
Speaker 0: Thank you. There's a motion and a second on the floor for the hearing. I'm going to close this hearing. And counsel, please take your vote.
Speaker 1: Motion carries nine zero.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Second hearing, please. | Emergency Ordinance | Recommendation to declare ordinance relating to the temporary limitation of certain construction and development activities in the R-1-L zone in the Los Cerritos and Virginia Country Club areas of the City in order to foster and promote neighborhood character stabilization in said area; declaring the urgency thereof; and declaring that this ordinance shall take effect immediately, read and adopted as read. (Ordinance No. ORD-15-0024) (Citywide) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_09012015_15-0844 | Speaker 1: Recommendation to receive supporting documentation and to record conclude the public hearing regarding an economic subsidy in connection with a community service agreement under the Capital Investment Incentive Program and the Weber Metals, pursuant to California Government Code Section 53083 adopt resolution to establish a City Capital Investment Incentive Program citywide pursuant to California Government Code 51298 and approve and authorize the execution of a community service agreement between the City and Weber Metals to provide the terms and conditions for repayment. District nine. This is a report from the City Manager and requires.
Speaker 0: Those that want that they plan on testifying in this hearing. Please stand up and please raise your right hand. And Madam Clerk.
Speaker 1: You and each of you do solemnly state that the testimony you may give in the cause now and pending before this body shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Mr. West.
Speaker 8: Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
Speaker 6: Members of the Council, the staff report will be given by our.
Speaker 8: Economic and Property Development Director Mike Conway.
Speaker 6: Mayor Garcia, members of the City Council. Weber Metals, located at 6976 Cherry Avenue in Long Beach, had previously announced a significant expansion and includes the acquisition and installation of a 60,000 ton press forge which when installed, will be the largest press forge in the United States. Expansion costs have been estimated at $295 million, with potential growth and job generation up to 86 new jobs by 2020 at full operation of the Forge recently, Weber Metals parent company Otto Fuchs Aerospace Group is reconsidering the location of the press forge outside of California. This would not only eliminate the significant investment in the Long Beach, but eliminate the potential job generation as well. And unfortunately, without the significant capital reinvestment, Weber Metals may begin to lose market share and future growth, resulting in job losses. Representatives from the city. The county in the state met on a number of occasions to identify incentives to support Webber Metals in their effort to convince its parent company to keep its investment in Long Beach. The most significant incentive identified that evidence is the city's and state support of heavy metals was the state's capital investment incentive program . Under this program, cities and counties may share a portion of the property taxes assessed on real property in excess of a baseline assessment. This is very similar to the city sales tax incentive program, which shares sales tax revenues above an established baseline. The underlying concept is both the city and the company share in the increased revenues that are derived from the capital investment, without which there would be no benefits to share. The program requires an investment of more than $150 million before a property tax sharing can occur. The ad valorem value of this $150 million investment added to the existing property tax base establishes the new baseline assessment. The ad valorem value of capital investment above the new baseline assessment is available for property tax sharing. The program also requires that the involved parties enter a community services agreement, which has a term of 15 years, and this agreement provides the mechanism for the property tax sharing above the baseline assessment for a 15 year period under the proposed agreement. If Weber Metals invest $295 million over the 15 year term of the agreement, the city would receive the ad valorem property taxes related to the existing base and the ad valorem value of the first $150 million in capital investment. Above that amount, the city would share 75% of the incremental ad valorem property tax and retain 25% of the incremental ad valorem property tax. And based upon this investment, the city would receive 2 million $2,815,000 over 15 years. This includes 2.5 million from the established baseline and approximately 265,000 above the established baseline. Without this investment by Weber Metals, the city would receive the existing baseline, which is approximately $530,000 over the next 15 years. However, metals would receive approximately 790,000 over 15 years as an economic development incentive. The program provides an opportunity to support a business seeking to expand in Long Beach with an extensive capital investment program and works to preserve and grow the job base in our city with an important industrial sector. On August 18th, 2015, the County Board of Supervisors approved a similar agreement for the County of Los Angeles to participate in the same program. So staff recommends that City Council conclude the hearing, adopt the resolution and approve the execution of a community services agreement with Weber Metals. And I see Weber Metals has some representatives in the audience here this evening as well, and I'm available to answer your questions. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Very thorough presentation, Mr. Conaway. There is a motion and a second. Anyone want to comment on the hearing? Seeing an account from a Richardson.
Speaker 9: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. This represents an investment in our underutilized industrial space and investment in manufacturing and jobs here in Long Beach. I had the opportunity to tour this facility with my staff on two separate occasions, and it's quite an impressive operation. This 60,000 ton manufacturing hydraulic forged press, it will be the largest in in the United States and be a project of international significance. So I stand in complete support for this. Weber has also been a tremendous community ally, particularly not only to our community, but also our adjacent community of Paramount, in that they've been involved in their education, foundation and support for our North Long Beach students as well. So this is a no brainer for me. It's it's a really creative way to bring an economic impact, make an economic impact on the North Long Beach community. So I urge the city council to support this.
Speaker 0: Councilman Mongo.
Speaker 1: I echo the comments of my colleague. I think that this is a great economic driver for our city and we're very fortunate to have them as a partner. So thank you very much for continuing to grow your business here in Long Beach. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Councilwoman Price.
Speaker 3: Same. My chief of staff took a tour of the facility and gave me a very detailed report. She was incredibly impressed with the operations. I think that the the jobs that will be created are exactly what our city needs. Professional jobs in engineering, mechanical fabrication and support roles, accounting, finance, human relations, clerical, etc.. We're very supportive of this, and I think it's an innovative way to bring in some additional revenue. So thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Councilmember?
Speaker 7: Yes. I too, took a tour of the facility a few months ago. I think your chief of staff was actually with me. Councilmember Price. And it took me back some time because I saw the presses, I saw the fabrication work going on, and I saw processes that I myself did as an aerospace worker. And reminds me of the importance of this this particular motion and reminds me of the importance of keeping good jobs here in Long Beach and an opportunity actually to gain good manufacturing jobs here. And so I'm here for support.
Speaker 0: Thank you. And Councilman Andrew.
Speaker 5: Yes. Yes, thank you, Mayor. I also like the echo sentiments of my colleagues up here about this situation, because the fact that you guys always note in my famous model is that a job can stop a bullet. And when you talk about 80 or 90 some jobs being created in the city of Long Beach, I think that's a fantastic, you know, deal. So I will have a chance to go visit the complex and see what it's really all about. Thank you guys again for coming and sharing your business here in the city of Long Beach.
Speaker 0: Thank you. And with that, we're going to take a vote. There's a motion on the floor.
Speaker 1: Motion pass motion.
Speaker 0: Carries. Thank you and thank you all. Webber Medals. Congratulations. And thank you again for being such a great business partner. Hearing number three. | Resolution | Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record, conclude the public hearing regarding an economic subsidy in connection with a Community Service Agreement under the Capital Investment Incentive Program (CIIP) and with Weber Metals, Inc., pursuant to California Government Code Section 53083;
Adopt resolution to establish a City Capital Investment Incentive Program (Citywide); and
Approve and authorize the execution of a Community Services Agreement between the City and Weber Metals, Inc. (Weber), to provide for the terms and conditions for payment. (District 9) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_09012015_15-0845 | Speaker 0: Carries. Thank you and thank you all. Webber Medals. Congratulations. And thank you again for being such a great business partner. Hearing number three.
Speaker 1: Report from the City Manager recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record. Conclude the public hearing regarding an economic subsidy in connection with the retail sales tax incentive agreement with Worthington Ford pursuant to California Government Code Section 53083. Authorize the city manager to execute all documents necessary to effect the Second Amendment to lease between the City of Long Beach and Worthington Ford to extend the term of the ground lease to September 2030, including one five year option to extend the term to September 2035 for the use of 3.24 acres of land at the Lakewood Boulevard off ramp at the annual rental rate of $1 per year, and authorize the city manager to execute all documents necessary to implement the retail sales tax incentive agreement with Worthington Board to assist in financing the renovation of the Electronic Display Sign located at 2601 Lakewood Boulevard, District five. This item requires, you know.
Speaker 0: If I was going to speak on this, please rise. Mr.. Mr.. Modica.
Speaker 1: You and each of you do solemnly state that the testimony you may give in the cause now and pending before this body shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God.
Speaker 0: Great. Thank you, Mr. America.
Speaker 8: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. The staff report on this item will be given again by Mike Conway, our director.
Speaker 6: Of Economic and Property Development. Mayor Garcia, members of the City Council decided relates to the renovation and continued operation of the Worthington Ford Sign, located on city owned land, leased to Worthington Ford within the Freeway Roundabout at Lakewood Boulevard in the four or five freeway. The lease premises is 3.24 acres, accessible only through an off ramp. Underpass, is not a developable site and can only be used for storage purposes. Since 1996, Worthington Ford has leased the premises for temporary storage of vehicles and for the construction and maintenance of a freeway adjacent electronic display sign. The city leases the premises to Worthington Ford at a rate that is fully offset by the cost of maintenance and trash and debris removal. Worthington seeks to renovate the freeway sign to provide high resolution graphics. The city also controls 20% of the advertising time on the sign for public service announcements. Without such renovation, the freeway sign will become outdated, which may result in diminished sales volumes and diminished value of the city's 20% advertising time. The cost of renovation is approximately $680,000. Worthington requests that the city participate in 50% of the cost of renovation through a sales tax sharing agreement. The proposed agreement shall be for a term of 15 years or upon reimbursement of $340,000 in sales tax revenue above a base of $380,000, whichever first occurs. The renovated sign will be no larger than the advertising site or the existing sign, but will convert to a V-shaped configuration to gain better visibility by drivers on the four or five freeway. The upgraded LED color display will not have increased overall light output and will not exceed Caltrans standards of point three foot candles at a distance of 250 feet. The LED color display is fully programable and capable of 0 to 100% dimming to control light output. Worthington further requests that the ground lease term be extended in order to protect a significant investment into the freeway sign. Worthington request a ten year extension of the lease with a five year option with an expiration date of September 23rd, 2035. This will result in 20 years remaining on the lease. Meyerson City's economic consultant, valued the city as 20% advertising time on the freeway sign at between 190000 to 240000 per year and over a 20 year term and extended lease. The present value of this to 190000 to 240 is approximately $2.5 million. Additionally, Keyser Marson anticipates that sales volumes may increase up to 6% per year over the 20 year term. The present value of the increased sales tax revenue is estimated to be approximately $870,000. It is further estimated that the increased sales volume will not only preserve existing jobs, but may create up to 15 new jobs, with 80% being full time, 20% being part time. So in order to protect an existing business in Long Beach, preserve and grow jobs within the city and enhance the city's future revenue staff request that City Council conclude the public hearing. Authorize the extension of the term of the ground lease for ten years, with a five year option expiring on September 23, 2030, at an annual rate of $1, with the obligation of maintenance and trash and debris removal and authorize city manager to enter a retail sales tax incentive agreement with Worthington for a period of 15 years and establishing an annual base of $380,286. Representatives of Worthington Forward are in the chambers this evening, including Worthington. And with that my I have concluded my report and I'm available to answer questions.
Speaker 0: Thank you. I'm going to close the hearing. But before that, is there any public comment do so at this time. You don't have to. It's completely up to you. Okay. Okay. No problem. No worries. Let me take you back to the to the council Councilman Mongo.
Speaker 1: Since I have come on board, I've had several meetings with the individuals who construct signs. Nick Worthington himself and community partners. And I think that we have come up with a solution that is something that will help drive economic development in Long Beach. It will hopefully increase the sales at Worthington Ford, which will in turn increase sales tax revenue to the city. The Worthington's have been a great community partner. For those who don't know, there was a time where Ford offered them lots of money to close down their store here and they chose to stay. They chose to keep the jobs. They chose to ride out the hard times when people weren't buying cars because they're a part of this community. And it's great to have a long and continued partnership and an extension of your contract so that you'll be with us for a very long time. So thank you very much for all you do for the community. Thank you for the changes you've made to the sign that will enhance both the visibility to the freeway and then less impact to anyone else that's not on the freeway. So thank you very much for all of that.
Speaker 0: Thank you. With that, Councilman Richardson, do you have any comments on your second? Seeing nonmembers, please cast your vote.
Speaker 1: Councilman Price Andrews. Absent. Motion pass.
Speaker 0: Okay. Motion carries. Thank you. Congratulations. Thank you again. Where there's good amount of hearings this morning or this after this morning's evening hearing. Number four, it's going to be morning by the time the meeting's over. | Contract | Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record, conclude the public hearing regarding an economic subsidy in connection with a Retail Sales Tax Incentive Agreement with Worthington Ford Inc., pursuant to California Government Code Section 53083;
Authorize City Manager to execute all documents necessary to effect the Second Amendment to Lease No. 24823 between the City of Long Beach and Worthington Ford, Inc., to extend the term of the ground lease to September 23, 2030, including one five-year option to extend the term to September 23, 2035, for the use of 3.24 acres of land at the Lakewood Boulevard off-ramp at an annual rental rate of $1 per year; and
Authorize City Manager to execute all documents necessary to implement a Retail Sales Tax Incentive Agreement with Worthington Ford, Inc., to assist in financing the renovation of the electronic display sign located at 2601 Lakewood Boulevard. (District 5) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_09012015_15-0846 | Speaker 0: Okay. Motion carries. Thank you. Congratulations. Thank you again. Where there's good amount of hearings this morning or this after this morning's evening hearing. Number four, it's going to be morning by the time the meeting's over.
Speaker 1: Report from City Manager Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record. Conclude the public hearing regarding an economic subsidy in connection with the.
Speaker 4: Retail sales tax.
Speaker 1: Incentive agreement. With whom? In Toyota of Long Beach, pursuant to California Government Code Section 53083 and authorize the city manager to execute all documents necessary to implement a 15 year sales tax incentive agreement. With whom? In Toyota of Long Beach for the relocation and development of a Toyota dealership to be relocated at 3399 East Willow Street, District five. This item requires an oath.
Speaker 0: Thank you. If anyone's going to speak on this, please, please rise to you.
Speaker 1: And each of you do solemnly state that the testimony you may give in the cause now and pending before this body shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. So help you God. So help you God.
Speaker 0: Please.
Speaker 8: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Members of the council again. This item will be held.
Speaker 2: The staff report will be done by Mike Conway.
Speaker 6: Mayor Garcia, members of the City Council. This target in Vail involves a sales tax sharing agreement with HTL Automotive, also known as human Toyota. This item was previously brought to City Council on October 21st, 2014, authorizing the city manager to enter a retail sales tax incentive agreement with human Toyota to offset certain expansion costs for relocating the former beach Toyota dealership from the traffic circle to Redondo and Willow at the former Cadillac site. Legislation that became effective as of January 2014. Amends Amend the government code section 53083 to require a public hearing for any actions by the city council that result in a city subsidy. Consequently, this retail sales tax incentive agreement is being brought back to city council in conformance with the new legislation. So as background, Hooman, Toyota acquired Beach Toyota in 2008, whom and also acquired the former Cadillac site and two adjoining properties that Redondo Avenue on Wall Street for nearly $17 million in 2013. Cost to reconstruct and remodel. Two of the properties are estimated at $8.4 million, bringing total project costs of nearly $25 million. Reconstruction of the former course Cadillac site are underway. Since 1996, Beach Toyota was a party to a retail sales tax incentive agreement with the city, and that agreement was amended to expire in September of 2013. The sales tax base for the expired agreement was $135,000, pardon me, in November 2013, whom and Toyota approached the city seeking to reinstate the expired retail sales tax incentive agreement to assist in offsetting costs related to the relocation and reconstruction project. Staff brought forward this request to the City Council on October 21st, 2014. Raised the base from 135000 to 270000, above which sales tax revenues can be shared. It is estimated that over the 15 year term of the retail sales tax incentive agreement, that the city will save approximately $8 million in whom and Toyota will receive approximately $4 million. In order to protect the existing businesses in Long Beach, preserve and grow jobs within the city and enhance future city revenues. Staff request that City Council conclude the public hearing and authorize the city manager to enter a sales tax sharing agreement with Taylor Automotive. And this concludes my report and answer questions.
Speaker 0: Before I go back to the council and close the hearing. Is there any public comment? Seeing none. Councilwoman Pryce. Okay. So just making the motion the second of the motion to be comments. Now, councilman Mongo.
Speaker 1: Our community has been so excited for this new location. I know that the construction has taken quite a long time, but this new location will bring a lot of opportunity to the city in terms of an expanded array of opportunities of different types and brands of cars that you'll be able to purchase. And so while it has been quite a wait, it will be worth the wait. We're excited to make this again another opportunity for more jobs and more revenue to the city. So excited about this opportunity. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Councilmember Brown.
Speaker 9: I just had a question for staff. You mentioned it, but I just wanted clarification here. This this item came before council and on October 21st, I believe, was the date you gave. And that is six months prior to the special election where and after which I took office. So I had nothing to do with this item.
Speaker 6: Okay. That's correct.
Speaker 9: Okay. I will not be supporting it tonight. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you. There's motion on the floor. Members, please cast your votes.
Speaker 1: Motion carries eight one.
Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you. Next, we're on to our final hearing of the night, which is the continuation of the budget hearing. Some turn this over now to Mr. West. | Contract | Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record, conclude the public hearing regarding an economic subsidy in connection with a Retail Sales Tax Incentive Agreement with HTL Automotive, Inc., dba Hooman Toyota of Long Beach, pursuant to California Government Code Section 53083; and
Authorize City Manager to execute all documents necessary to implement a 15-year Sales Tax Incentive Agreement with HTL Automotive, Inc., dba Hooman Toyota of Long Beach, for the relocation and development of a Toyota dealership to be located at 3399 E. Willow Street. (District 5) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_09012015_15-0737 | Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you. Next, we're on to our final hearing of the night, which is the continuation of the budget hearing. Some turn this over now to Mr. West.
Speaker 1: Report from City Manager and Financial Management. Recommendation to conduct a budget hearing to receive and discuss an overview of the proposed fiscal year 2016 budget for the following Harbor Department and Water Department.
Speaker 0: Mr. West.
Speaker 10: Thank you, Mayor. Mr. Council members. This is our series of budget hearings. So tonight we're hearing from our Harvard Department and from our water department. So I see our executive director, John Sanger, up in the audience. So I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Belanger up and we'll do the Harvard Department first.
Speaker 6: Good afternoon, Mayor Garcia and members of the City Council. My name is John Slinger up. I am the chief executive officer of the harbor department. With me here today is Steven Rubin, our managing director and chief financial officer, as well as Betsy Christie, who is our director of finance. Thank you for this opportunity to present the Harbor Department's fiscal year 2016 budget. Our fiscal 2016 proposed budget is $829 million, a 3% decrease from the fiscal 2015 budget, primarily due to a decrease in capital spending. However, as in recent years, the budget continues to be driven by a significant investment in port infrastructure. In this case, $555 million is projected for next year, led by the continual, continual investments in Middle Harbor and the Gerald Desmond Bridge replacement projects. We continue to aggressively move forward with our ten year, $4 billion capital program, the largest, most ambitious port infrastructure program in the United States. In recent months, we have been encouraged by very strong container volume numbers and believe that the cargo diverted away from the port during our congestion crisis last year has now been recovered and that we're beginning to recapture market share we lost early this year. However, given global economic uncertainties in Asia and in Europe and the unknown impact of trade next year, we will remain financially prudent, which our budget reflects. The budget is the financial framework which supports our strategic plan, which was updated for 2016 and we are now working on our 2017 strategic plan. The budget reflects the new port organization that we put in place in 2014, which has allowed us to respond effectively to rapidly changing market and competitive forces within our industry. Both operating revenues and headcount remain flat for the coming year. As usual, the budget includes a tidelands transfer of 5% of gross operating revenues, which last year was $17.7 million. It uses conservative revenue projections. And we developed our budget in the context of forward looking ten year cash flow forecast. This ensures that the decisions we make today are affordable in the future and we remain focused on maintaining our very strong credit rating. Our budget reflects several key initiatives and priorities. First supply chain optimization is a joint Long Beach and Los Angeles Port Initiative to engage our stakeholders in improving the end to end marine supply chain system to avoid future cargo congestion and drive increased speed, efficiency and reliability of goods movement throughout our port complex. We also have an initiative called Energy Island, which we are evaluating as a means to create energy security, environmental sustainability and operational resiliency for the entire port, as well as essential services of the city. We need to ensure an ample supply of electricity, alternative fuels and renewable energy sources as the port moves towards a zero emission, electrically intensive future. We are investing in our team through newly developed Port Leadership Institute, creating strong bench strength and a culture of learning throughout the organization. We are also competing, completing a long term cargo forecast as part of our new strategic planning process, which is the first time we've done this since 2009. We have also initiated a land use study that will evaluate the highest and best use of port real estate assets as we continue to build our port of the future. The port continues to invest in the Long Beach community. Our Technology Advancement Program, which we call TAP for short funds, the testing of zero emission electric powered trucks and vessel emission reduction systems. As we expand tab, we envision working with the city and our local universities to develop a Long Beach Center for technology innovation that will bring together the common initiatives and goals of our Long Beach community in developing the next generation of talent, technology and jobs. This year. It's the 10th anniversary of our green port policy. We're updating our Clean Air Action Plan as a joint effort with the Port of Los Angeles. We continue our robust communications and community relations programs to inform residents about the port and how we're helping the community to thrive. As a board of Harvard commissioners has asked us to develop an extension of our community mitigation grants program. We have, to date awarded $17.4 million for 170 projects to improve public health. Let me provide some more details of the budget. The proposed 2016 budget is 829 million. This is 3.3% less than last year, primarily due to lower capital expenditures. Although we plan to spend slightly less, our capital expenditures are still the highest the highest investment infrastructure of any port in the nation at 550 million capital expenditures drive our budget. As we move forward with Middle Harbor, the Gerald Desmond Bridge replacement and critical rail rail expansion. This slide actually shows how we spend our money. The capital expenditures are clearly focused on the Gerald Desmond Bridge and Middle Harbor projects, but we do many, many other things that amount for hundreds of millions of dollars that are crucial to our port infrastructure. Now let me turn to the funding sources. Our fiscal 2016 operating revenue is forecast at $376.4 million. This is 8.5% higher than last year's adopted budget. The fiscal 2016 non operating revenue is $149.1 million and is related to grant reimbursements for the Gerald Desmond Bridge. The other significant source of funds is from our borrowing. As you can see, we have very exciting plans for building what we call the Port of the Future, which is well underway. In closing, I want to thank our customers and our partners, our mayor, our commissioners and city council members. And last but not least, our incredible port staff for the exceptional cooperation and support we receive on an ongoing basis. Together we are driving innovation, operational excellence and environmental, environmental and economic sustainability. As we remain committed to partnering with the city, serving our community and investing in long beaches, bright, bright future we stand ready to serve. Thank you very much.
Speaker 0: Thank you very much, Mr. Schlanger. As always, the port is doing a phenomenal job. I know you didn't add it, but I know you're having. We're having record numbers at the port for cargo this year. So congratulations to you and your team for that. Councilwoman Price.
Speaker 3: Thank you. I want to thank the port team and Mr. Slinger for that presentation. I did have the opportunity to receive a briefing from your financial team. I don't have my notes, but my recollection from the meeting is that I was very impressed with the presentation that the team provided. You have a fiscally prudent approach to your finances and a very impressive reserve that you carry year to year, despite some unforeseen circumstances and things that have happened in recent times. I think your leadership, in terms of what you've brought to the table with supply chain optimization and other things that you've brought from your past experience to port operations, have allowed you guys to stay fiscally prudent with an eye towards the future. What I'm most impressed about is how you're able to maintain a fiscally prudent stance in policy and daily operation, while at the same time continuing to invest in community programs which are critical to our city and critical to the fabric of everything that we do for our residents. I appreciate that and also the investment that you have in your staff. Frankly, the management training program that you have available to your team that that I was briefed on during my presentation is very impressive. And the fact that you're able to do that and invest in your your department and the members of your department and still stay within budget and continue to maintain the reserves that you have and continue to plan for the changes in the industry that the port and ports around the world are seeing is very impressive. So I want to thank you for taking a fiscally conservative approach to the finances and making sure that the port always has positives to report in terms of finances. That's very welcomed and consistently we can rely on your team to deliver that. So thank you.
Speaker 6: Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilmember Richardson.
Speaker 9: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So I want to take this moment to just offer a few comments. I want to congratulate Mr. Singh, slinger of his staff and our Harbor Commission on a great budget presentation. I want to acknowledge also your efforts to improve your sponsorship program in order to ensure that it has a makes a broader impact on our larger community. We did pay attention to that and we're very, very glad to see the outcome of that. I want to continue to encourage you to keep going. Think broad thinking, broad thinking and being innovative, but also to make sure that, as I know that we're flat this year, but as we continue to to bring in talent into our city, we make sure that we really hire folks that reflect the diversity and the talent of Long Beach. And so, that said, I look forward to partnering with you to continue to partner with you on Fed Pledge, advocating for a dedicated freight program ongoing from our federal government. Because I know it's important to Long Beach, particularly our port and goods movement, that we have the infrastructure available to move our freight quickly. So thank you so much on your presentation.
Speaker 8: Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilwoman Gonzales.
Speaker 3: I just want to say thank you. I think you've covered everything. My colleagues covered quite a bit, too. But your vision for environmental stewardship is really to be commended. And also the organizational restructuring of the port and just boosting the morale of the employees, I think is just tremendous. So I just want to thank you, John, as well.
Speaker 6: Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilmember Ringo.
Speaker 8: Thank you, Mayor. How long you've been with us now? A year. A little more. Little more than a year. Well, congratulations. You passed probation.
Speaker 6: Thank you.
Speaker 8: Barely. Yeah. No. Yeah. I want to add my voice to all the kudos that have been passed on doing your work with the. With the harbor, especially with the Clean Trucks program, continuing that and all the efforts you're doing to keep our air clean. On page or eight, where you have your capital expenditures that you have right there, the Middle Harbor, if I recall correctly. It's a is it a three phase project program or is it to where are we with with the Middle Harbor at this point?
Speaker 6: Middle Harbor is primarily a two phase project. We've released phase one this month, and it'll go through a six month testing period and be operational in the first quarter of next year. So it'll be a revenue producing phase of Middle Harbor beginning next year. Moreover, phase two will extend the Middle Harbor complex, adding another 10% capacity. Phase one adds 10% phase two as another 10% for a total capacity increase for the port container business by 20%. There is a phase three and it's concurrent with phase two and is a small part of the project related to Infilling, part of the the waterway that is is currently under underway. So it's really a two phase with a little tiny phase three related to two part of the extension of the pier.
Speaker 8: Thank you for that update. And along those lines, this is $111 million at the total costs for the all three phases.
Speaker 6: I'm sorry, what was a number?
Speaker 8: The 100. You have $111 million here.
Speaker 6: No, that's just that's just for fiscal 2016. The total project value is about $1.4 billion. And we have spent how much so far? About half approaching, approaching $800 million. So we're we're well through it, but we still have a complete phase two expansion to to yet complete.
Speaker 8: Is there a projection in regards to what the income that we might be receiving once the project is completed?
Speaker 6: Absolutely. The this is a project that will that has resulted in a 40 year, four and a half billion dollar lease to the port. So over over the 40 year term of the lease, we will receive four and a half billion dollars in income.
Speaker 8: Thank you. And what I really like about this project, obviously, is that it's very green, all electrical, and it's going to be one hell of a project. Thank you very much.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilman Andrews.
Speaker 5: Yes, thank you, Mayor. John, I think it's the exception what you've been doing, because the fact that these kind of trying times that, you know, you guys came upon you this year. But I think because of your staff and your commissioners and the way you guys have work together has really made our city of Long Beach is really look good. You know, I just have one question and I really want to applaud the port for their recent update, you know, to the community sponsorship guidelines to make process more transparent and acceptable. But how are you to ensure the organizations throughout the city are being notified about the new process?
Speaker 6: Thank you for the question. Well, our team is working extremely hard to reach out to the community and communicate the guidelines that we've come up with on a number of fronts. First of all, obviously, we're sending letters to all all the people that have requested a sponsorship support over the last 18 months. We're also doing press releases, social media and outreach to nonprofit groups and networks. We've also hosted a lunch and learn with with our staff meeting with a number of the council offices. So we are doing everything we can to reach out and personally touch our community members.
Speaker 5: You know, thank you, John. And one thing I hope you guys never, ever, you know, take out the put to it, because the fact for my community, that's just like taking a trip to Italy, you know? So keep up that, please. All right. Don't take that out of the budget. Thank you again.
Speaker 0: Councilwoman Mango.
Speaker 1: I echo Councilmember Andrew's comments. I know that this year is one of the first years where we had over 300 requests to go on the port tour. And I think that that speaks a lot to your leadership at the port and the leadership of the council to re bring life back to downtown for the neighbors of the fifth District to venture down this way for an evening and spend time learning about the port. There are lots of questions. And Commissioner Dynes did an excellent job of. Differentiating the funds that stay at the port and why they can't be used to fix our streets and sidewalks. And he also did give credit to the amount of funding that comes over from the gross amount that you mentioned earlier in your presentation. So thank you again for all that you do. Thank you for the $400 billion of trade and transportation and travel that you bring to the United States and keep doing a great job. Thank you. Your staff continue to rave about having you in leadership and it really means a lot to all of us.
Speaker 6: Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. And with that, Mr. Singer, I think we're going to go on to the next budget presentation. Thanks again for that. Next up, we're going to have the water department's presentation.
Speaker 1: That's item 25.
Speaker 10: So Mayor council members, we have one of his final presentations as a Long Beach employee. Executive Director Kevin Walker.
Speaker 0: Well, the final one to the council, probably after after after the next agenda item. And so thank you. We'll get a chance to think in a minute, but go ahead.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Mayor Garcia, council members, for the opportunity to present the Water Department's 2016 budget. Let me begin by acknowledging the commission President Harry Salts gave her, who's patiently sitting here waiting for me to talk fast so we can get back to work. And also my incoming replacement, Chris Gardner. If if if the commission had acted a couple weeks quicker, he could be giving a presentation tonight, not me. But anyway, let me also introduce my two staff here with me, Anatole Fallon's our assistant general manager, and then Paul Fujita, who who's our finance manager and has our budget. So here we go. The right one in the water department. We have two unique two different funds and they're discrete and kept separate. The water fund is our largest fund accounts for about 85% of our expenditures. And then so I'll talk about that first and then later I'll talk about the sewer fund. It's what we call an infrastructure driven fund. About 70 million of the 106 million in the water fund is non-personal services. A lot of that has to do with purchasing water. And I'll go over some of those costs in a minute. Our personnel, our personal services, about 23 million, and then our capital improvement program, about 13.4 million. And I'll talk about each one of those areas in a bit. This shows you we get 40% of our water from the Metropolitan Water District, which we purchase from them, and 60% of our water we pump from our local groundwater aquifer . And when we do that, we pay a what's called a replenishment assessment to the water replenishment district. So this shows you the costs that we've absorbed in the last since from 2009 to 2016. From those two entities, the metropolitan water districts, rates have gone up, compounded 85% during that time period. And the water replenishment district's rates have gone up 87%. And during that same time period, we've raised our rates 50%. So we've been absorbing those costs for many years now, running a deficit budget for many years now and spending down our reserves. Obviously, you can't continue to do that forever. So a few years ago, we developed a five year plan to realign our costs and our revenues. And so fiscal year 2016 is the third year of that five year plan. The five year plan anticipated 4% per year water rate increases to bring the budget into balance. You can see in 2016 that even with a 4% rate increase, which is what we're recommending, we're still running a deficit budget of about $6.2 million. But then you can see how possibly as early as 17, but certainly by fiscal year 18, which is the fifth year of the five year plan with continued 4% rate increase as we come into balance. So we're right on track. In fact, it looks like we're on track to complete the five year plan in the fourth year. And so hopefully Mr. Garner will follow through on that next year. But anyway, that's good news that we're tracking hopefully a year ahead of getting back into a balanced budget situation. One of the programs we're very proud of and that we don't get up in the don't end up in the newspapers very often about is our pipe replacement program. We've had a very extensive pipe replacement program in the water department for over 20 years now. And the red line is the the success of that program. The red line is our main breaks. You can see that we used to regularly have 100 to 150 main breaks per year. And for the last several years we've been hovering around 30 main breaks a year, and that's due to the investment that we've been making. About 6.2 million of that $13 million capital program is replacing old cast iron pipe and the green bars. There you can see that we've now replaced over half of our cast iron pipe, but we still have a lot to go, lots of work to do. And we'll be replacing Pipe for many, many years to go to come. But again, our main breaks have been reduced by from 100, 150 to running about 30 for the last several years. Moving on to our summer of fun. We're again, this is our smaller fun. I get to clarify, this is the sanitary sewers. It's not the storm drains or storm sewers. Those are managed by our public works department. We the water department is responsible for the sanitary sewer system. 15% of our budget. The breakdown between the three components percentagewise is very similar. But what we're dealing with here, it's a little bit different situation. There were new regulations passed by the state several years ago that required us to increase our both our operations and maintenance responsibilities and also our capital improvement work in our our sanitary sewer fund. So we did that primarily through issuing a line of credit, in essence, a credit card. And we've been using that line of credit for several years now. We've extended it as long as we can, but unfortunately, we we won't be able to extend it again. So we have to plan now to take it out in fiscal year 2017 and convert it to a long term debt issuance. So the primary driver we have here in our sewer fund is the conversion of that debt in 2017. And you see how our expenditures increase from 19 19.5 million to 20.6 million. A million of that is is due to now having to convert that and pay both principal and interest on that, which is now we're just paying interest only in a very low interest rate so that additional million dollars is converting that line of credit to date to debt. But again, we're in we're in a multiyear plan here for percent rate increases. And again, you see how we come into balance in about 2018 or 2019 with 4% rate increases on our on our sewer fund. One of the things I want to talk about, one of our biggest driver really on the sewer funded sewer operation is preventing sewer overflows. Those are what we don't like to happen. It results in if if it's not contained can result in, you know, getting to our recreational waterways. So we take that very seriously. We have a very progressive fats, oil and grease program working with our restaurants that's been very successful, very pleased with with that and the cooperation and the way we work jointly with our health department. We're on that program. It's a very successful program. Unfortunately, we have had some increases in sewer overflows this year in residential areas. So we're going to have to work work hard to get out the word this year and hopefully work with the council and the city manager and others, too, to make sure that our that our residents understand that it's not acceptable to discharge a grease into our sanitary sewers, because it's almost always grease that's causing these sewer overflows. It's almost always grease. And again, almost all the ones we're having now are in residential neighborhoods as opposed to where they used to be primarily in restaurant areas. We have implemented some technology, what's called smart manhole covers. And through that technology we've averted we we estimated 56 or 58 sewer overflows over the last six years. So we're using technology to avert sewer overflows. And it's been very successful. We've greatly increased the inspection of our sewers as we inspect the sewers. Using closed circuit television, this both drives our cleaning program, which is mainly an on M expense. But it also is what then becomes the input to our capital program, because it's through these inspections that we determine which sewers need to be either realigned to replace . So we as you can see, we do a lot more inspection of our sewers than we used to. We also do a lot of cleaning. We go through the whole system about on a two year cycle of cleaning the system. Some areas require a lot more frequent cleaning than that in areas that are heavily impacted, particularly by grease again. But we spend a lot of time and money inspecting and cleaning the sewers. This is a before and after picture of a sewer that was cracked that we identified in inspection and and how we realigned it. Whenever we can, we realign a sewer rather than dig it up and replace replace it. Not only is that better for the community, less traffic congestion, but also it's much more cost effective to rely on a sewer working from manhole to manhole rather than tear up the whole street. So this is what we do, if at all possible, is realign relining as shown here, getting to the you know, what are the rate increases? Again, our recommendation is 4% for water and 4% per sewer. What does that mean on the typical monthly bill? This shows you what the typical monthly bill would bill would do for a single family home in Long Beach using 12 billing units per month, which is what our typical single family home uses. It's a combined increase of $2.20 under the water and sewer bill. I believe it's $0.44 on the sewer bill and a dollar 76 on the water bill. How does that compare to our peers and the rest of large cities in California and our neighbors? This graph not only includes the payment that our customers make to us, but it also includes the payment that our customers make to the L.A. County Sanitation District through their property tax bill. So you can see that when you add those together, we are the lowest combined water and sewer bill of any large city in California, or what's called the L.A. County Average, which is a grouping of several of the cities in Los Angeles County. And then also one private operator, Golden State Water, which does provide service in a small part of Long Beach. And we have another one, Cal Water Service, which has similar rates to Golden State. So our our combined water and sewer rates are some of the lowest of any large city in California. And that completes my presentation. We have answered the questions.
Speaker 0: Well, thank you, Councilwoman Mongo.
Speaker 1: I know this doesn't sound exciting, but the idea that we have done such a remarkable job of maintaining the assets that we have underground is really remarkable. Because if if we did spend all the money that we are allocating millions of dollars a year to repave our streets and then to have to go back and deal with those issues later. You've done a remarkable job, and we really appreciate that. Thank you for the presentation you gave to my office the other day. I thought it was quite informative. I also want to take a moment to appreciate the technology that you have deployed recently. I know we discussed that I was one of your pilot programs and you quickly sent me a letter letting me know that I had a leak I didn't know about. And that leak caused me to immediately call a plumber. And we did a quite a extensive investigation to find out that just a tiny bit of water was leaking every single day through a flap in the back of the toilet. And so to be able to see this technology in action firsthand has been remarkable. And I really appreciate the innovative things that you've done. You will be missed greatly. We are looking forward to the leadership of Mr. Gardner, but you have some very, very large shoes to fill. So thank you very much for all you've done for us. And thank you to the commission that has been a leader along the way, because without a board of interested neighbors who are looking out for everyone, we wouldn't be in the position we are. You guys have been just such a group of financially conservative individuals that have put us in a remarkable place. So thank you.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 0: Very much. Councilor Richardson.
Speaker 9: Thank you. I just wanted to chime in and just say that although, you know, these things may not be in the newspaper, it's a good thing when your own water department is not in the newspaper. Secondly, if you're not in the newspaper, maybe you should talk to your board member. Harry Salts gave or about that. But in all seriousness, thank you so much for your for your presentation. And we do have this conversation every year. It's great to see you're making the investments in our water mains. We would hate to see water main breaks in our community. These are important to our residents. They're important to the safety, the health and safety of our community. So we're glad to have you here and we're sorry to see you go.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilman Pryce.
Speaker 3: Thank you. I want to echo all of those comments. I'm curious, in the time that you've been with the water department, have you ever had a water situation such as we have now in the state of California? And how how has it been for you in terms of your leadership in these times? Because, you know, we get a lot of concerns from residents and whether we're using reclaimed water and our parks and that kind of thing. I'm just curious in terms of how that experience has been for you.
Speaker 2: Well, there's no question that this is that when you consider the the impacts of the drought we're in, this is the most serious that anybody has ever lived through in California history. But hydrological, it's not that much more severe than other droughts. But when you consider the population increase that we've had, I mean, the last drought that we had was. Perhaps similar to this, we have, I think, about 9 million more people living in California than we did. Now that we did anything but that, that's more than two cities in Los Angeles that we've added to our population. And since the last drought, that's fairly similar to this hydrological. The other thing is, you know, we've had additional endangered species restrictions put on our imported water supplies. So those imported water supplies are under a lot more restrictive conditions than they were in any previous drought. So there's no question this is the most significant drought in terms of impact that California's ever experienced. And it's it's been exciting. We'll talk about that later. But I mean, Long Beach has just stepped up and done a tremendous job. And it's been a tremendous pleasure for me to be able to help lead Long Beach and provide the leadership that Long Beach has provided for the whole state.
Speaker 3: Well, you've done a tremendous job, and I appreciate the budget report that you've given us. And again, similar to the comments made with the harbor department, I appreciate the attention to to responsibility and and proceeding prudently. And I think that that's appreciated by council. And I share the sentiments of Councilman Richardson in saying that it is it is a good thing when your water department is not in the press in this day and age. So thank you. Thanks to your team.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilman.
Speaker 7: Well, thank you. I'd like to join my colleagues in complimenting the water department, Mr. Guardia and your entire staff for great work. It shows here that we are being very fiscally responsible. It's well-planned out. The rate increases, I believe, are fair. And we still remain a leader in the state. I'm concerned. Understanding that this is your last budget presentation, I'm a little concerned about the brain drain, no pun intended, from the department, from the top level, but also from its labor force as well. I see that there. Is there any significant change in terms of personnel, the personnel situation over at the water department today?
Speaker 2: No, our staffing numbers have been flat for several years. But as as you are correct, we are in a increasingly competitive market and retaining staff is becoming a very serious issue for us. I appreciate that.
Speaker 7: And I because we talked about this in our present briefing a week or so ago. Can can you just elaborate on what the competitive market means and how that is impacting staffing at the water?
Speaker 2: Well, it's interesting. I didn't want to brag, but I've use this as a lead in. You know, we talked about our water main breaks. And, of course, you always read about one other very large city in Los Angeles County in the newspaper that has a lot of water main breaks. Well, they have five times as many water main breaks per mile of pipe line in that city as we do in Long Beach. Well, they've apparently decided that it's time that they should do something about that. And one of the things they're doing about that is they're in a very extensive hiring binge to hire employees who know how to install and fix water mains and. We're the victim of that hiring thing that they're on. We've lost several of our best rank and file employees to them, and we have a number of a large number that are apparently on the next round that they're going to be making offers to us. So they're they're rating us. Yeah. Okay. So thank you. I don't need 25% more than we do, so there's only so much we can do.
Speaker 7: Did you say 20 to 25% more? Yes. Well, that's pretty significant. I know we have a we just hired a new h.r. Director, and so I know that that'll just be on the list of challenges for for that individual to deal with. Thank you very much. I always appreciate your candor.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilman Andrew.
Speaker 5: Yes, thank you. You know, first of all, I'd like to thank you and your department because of the fact that, you know, with the parks I have in my district, they still are green. I don't know where the water is coming from, but they still are green. And so I would just like to say it's one. Yeah. Know, one question is what about the impact, you know, to your long term rate outlook?
Speaker 2: Yes, thank you for that, because that's a question we get all the time. You read about it all, all the time in the paper that with conservation and reduced sales, that water utilities are going to have to raise their rates. And of course, the public hates that that you're raising rates when you're forcing them to conserve. But again, we're right on track. We're right on track. In fact, it looks like we may complete this five year plan in four years. So there's been no changes to our proposed five year financial plan in those 4% per year rate increases as a result of of all the things we're doing with conservation and in addressing this drought.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Councilmember Rank.
Speaker 8: Thank you, Mayor. Brain drain. Yes. Mr. Garner is going to have a challenge there with the making of some of that brainpower, as well as some of that some of the employees that are leaving. All joking aside, Mr. Worry, I want to thank you for your leadership with the water department. That was very pleasing. I know it was said about keeping the water department out of the out of the press, but out of the press that I saw was always very positive in that Long Beach was ahead in its conservation of water with other municipalities up and down the state. So that was due mainly because of your leadership on that. And I want to extend my congratulations to you and being very prudent with our water resources, with being very prudent with their rates, keeping the the enterprise that we had that we call the water department balanced and working forward. So I guess I sort of contributed to that too as as well as I see my front lawn getting browner and browner. So I guess, you know, I have contributed to that to that to that concern conservation. So I want to thank you again and I wish you well in your retirement.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much, sir.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilwoman Gonzales.
Speaker 4: Just a congratulations on.
Speaker 3: Your retirement as well. You've left us in a really great place. And seeing the budget, as my colleagues mentioned, even with a little increase, it still looks great. And again, you've left us in a in a wonderful place. So I just wanted to thank you for that. And also the steps we're taking internally as a city I think is is wonderful and reducing our water usage. So thank you.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Vice Mayor Lowenthal.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I wanted to thank heaven not just for his presentation tonight, but really for his years of service. How long have you been with. Let me try to lower 14. Okay. So I've known Kevin before. Long Beach Water from early, early days of consulting and Metropolitan Water District. And so many of you heard me talk about us having the finest general manager, water general manager, and not just in the region, I think in the entire state. And what we lose when Kevin leaves, which I know we have a great person coming in, Chris Garner. There's something about the industry that it's very difficult to have that kind of institutional knowledge, and so I will definitely miss that. On the budget piece, I think you covered how we have kept our rates low and kept our increases minimal. And I know you don't like to toot your own horn or even that of your entire department, but during the years, during the three years, the metropolitan raised rates by 20%. We actually did not raise our residents rates by any amount we held at zero for those three years. We felt that it was important to recognize our residents for the work that they're doing, the conservation efforts that they're making. And really, they our residents are the leaders in certainly, I believe in the Metropolitan Water Districts Service area of all those counties and entities and cities within that service area, six county service area. And many times we look to Long Beach residents and ask other communities to follow suit. I wanted to touch on the sewer fund a little bit, and I know that you have created a plan to ensure that our pipeline replacement is on track. I think many of us read the article this morning about how the decreased use of water and decreased amounts going through these pipes causes cracks and and surges and all those other things end up being really costly. Can you address that here for us and how that might be different here? Because we've been conserving for a very long time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I read the article. I think I've for the most part, I think I agree with Lester Snow's comment, which was most of that was a bunch of nonsense. Yes. But, you know, I was.
Speaker 4: Hoping you'd be direct.
Speaker 2: I always like to be direct, but I think, you know, it may be first of all, we're not seeing the tree root issue that some others claim they're seeing. We're not seeing septic water in our sewers that others claim they're seeing. But it could be that the accumulation of Greece that we are seeing is related to lower flows and that the grease isn't getting flushed out. So we do need to ramp up our public outreach and make sure that the residents know that they need to properly dispose of grease and not dump it down the sewer so that that may be happening. There may be a little accumulation of grease that otherwise would have gotten flushed down and not accumulated in the sewer.
Speaker 4: And that's the greater problem, not the unintended consequence of conservation. It just it illuminates what that original problem is. So thank you for that. I too want to bemoan our losing key staff members to other agencies. It is a salaries. War of the salaries. And when other agencies pay more for the same level of work, that's it's difficult to stay competitive. So I will look to our new H.R. director and really this council to take a look at various positions and and see how we can ensure that our investment stays in Long Beach for Long Beach residents to benefit from with this kind of expertize. And Councilmember Your Honor, letting our we used to say that Brown is the new Green, but it's really the California gold. We don't say Brown. If you look at your grass, it's really golden on the yellow side. So that's that's what that's what our state slogan is. California gold. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Council member, supermom.
Speaker 9: Thank you. I just wanted to say thank you for your service to the community and congratulations on their retirement. And thank you for all your presentations to committees and commissions that I've been on before because you do a lot of duty other than prison. The council here. Years ago you had an outreach program on fog. And I guess that's probably your option that you can do. Now, just just to get the word out there again on this.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But I think, you know, we want to work through the council offices and city manager offices. You know, we want to use every opportunity we can to get to get that message out there to the residents about proper disposal of grease. So it wouldn't be a water. I mean, it wouldn't just be the water department. We need to work through all those venues.
Speaker 9: Okay. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. I appreciate that. But your presentation, that concludes the budget. But we're going to go straight into item 20 because I believe it's a continuation of that. Mr. Parker, did you have an announcement.
Speaker 8: Public comment on the budget?
Speaker 0: I was know I was going to do it after this, but we should probably do it in between public comment on either the budget presentations we just heard. Please come forward.
Speaker 10: I just want to address you directly. What a resident should do when in their apartment, the shower and the bath continues to run. Code Enforcement Per Amy Burdick, Craig Wong, Carmelo Baca. They did an expression on June 23rd. They were in the bathroom with me physically. Over a month ago they did witness the water wasting and it's been over a month and it's still running. They've done nothing about it. Her Stone Community Foundation, the apartment owners have yet to remedy it. I don't know why they're being exempt from compliance. They do own five complexes in Long Beach, so it would be high impactful to have it investigated. I've come to as many people as I can, including council Robert and is still running is still waiting today. If you go to right now, 600 hours of the windows are boarded up with wood over 90% boarded up. The water is in there running and no one has done anything about it. Again, the address is 1600 words of a9004 apartment. Number six, Craig Wong told me, Well, you're the only one to complain, so please, if you can look into that for me, for the community. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Any other public comment saying I'm going to go directly into I believe it's item 20? Madam Clerk. 25. | Agenda Item | Recommendation to conduct a Budget Hearing to receive and discuss an Overview of the Proposed Fiscal Year 2016 Budget for the following: Harbor Department; Water Department. | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_09012015_15-0869 | Speaker 0: Thank you. Is Mr. Cromwell here? No. And I think I called for Jim Meyer, which I didn't see. So we're going to go to it now to item 20, which is the Medical Cannabis Task Force recommendations item. And then we will go on with the rest of the agenda.
Speaker 4: Madam Cook Adam, I am 20 report from City Clerk. Recommendation to receive and file the Medical Cannabis Task Force recommendations regarding the establishment of a medical cannabis regulatory ordinance citywide.
Speaker 0: Thank you. I'm going to turn this now over to staff. Might need a minute just to get ready. Here are you guys. I'll give you guys a minute here. You guys ready to go? Almost. Can you guys just begin when you're ready, please?
Speaker 2: Mayor and members of the city council. As you know, a number of months ago, the city council passed a resolution that established a medical marijuana task force. That task force has been meeting from basically April through August, almost on a weekly or bi weekly basis to come up with various recommendations to the city council. And I will say the city attorney's office, the city clerk's office staffed almost virtually all of those meetings. We did staff all of those meetings, and the task force worked very, very diligently. They have diverse interests. Clearly, on the task force, they tackled a very, very difficult issue. They absorbed a lot of information before they came up with the recommendations. The recommendations are included in the in the staff report that was prepared by the city clerk's office for consideration. There are approximately 30 recommendations that the task force has made for your consideration. They concluded their work on August 19th. If you have any questions about the various recommendations that were made by the task force, we'd be glad to try and answer them. I believe there are members of the task force here tonight that could address some of the issues or the questions, I'm sure, if they speak. And that concludes our staff report.
Speaker 0: Okay. And I think everyone has had a chance probably to review the recommendations and taken a look at those. So I have some comments and then I'm going to turn this over to the Council on the Public for for comments as well. There's been, I think, two pretty significant developments that have happened in the conversation about medicinal marijuana and just marijuana and cannabis legislation in general over the course of the last of last few months, in particular, since even our last conversation here at the council and I just wanted to highlight those one was a pretty public conversation and a continuing conversation that has happened because of a statewide report that was led by Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom, as well as a variety of medical leaders across the state about the use and implications of of future recreational use, medicinal marijuana, as well as kind of a guideline for for cities and for for the state to adopt regulations at the same time that that that came out in that report, which I think is pretty significant. I would encourage for those who haven't had a chance to read it, I've had a chance to to read it. The legislature has been pretty active in passing a set of bills or a package of bills that really speaks to medical marijuana. And I think the council received an update from our government affairs director, Diana Tang, which I think most of you probably have. But I wanted to highlight a few things. I was in Sacramento yesterday, and I've also been having some conversations with some of our legislators, and it's important for us to review where we're at right now. Assembly Bill 266 is currently in the Legislature and has incredible momentum as we speak. Currently, right now, Assembly Bill 266, which is gaining both bipartisan support, as well as support from the governor's office, essentially is looking at creating a statewide framework for medical marijuana and a statewide look at how cities could provide regulations. The framework currently has been amended significantly, but the Appropriations Committee has moved forward as a placeholder bill, which essentially means that the governor's office is currently working with the legislators and on the Senate and Assembly side to put together a bill that could then pass the legislature, and that he would sign. All indications to our lobbyists in Sacramento and our government affairs team here on the ground is that the legislature is highly likely to pass a statewide bill by the end of their legislative session, which essentially is September the 11th. So any bill before the legislature has to pass by this September 11th. That's the first thing I wanted to note. We also indicated for the governor has until October of I believe is the 11th of to actually sign any bills. But he has he normally indicates pretty quickly whether he's going to sign a bill. In fact, it's it's more often than not that the legislature passes a bill and he'll sign it the next day or the following day. Dependent so the legislature could pass this bill any time between now and the 11th. But after the 11th, there's absolutely no chance for a bill in this session, just to be very to be very clear. So we could end up with is a statewide regulatory framework by September the 11th. Now, also, to be clear, the where the bill stands now and what is likely to happen is this bill is going to provide cities essentially two options. Option one is to adopt the statewide regulations and then to approve local zoning laws that essentially a council could adopt, change a make their own or be to have a ban on medical marijuana, which is essentially what the city of Long Beach currently has, but is obviously contemplating on changing. So the state law does allow for cities to have flexibility. Just just to be clear. The other thing that's I think as important is if the state law passes, it would be actually in direct conflict with a lot of the proposed ordinance that the Planning Commission even adopted. And I think that's a really important point because there are some there are issues, whether it's a seed to sale conversation or whether it's the security piece or the testing piece that are all being addressed right now by the state legislation. And so I see that because the the quote unquote, draft ordinance that's been kind of in front of the council would. Would not be legal, essentially, in the case of of the current body. And so it's it's incredibly important that we get some some clarification. So I what I'm hoping and where I hope that this conversation leads us tonight is is one I think it's very important that we first see the legislative framework that we're going to essentially get between now and September the 11th. That legislative framework will give us an answer, a variety of questions that the council has had for many years on types of licenses, on testing, on actually where and when, where you can grow. As one example, I think this council in the past has tried to limit growing to within the city. The statewide legislation would not allow that that it would allow open an open state market. And so my suggestion to the to the council is going to be whatever we're crafting, make sure that we are we are adhering first and foremost to what the governor is likely to sign by within the next couple of weeks. At that point, the council still has land, land use decisions to make if it chooses to move forward and obviously always has the option of not moving forward. And that's a decision the council will will be able to make. But I do encourage while I'm as as frustrated on the timeline as everybody else, I think these two weeks are going to be very decisive weeks in the conversation about medicinal cannabis in the entire state of California. And I think we should cautiously listen, see what comes out of the state. And then if the council chooses, adopt an ordinance by essentially answering a handful of zoning questions, which will be which the city attorney will be able to to present. So I wanted to put that on the table. I think everyone has a memo on it. I think the time is is of the essence as we move this forward. And certainly, I hope that this council can come to a decision fairly quickly on on on how and if we move forward. And so I wanted to kind of set the stage as this conversation develops. And so with that, I'm going to turn this over to the council, and I know we're going to have some public comment as well. So let me begin with Vice Mayor Lowenthal.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I appreciate your framing the issue for us, especially given the recent visit you had in Sacramento. And I appreciate your following. The state legislature legislative process, along with what the governor has indicated. I think you and I are very much aligned in what our hope is for our city's process going forward. I've spoken on this just as you have for many years and have served on this council, hoping to come forward with a reasonable policy for the city of Long Beach. And I wanted to thank our task force members for their involvement and contribution. It is not easy to spend that kind of time when you have your full time work, full time lives to manage, and you've committed of yourself to the city's work on this issue. And I want to thank you for that. In particular, I'd like to thank our second District representatives, Jack and Adam, for your attendance and thoughtful input. Also wanted to thank our staff for your diligence. Throughout this entire process, the city attorney and his staff are doing their best to guide us through what's really felt like quite a maze or quite a labyrinth. But it has been a process, and it reminds us that public policy isn't easy, especially when we have diverging opinions and we have conflicting approaches from neighboring cities. It's not easy, but I do know that our city staff has been doing their best and has been doing it in earnest for what is in the best interest of all interested parties and also in keeping with what is legal in our state. I believe that the recommendations that the task force has come forward with, they do reflect the complexity of the issue and the realities really of implementing a new policy initiative with so much legal and legislative history. And it's not easy as a citizen task force to take this on. Some may have had familiarity with the subject matter from an academic standpoint or a professional standpoint, but nonetheless, it's not easy. There is very little regulatory history to follow, and that made your task even harder. So I do believe that these recommendations and the bulk of our city attorney and Planning Commission draft ordinance. While it's true that the mayor indicated that if the state's measure does pass it, it does put a lot of that in conflict. And I actually appreciate that kind of statewide guidance. It's very difficult to take things on as a city, especially issues of such magnitude. We did that with the plastic bag ordinance and we were a leader in doing that, and it was at a time when the state was not able to come forward. And and here I I'm very hopeful with the indication that the state might come forward with a framework. Nonetheless, we have many groups that have worked on this. We have ideas that have been presented. And hopefully in short order, we will have guidance from a statewide measure, whether it is from the legislature or directly from the governor's office. So hearing the recent legislative conversations between the governor, legislators in Sacramento, our mayor, other mayors, they're providing another layer of complexity to this issue. I think it might be a welcome layer. I'm hopeful for that. I've seen pieces of what's being proposed and it does give me hope. So I am hopeful that whatever does come forward out of their discussions, it's a pathway for cities such as Long Beach who wish to help our residents obtain medical marijuana in a safe, reliable and regulated manner. But there are always going to be outstanding questions. We have local obligations. Land use is something that we always have local control over. And so that's something that I would look to our city attorney to guide us through that. And, Mr. Mayor, what I'd like to do, if it's timely, is make an offer, a motion.
Speaker 0: Sure.
Speaker 4: So I'd like to move. That we receive and file the Medical Cannabis Cannabis Task Force recommendations regarding the establishment of a medical cannabis regulatory ordinance and direct the city attorney in conjunction with Development Services Department to report back to the City Council by September 2nd. 22nd. Sorry. Or tomorrow. The implications of Assembly Bill 266 on the city's own ability to adopt a medical marijuana regulatory ordinance and provide a list of outstanding areas of regulation at the local level that Council must address in order to put forward a comprehensive ordinance. Additionally, I'd like to ask that our City Attorney help counsel understand where the Medical Medical Cannabis Task Force recommendations differ or share common ground with the recommendations made by the Planning Commission regarding a medical marijuana regulatory ordinance.
Speaker 0: And there's a. Carlton convulses at a second. Okay, so there's emotion on a second. And just to add to get to the emotion, essentially, I think, Vice Mayor Lowenthal, you're asking for the issue to come back by the 22nd, which is the third Tuesday in September. And by the 22nd at that time, the city attorney would come back with the state regulatory framework, as well as the items that are the the the the items that are not considered in that legislation, which would be which would be a handful of zoning questions for the council.
Speaker 4: Exactly. And the September 22nd date is really giving regard to our budget adoption date or our charter mandated date that we must adopt our budget by. So that would be the next available.
Speaker 0: To September 15th? Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yes.
Speaker 0: Okay. So that is the motion on the floor. Let me go through the speakers list. Our Councilwoman Gonzales, did you have any comments?
Speaker 3: Yes. They just wanted to.
Speaker 1: Also agree and support the.
Speaker 3: Motion in front of us. And I want to thank as well the task force members for their time. I know personally my two appointees were very diligent in reporting back all of the items that they had been advocating for, not just for our district, but for the city. And I also want to thank them, and I'm just grateful for their support in making sure that they've advocated for a fair and just system that includes all of Long Beach, not just certain parts of Long Beach. And I believe that this motion is measured. It takes into account the statewide regulation of coming, while also seeing how our Task Force and Planning Commission align in meeting the best, safest and most accessible, accessible opportunities for our whole city. So thank you, everyone.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Councilmember Richardson.
Speaker 9: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just want to take a moment to just thank all the task force members who participated in this process. I know that you took time away from family, from work to make sure that the city of Long Beach gets it right. And for that. I just want to say thank you. And I know that it hasn't been easy to work with a large group and try to come to consensus. But you work together, and I've reviewed every single one of the recommendations. And I got to say, the ones that have, for the most part, the unanimous support, I thought they were well-considered, well aligned with the direction the council. The council has given in the past. And, and and I'm a bit surprised that we actually were actually able to bring something back to that process. So so thank you for that. And I wanted to also say that, quite frankly, I'm glad that the state has stepped up to provide some framework. You know, I I was starting to believe that this process had a little bit too many cooks in the kitchen. And this is a cleaner process. So I'm in complete support of the motion, and I look forward to the conversation on the 22nd.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilmember Durango.
Speaker 8: Thank you, Mayor. Just for clarification, for me personally to understand the motion much, much better. We're talking about having the city attorney. Review the task force recommendations and compare that with what's what's being put forward from the governor's office and coming up with a potential ordinance that we can adopt.
Speaker 0: Yes. Vice mayor.
Speaker 8: Okay. Well, and I want to acknowledge also the members of the task force for their diligence and work in coming here. Could you stand up and just be recognized? Those of you who are here for the task force. Don't be shy. It's okay, you know.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 8: And the reason I wanted to acknowledge you, obviously, is because it was a I understand it was a very difficult process. There was a lot of give and take. There were a lot of issues that you had to address. And it might not have been the most smooth process in getting to where we're at right now with this recommendation that we're receiving here today. And and I'm not going to go ahead and point that out. I think that we've had we've had enough discussion about that. But I do want to recognize you for your diligence, for your patience, and for your willingness to step up and address the very important issue, which is for us, Long Beach is going to be, I think, historic, and I think it's going to be something that's going to be good for the city. When I first made the motion a couple of months ago to do to establish the task force, which was actually a piggyback on what Councilmember Suja had a few years back, which went nowhere. And I think that we got somewhere at this point. I think we're we're almost there. We're at the end, the turn at the Preakness, and we're ready to go home. So I'm hoping that when we when it's all said and done, that we will have an ordinance that is going to be workable, that is going to be very positive, and it's going to produce some very positive results for the city of Long Beach. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilwoman.
Speaker 3: Thank you. I, too, want to thank the members of the task for a task force. I know that you worked very diligently. I met regularly with the members of the third district who were representing the city on the task force and received regular updates. My understanding from the process is that it wasn't necessarily smooth all the time, but that everyone had the opportunity to share their concerns and that the recommendations and the diversity in terms of the recommendations reflect the various opinions of folks who were on the task force. So thank you for your service. I appreciate it. And I know my colleagues do. I just want to ask in terms of clarification, because the. The motion has been phrased a few different ways. I just want to make sure that we all understand the process and that the Planning Commission has prepared a draft ordinance, that that ordinance went to the task force, but that the city has not made any sort of policy decision in regards to whether or not we are going to have an ordinance. Certainly the option of continuing a ban still remains because I've heard some different things in terms of the comments.
Speaker 2: Councilwoman Price, members of the City Council, as the Mayor indicated, the current draft 1866 does leave open the possibilities for cities to keep bans in place if they have them or adopt bans. So yes, that would be a possibility. And as we understood the motion, as it was framed, what we would basically be bringing back on the 22nd of September is and then, of course, the result of AB 266 to let you know whether or not it passed, number one. Number two, an analysis of AB 266. So we can let the council know what framework the state actually has adopted and what they've left to the city to enact in the form of land use controls as. Council member Vice Mayor Lowenthal mentioned. So we will not be bringing back an ordinance for your consideration on the 22nd, although we certainly would consider or be able to take recommendations from the Council as to what we would bring back at a later date for an ordinance which would presumably incorporate some of the recommendations made by the Medical Marijuana Task Force. In addition to the recommendations or some of the recommendations made by the Planning Commission after their 18 months of studying the issue.
Speaker 3: And do you envision that the report that you would come back with on the 22nd would also include perhaps some legal conclusions in regards to what a state regulation or even a state ballot initiative, what impact that might have on a municipality in terms of its ability to regulate and and embrace an industry such as this?
Speaker 2: Yes. In fact, there's as I understand it, they're still working on AB 266. And the bill that we've analyzed may not actually be the total bill that is actually passed if it is passed. So it will bring back their framework, let you know what they are leaving to us to do and also bring back, as the mayor said, a competitor. Vice mayor, Vice Mayor Lowenthal said a comparison between the recommendations made by the Planning Commission on the key issues as opposed to the recommendations made by the task force on the same key issues where they differ, where they're the same, so that the Council will have a better understanding of what we can do on a local level and also a better understanding of the recommendations made by your two bodies that you've had. Look at this issue.
Speaker 3: One of the things that I have heard but, you know, we've we've heard by various members, whether of the public or of this body, that, you know, there's a sense of urgency to move this forward. And one of the questions that I've asked is, you know, what is that urgency? And some have said, well, if we implement our own regulations here in the city of Long Beach, then we'll be ahead of of of the game when there are some statewide regulations and statewide ballot initiatives. From a legal standpoint, wouldn't statewide regulations dictate in large part what we as a city do, regardless of what we have in place at the time that statewide initiatives are initiated?
Speaker 2: It really depends on the format of the statewide initiatives if they're subject to the November 2016 election. We don't know yet what those initiatives will be. Some of those initiatives may very well, like AB 266, reserved certain powers to the local government. So HB 266, for example, clearly preempts the city from regulating certain areas if they do have a regulatory ordinance in its present form, for example, primarily in the area of public health testing of the product and that sort of thing. But in its current format, it does allow cities to adopt zoning regulations, locations, buffer zones, those sorts of things. So we will bring back that information and what we can actually do if HB 266 passes and we can make comments on what we think may happen if a statewide ballot initiative makes it in November of 2016.
Speaker 3: I agree with Councilman Richardson. And in regards to the the desire to have regulation and statewide oversight and guidance on this issue, I. Think that's important in terms of the land use options that they might leave available to a city. Do you envision those, including things such as buffer zones and restrictions on hours of sale and that kind of thing?
Speaker 2: AB 266, as it's currently drafted, definitely does leave those types of decisions to the local public entity. Hours of operation, location and number of facilities. Advertising. Those types of issues buffers.
Speaker 3: And do you envision, based on your tracking of the legislation thus far, clearly you can't anticipate what is going to happen in the next couple of weeks. But based on your reading of the legislation thus far, do you anticipate that the final product, if, in fact, there's there's a decision reached in terms of the legislation, will still allow cities after careful analysis in terms of the potential impacts of this industry to the city, including public safety, regulatory, etc., determines that the the risks outweigh the benefits. Let's say that a ban would still be an option for cities in the state of California.
Speaker 2: Excuse me, as 80 to 66 is currently written, it clearly allows cities to maintain a ban if they currently have one, and it also allows cities to enact a ban if they choose to do so.
Speaker 3: And in terms of that proposed legislation, I know that you mentioned that statewide testing as being a component of that. I think that's a necessary and excellent regulatory element. Do you have any idea of who would bear the cost of such statewide regulatory elements in a statute?
Speaker 2: It's not clear precisely from 266, at least it wasn't clear to me when I read it. But a lot of those duties will be assigned, for instance, to various state agencies that currently exist, like the State Department of Public Health, the state attorney general's office, and several other agencies. I think there were six or seven agencies involved. I assume that they will be issued under two 8266. They also will be issuing licenses or permits to operate. So I'm assuming that there will be a permit fee attached to that that maybe would fund the state agencies, or maybe they will devise a situation where when product is sent to them for testing, there will be a fee for the test itself. It just isn't quite clear yet. It leaves it up to the state agencies that are involved to develop regulations to implement AB 266. So as that unfolds, we'll know more who would be paying for it.
Speaker 3: Well, I envision that your report when you come back on the 22nd will be comprehensive and will encompass a lot of these concerns. And I imagine that that discussion will take a long time in terms of our agenda for that night, because I think there's certainly a lot of legal implications. And the question doesn't start and end with. Some of the limited framework that we've heard from either proponents or opponents. It's it's a much more expansive analysis, I think so. Thank you very much.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilwoman. Before I go to the next comment, I kind of have to add something, Mr. Mays, because I think I want to make sure that council understands one piece of this, which is it's kind of confusing the way the legislative process works in Sacramento. But what's interesting about this, like other bills, you know, we're talking about 266, but the way this really works is there's a bill called to 66. It's passed by the Senate appropriations. But what they did is it gutted the bill before it passes. So even though to 66 and what we're all talking about is the framework that will likely be used. What there is essentially is a clean bill without any detail. And the reason why they do that is because the governor has indicated that he want would like to see something passed. So now the governor's office will essentially craft a new version of to 66 that will come. So what Mike is referring to, while I think is generally accurate, I don't want anyone to, you know, kind of harp on him when we know exactly what comes back in is could be very different than what Mike is describing. And so while we think we know what the general rules are going to be, what's going to come out in the next, you know, any and this could happen any time. But in the next ten days, we will have this new bill, which could be most of what of what the city attorney discussed, but could also be some new things that we that we don't know yet. So I just want to make sure that we we know that as we as we move forward in the next you know, next next two weeks here, Councilwoman Mango.
Speaker 1: Yes. I want to start out by thanking the members of the task force who so diligently spent lots and lots of time in meetings working through many details. I also have some questions for the city attorney and or Mr. West. One of the things that I think is really helpful in explaining the options to the community is the zone maps. And so I know that one of the challenges that I've had in recent discussions in the community is that we don't have any updated zone maps that reflect any of the either unanimous recommendations or majority recommendations or general recommendations from the task force. And so I recognize that the zoning maps would hopefully be updated with the information from 80 to 66. I know that we have business corridor partners here, business owners. We have childcare operators and some of our neighborhood leaders, along with some of our local realtors. And I think it's really important to them to know what areas we're talking about. Do you think that we would be able to have those comprehensive maps in advance of the September 22nd meeting so that we can reach out to our community and ensure that they're aware of the locations that are being considered? Because I think that that is a big component of whether or not the community wants to maintain a ban or not maintain a ban.
Speaker 2: Councilwoman Mungo, as the task force moved through this process, we had extensive presentations by the Department of Development Services and their staff, and many of those presentations did include zoning maps that did show accurate representations of what would happen, for instance, if we included libraries within the mix of buffers or licensed childcare facilities or high schools, those sorts of things. So those maps are available. They were part of the task force, and I'm I don't know that we could I mean, they're available. We could bring them. It takes a while to go through each of those maps because there's one for each council district and they're citywide. But those maps do exist currently.
Speaker 1: I think what we're looking for, though, is one that they're overlaid. So there are a lot of websites now and with the gas technology where you can look at a map and then you can click citywide or fifth District or for the fourth district or third, and then it zooms in and then you can click on a layer and say, if we adopt all of the things that the Planning Commission thinks click and then those overlays show up, then you click another button. Then it can be the ones from the task force. I know that those are comprehensive, but could we at least get one map that has everything on it? Because I think that. Each of those decisions is a serious consideration.
Speaker 2: So the director of Development Services, Amy Bowditch, has indicated to me that we can handle those maps that the task force considered. But 82, 66, as it's currently framed, doesn't address those types of issues at all. The only buffer that's mentioned in HB 266 is a minimum buffer of 600 feet from a high school. And what the council has been looking at, the planning commission and the medical marijuana task force are more extensive buffers that include a thousand feet from, for instance, high school schools in general and 1000 feet from licensed daycare facilities. What else can you. Like libraries. And we do have those maps. And buffers between medical marijuana facilities.
Speaker 1: So in in kind of linking back to what the mayor said, that's what the bill says today. And so neighbors that have concerns can reach out to their Assemblymember whether it's Patrick O'Donnell or whichever district that they live in and they can voice their concerns and or opinions on the the the zoning as it is or that they want to maintain local control and that we would be able to look at those. And maybe Christine can meet with my chief of staff, can meet with Amy's office and see what we can do to consolidate because providing 20 maps and while we appreciate the diligence of the task force for going through each and every one of those, we really got to get it down to a sound bite because we're asking the constituents of of Long Beach to weigh in on budget decisions, take the budget challenge e comment all the different things they're involved in. So we want to make sure that we're providing them a good, quick view of what the options are so that they can make up an opinion yes, no, or make an adjustment. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilman Austin.
Speaker 7: Well, thank you, Mr. Mayor. And thank you, everybody. I want to thank the task force for their service. I want to specifically call out the chair, Charlene Bender, and for for for serving at my request and to continue it into who are a district appointees. I want to just say that I'm encouraged. You know, we've had this conversation. It's been going on for for quite some time, even before I joined the council. Regarding medical marijuana here in the city. And consistently, I think I've been consistent that I'd like to see direction from the state. And it is encouraging that the governor has taken it up and the legislature seems to be serious about getting a bill done within the next couple of weeks or within the next week. And it makes it ensures that Long Beach isn't on the island by itself and dealing with this very fluid issue. It's encouraging to know that there is some semblance of local control in this that is being discussed in 266 as well, which I, I appreciate. And I and I want to I want to just point out that we're reviewing the task force recommendations. You know, I applaud many of them. They they they address many of the tough questions that we're facing. The council one thing is consistent is that. There. There was there was not necessarily great consensus on on a lot of these tough issues. And I think that's that's a challenge that our legislature is going to probably face, but it's a challenge that we as a city council will face as well. So consensus on this issue is very difficult to generate because of deep feelings on both sides of the issue all around as a matter of process. Madam Vice Mayor, I think it is important to note that the last date for a bill in this legislative session to be chapter two is actually October the 11th. Right. And so I'm curious to know how we got to that September 22nd date as as the the date to come back before the council. It's September 22nd. Yeah. I mean, because when I say the last date for Bill to be in the legislature, if there is a bill signed, for example, next week, the last day for that to happen or not signed but agreed upon by the legislature. It would be September 11th, I believe. Right. And so typically, as most of you know, who work the legislative process. That doesn't necessarily mean that the governor is going to sign it right away, even though his office may have had some a lot to do with crafting it. He could wait the entire time up until October 14th or 11th, October 11th, or he could not sign it and just allow it to be Chapter ten to the law that way as well. So my question is why the September 22nd date and what's the importance of that, that date? And why not. October 15th where some insurance as it stood for knowing when this bill knowing exactly when if there is going to be a bill signed or not.
Speaker 0: I can partly answer that, but I can give some.
Speaker 4: If I can. Of course. But my understanding also, having worked many years in that process, is that the governor has 12 days to sign the bill and 30 days to chapter. So that notwithstanding, bringing this back at the earliest date possible, I think is. Not problematic given when the signing would be or the chapter would be. We have had a process going on for quite some time and to have the city attorney bring back to us what the differences might be so that we can start considering it, I think is actually a good next step. Mr. Mayor.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Just to add, Councilman, I mean, you actually bring up some you both know the legislative process very well. Just to bring up some additional points, it's our understanding, actually, that this is likely going to be done before the 11th. So as as for our outlook, the 11th is the last final date, September. So September 11th is the final date. The legislature usually never meets on September the 11th because it's obviously a day of remembrance of the last days. Really, the September is September 10th. And then it's just knowing what they're with, they're dealing with this. This might get wrapped up likely in five or six days. And it's our understanding that we're going to get an indication in immediately after of of of the governor's blessing on this or not. And, listen, he could change his mind and veto it. But I'm just you know, that's that's I think the timeline we feel is going to be pretty expedited.
Speaker 7: My point was just in terms of process and form, if we if for some reason on September 22nd, we don't have clarity, what are we going to do?
Speaker 4: I think the item still comes back and the city attorney lets us know that and we can receive and file. But at least it is an active item on our docket.
Speaker 0: Think if for some weird reason. On the 22nd, we don't know. It becomes a receiving file. And clearly we want to wait. We would we would wait. I would assume, if we still need an additional week or what have you come to an interest group?
Speaker 5: Real quickly. Thank you, Mayor. I'd just like to thank the task force and the individuals who be at least a compassion to the situation with our, you know, our youth, our churches in our hospitals. And I don't know what the outcome is going to be, but I think it's really I will support advise me as that, you know, motion. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Councilmember super. Now.
Speaker 9: My questions have been answered, so I'll just thank the task force for all your work over the last few months. And thank you for being here tonight over for over 4 hours as I see it. And also, thank you to our city attorney, assistant city attorney Mike Mace. I think you attended all the meetings, too. And our Clark staff, too. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Councilmember Arango.
Speaker 8: Thank you, Mayor. Just for clarification, the process the the task force has made its recommendations. We have received following those recommendations. We are directing the city attorney to look at those recommendations in addition to the ordinance that was drafted or was put forward to the planning commission. Is that right? Okay. Well, there's also a draft ordinance in as part of the task force recommendations. Can I also have that included as part of that review? In reviewing it? That's pretty.
Speaker 0: Good. Vice Mayor.
Speaker 4: I can see where the interest is coming from, but I think. If we take their recommendations and look at the planning commission, their final red line version, look at the measure that is presented by the legislature, that that would provide a sufficient guideline. Ultimately, if the legislature does pass something that may that would end up superseding a lot of what's already been drafted at our level. And so I think just having the city attorney look at the task force recommendations, which there seems to be agreement over the Planning Commission item that they ended up with, and then the legislative measure would be a good start for us.
Speaker 8: Well, that's what I meant by process, is that there is an ordinance as part of the.
Speaker 4: Well, but that ordinance was not voted on. And so I don't think it would be correct for us to take a look at that. The list of recommendations was.
Speaker 8: I thought it was Rhode Island and it was a.
Speaker 4: No, it was not.
Speaker 1: Correct.
Speaker 0: Let me let me let's get that question answered by staff. So, Mr. Mays, do you have an answer to that?
Speaker 2: The staff are sorry the task force did not delve into that ordnance at all, at least on a formal level. It was presented to them and it was agreed that it would be attached. But there was never a discussion or never a vote on any of the content of that ordnance. And honestly, if we had to take that ordnance and add it to the other material, there's no way that we could prepare an adequate report for you by the 22nd. It will take a tremendous amount of effort in a very short period of time to pull together a report that analyzes A.B. to 66. If it passes and draws comparisons between the Planning Commission and the Medical Marijuana Task Force recommendations. So for us to do that by the 22nd, it would be virtually impossible and do a good job. Thank you.
Speaker 8: Your anger. Like I said, I wanted some clarification on the process and I see that this was added in there. I missed the fact that it was not voted upon, but I will be supported.
Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you. Back to Councilman Mongo.
Speaker 1: I'm in alignment with Councilmember Austin. If I could see a show of hands of who's here to speak on or weigh in on the marijuana item tonight. So my bigger concern is that I know that I had dozens and dozens of calls even as late as today where people wanted to know where we were in terms of there were rumors that this was going to be a received file because of AB 22, 66. And so only starting at 1:00 when we knew the details of A.B. 266 and what options we had, did we start letting neighbors know there'll be a future date that they could come back? And we sent out a notice to neighbors. And so what I want to do is I want to value the time that people have in coming down to council. It's really important that neighbors have that opportunity and that they have the information they need in advance. So if the item is not ready. By the 18th if we could notify the community by pulling the item so it wouldn't remain on the agenda where people would come on the 22nd and then bump it to the next active council meeting, which is October 6th. That would at least give us an alternative if under the circumstance that Council Member Austin mentioned, that there is not clarity at the state yet. If it hasn't been signed and or if the city attorney's office does not have posted online to the agenda the information for the community to review. Because while it's great to show up and have a verbal report from the city attorney giving the community the opportunity to review it 72 hours in advance of the meeting, I feel is critical in getting good community input. And so I would hope that the friendly would be accepted that if the city attorney's office has not prepared and posted by noon on Friday of the week of. The 18th, which would be posted for the council meeting on the 22nd, that we would be able to put out a notification to the community and move it. One council meeting so that they have that kind of opportunity because I want throw an educated feedback.
Speaker 4: Generally speaking, Mr. City Attorney, wouldn't the material be ready by the 72 hour deadline?
Speaker 2: We will make every effort to have it back in a timely manner so that it could be heard on the 22nd. If that's the way the motion is going to go, we will definitely do that. The more time we have, obviously, the more thorough we can be. But we will bring something back by the 22nd, even if it's to let you know that the you know, the status of HB 266, if for some reason isn't signed by that date.
Speaker 4: I think that's sufficient. Now I appreciate where you're coming from, Councilmember Mongo, but there are many items that this council takes that are of equal or even greater priority that we have not given that kind of consideration. I know and I trust that the staff does its best to make those documents available within the 72 hour framework . And I trust that they will, or at least a majority of it, and I'm comfortable with them coming back that evening and not postponing it any further.
Speaker 1: Than I'd like to make a substitute motion that if it is not prepared and attached by the Friday before that it would be bumped to the following meeting. And while I appreciate that there are many other items that are as important as this, I think that only recently have the neighbors and I started having the discussions about the single sheet that's attached within the city clerk's office when staff have not provided a report in advance or when they're planning to provide a verbal report. And the neighbors don't feel that that's adequate. And we've specifically had a couple of public records requests from newspapers who want to know why it's not there. And we let them know that we do our best to get it in advance. And sometimes it's a verbal report, but a decision or weighing in from neighbors of this magnitude, I feel, is very, very critical. And so while I'm open to having the discussion on September 22nd, I do see that that's only five days for the city attorney to get documentation prepared if they have that kind of human capital available and the overtime resources that they think is appropriate to spend, that's at their discretion. They're an elected department which has a budget, but if they're not and they don't have the documentation attached by noon on the Friday before I have serious concerns, I would be willing to give some flexibility to the city clerk's office that if they get it to you by noon and it's not posted till four, I mean, there's some flexibility. I'm not trying to put down an iron fist, but what I do want to do is make sure that neighbors have the proper information to come to council and weigh in and have educated public comment.
Speaker 0: Okay. So was that a substitution? To be clear?
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 0: So just so I understand, the substitute motion is to. Aim for the 22nd. But if the information is not posted by noon of the 18th.
Speaker 1: That the city clerk's deadline is noon of the Friday, before.
Speaker 0: Then, it would automatically be kicked off to one meeting, which would be October the sixth. I think that's the motion, right? Yes. Okay. There is a second on the motion by Councilman Price. So that's a substitute motion on the floor. Let me go to Councilwoman Pryce.
Speaker 3: I think that is a very reasonable request and I share. Councilman Austin and Councilwoman Mango's concerns. You know, in February, when we voted to have a task force, we also voted on a timeline that, in my opinion, was very unrealistic, which was to come back for a vote in April. I don't even know that the task force began meeting that quickly. It just that just things don't happen in that timely of a fashion. And the last time this issue came to us, we had a debate internally whether or not we were willing to extend it two weeks so that a council, all council members could be present . And and so while I understand the urgency and I know several members of the task force are very interested in the outcome of this, and some may even have a financial interest. I think that it's important to understand that we're talking about a week.
Speaker 4: Here or.
Speaker 3: Two weeks or three weeks and. Assuming that we even voted on this tonight, let's just assume for a moment that we voted on this tonight. Our city staff has asked us in the form of a memorandum and basically told us as council members that they would not be ready to implement anything and that they would need some time in order to prepare to bring on this industry. So it's not as though if we get to this two weeks later or even a month later, that people are going to lose out on on some big opportunity because it's going to take some time to put this into motion anyway. If we're going to follow the advice of. City staff, which clearly we can ignore that and just mandate them to begin immediate implementation. But I would assume that we're going to be somewhat prudent in how we go about this. So I think that's a very reasonable request. And I would just ask folks to just step back for a moment and and ask, you know, what all Councilmember Mongeau is saying is she'd like the public to have adequate notice. I think that's reasonable. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Okay. So I'm going to go to Vice Mayor Lowenthal and then hopefully we can go to the public and then we'll we can come back for a vote. Vice Mayor Lowenthal.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just briefly, I I do appreciate the opportunity for members to come and speak. I think what we will find is oftentimes and maybe there will be a few new members who have never spoken on this issue that will come forward when this item comes back for but in large part. I think we can assure ourselves that folks have been engaged longer than any one of us, probably, and and they have had opportunities and they can have that opportunity to come back. And so I ask my colleagues to vote no on the substitute motion.
Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you. So just as we have the as we have the commenters, please come forward for the public comment. And just as a reminder, kind of where we are and stand up of the motion so that we're all on the same page. There's a substitute by Councilman Mongo, which is. Is it additional to the original motion which basically asks if the information is not posted by the 18th? It would go to the first reading on October. The original motion is that it comes back on September the 22nd regardless whether regardless of the status of the state bill and if for whatever reason, the state bill is not. Well, actually, I just leave it there. It comes back regardless on the 22nd for an update from staff. So let me go to public comment. Yes, sir.
Speaker 2: First off, my name is Stephen Edwards. Ho! Hey, that means my words speak true. I am a pain patient. I am a medical marijuana patient.
Speaker 7: The city council has kept me a prisoner.
Speaker 2: Of the pharmaceutical companies for the last three years by refusing to allow a medication that has very.
Speaker 7: Few side effects.
Speaker 2: That works for pain. Not one of you sitting up there could walk in my shoes for 30 minutes. You would be begging for a gun and a bullet. I live in a level 8 to 9 pain every day. My daily functions are controlled by an electronic device so I can walk, go home and buy a nine volt battery. Put it to your tongue. Leave it there for an hour. Multiply that by ten. That's what I have through my body. 24. Seven. Stacy's. Susie. Three weeks ago, we had a meeting. You told me flat out the city of Long Beach did not have finances to investigate into how to regulate cannabis. A week and a half later.
Speaker 7: The city council awarded.
Speaker 2: The Long Beach Police Department $50,000 to better relations with businesses that serve alcohol. Wow. You care more about people who drink? Yeah, I'm looking right.
Speaker 7: At you, Stacy.
Speaker 5: Right at.
Speaker 2: You. I know you enjoy your wine.
Speaker 6: You're just as.
Speaker 2: Bad as everybody else.
Speaker 0: So let's. Let's sort of.
Speaker 2: Let's get to the point. I have a minute. 28 seconds. Do not violate the Brown Act. All right.
Speaker 0: I'm not violating the branch. You are by telling me. Go ahead, sir.
Speaker 2: You are keeping us prisoners. You are violating our Eighth Amendment rights by not allowing you have treated us like criminals. By not allowing a medication, a viable medication.
Speaker 7: With very few side effects.
Speaker 2: Very few.
Speaker 7: If any of you have ever taken pain medication.
Speaker 2: Try taking OxyContin, try taking Norco.
Speaker 7: Percocet, Soma.
Speaker 2: Lorazepam, flexor, kill all at the same time. And one day see what color your urine comes out. Then deal with that. I'm now taking one to. Oh, thank you, Ms.. Mr. Garcia, I'm sure this is very important. You have another conversation? I have. There's a medication out there that helps with pain. It's been proven by the University of California Medical Department. Came out with a study. The American Journal of Medicine has articles upon articles upon it. Where did this 50,000 come from when you don't have the money to investigate into the people who put you where you are now?
Speaker 8: If this doesn't pass favorably.
Speaker 7: I could pretty much guarantee.
Speaker 2: A lot of you won't be here next term. Have a great day.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 1: Good evening, everyone. My name is Christine Pettit. I live in the sixth district and I'm here tonight in my capacity as chair of the city's Board of Health and Human Services. The board has been discussing medical cannabis for several months. The perspectives of board members ranged on this topic. But one thing we are unified on is that health impacts should be considered in this discussion. Conversations related to medical cannabis, both at the City Council and Task Force, have focused primarily on location and zoning considerations, emergency services and financial issues. However, there has been no active consideration around health and related social impacts for the city. Neither the Health Department or the Board of Health and Human Services have been asked to weigh in on this issue. Health Department director Kelli Collopy recently provided city department heads with a memo detailing her research and perspectives on the Health and Human Services considerations related to medical marijuana dispensaries in the city of Long Beach. The Board of Health urges you to weigh in on these considerations and your deliberations. At our August meeting, board members discuss the trend toward the liberalization of marijuana regardless of its medical medicinal use, including the upcoming ballot measure that will most likely come up in 2016. In general, we think it's important that the city evaluate its capacity to address substance abuse issues that may arise from increased access access to marijuana. Long Beach is currently under-resourced when it comes to dealing with substance abuse, and there is little to no resources for youth specifically. Thank you for your consideration.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 4: Diana LA genes. I'm also the chair of the original Long Beach Medical Marijuana Task Force that formed before that when you had. I do appreciate the last speaker. She talked about the health department. And I think it's very, very important that we assign this to the health department rather than the PD. This is a health issue. So I think that's something that does need to be included. I would I would appreciate that, too, if some there was some mention of the health department and assign it to them. Also, the which should be considered is the MPAA and the CAA, which is the are the two governing state legislations now that govern patients already. So we don't need to put a whole lot of regulations in regarding the patients at this time. So what I'm asking is, is that that be removed. It's one thing to govern the dispensaries and regulate them. That's a good thing. But the patients are already governed by it. And there's many things in the draft ordinance it's overreaching. So that should be corrected. The same. And Oh, and I wanted to address Mispriced. You had mentioned about time and you know, gee, we need more time. I do want to remind this council, please, including you, Ms.. Mingo, that, uh, that this whole thing started in fall 2013. We've been two years. People. People are suffering out there. People are. Are being harmed by the prohibitionist attitude. So I'm saying I support this motion, but I'm very concerned that it'll just keep being postponed and postponed. People are being harmed. They need this medicine. They shouldn't have to go to Los Angeles or Santa Ana if we can handle it. The PD can handle 900 alcohol licenses in Long Beach. They can certainly handle 27 dispensaries. We're coming from a very different point of view. When we we were operating before, there were all these dispensaries that weren't regulated. Now we're starting from square one. It's a different situation. I do believe the Long Beach Police Department is mature enough. They can handle 27 or 30 dispensaries. So I do support the motion, but there are a number of considerations we we need to address. Thank you very much.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 6: Hello. My name's Stephanie Dawson. So I'm a resident of the second district. I would actually like to thank the council and the task force for considering the liberalization of medical cannabis and the current rules that are that abortion, that are governing the city. The present ban that we have right now, unfortunately, the only the only two groups that are helping out are scofflaws and gangsters. Every day that this that this that the current ban is kept in place means that the sales of marijuana, which are continuing, despite the ban and despite the efforts of the police department, the gross receipts that are going to there, instead of going into the into the general fund, instead of going into prop age to fix our fix our roads, instead of going into it, be used to be able to make sure that they have enough teachers to be able to provide for our children. They're going to the hands of people who are not paying taxes. They're going to the hands of people who do not have the community at heart. The industry that you have that is that is developing and within that to make it to provide safe access for cannabis throughout the state are begging for regulations. This is the only time that you will ever see a business come in to the halls of a government and say, please make sure that our product does not end up in the hands of children. Please make sure that our that our product is taxed and can benefit the community. Please make sure that clear, bright line rules are established so that we do not inadvertently screw up these licenses that we have worked so hard to maintain. The this ban that has existed for far too long has caused undue damage, but can easily be can easily be removed. The regulatory framework that's being established right now that's being discussed at the state level will provide most of the will answer most of the questions that have been that have been discussed here by the task force. The job that they've done was incredibly admirable and will aid you in developing what will work, quite what little is left for it within the discretion of local rules. I would add to there that any that the health component that is being discussed by the health that was mentioned by Christine is incredibly important. Long Beach is underserved in terms of the rehabilitative services for people who are suffering from addiction. We need an increased number of of avenues for people across across the city to. Have the services that they need to deal with addiction. And frankly, the funds that are there would be necessary to achieve this goal can be reached through the cannabis industry. Property taxes are available to BP to make or to help out or to provide for Lewes service. First, Lewes services that are presently needed here and they can be sought through a well-regulated, well-compensated industry here in the city. Thank you for your time.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 10: Good evening. Thank you, Mayor Garcia, for a wonderful job you've done since you've been mayor for the city and the rest of the city council. You're doing a great job all over the city. I can see it now. The question on marijuana, a 266 is not going to pass. I can tell you that right now the one who wrote it is sitting in jail, in federal prison under the RICO law. So the city attorney needs to do his homework.
Speaker 1: Before he.
Speaker 10: Recommend anything to the city council. That's not true. Secondly, as far as the governor is concerned, the bill will be signed by the 12th and it will be regulated under the hip a lot. How do I know? I sit on the California Medical Board and I am a member of the Democratic Governors Association. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 1: Hi. My name is Jennifer Johnson. I'm a resident in downtown Long Beach. I have disabled, fully disabled, major medical issues that required at one time nine different medications on varying schedules from once, twice, three times up to four times a daily. I had alarms on my phone not only to remind me when to take the pills, but an hour ahead of that to remind me. So I had to eat to take out pills. Thanks to medical marijuana, I have gone down to three medications on an as needed basis, which equals out to about 3 to 4 times a week with with two of them and one of them sometimes once a day I can get away with five or six times a week on that. Thanks to medical marijuana. Now, as far as the council member who asked, what's the rush, what's the hurry on this? Those of us walk in our shoes. Walk in my shoes for one day, walk in this day, say this other disabled gentleman shoes for one hour. You'll know the daily pain that we live in and the struggle that it takes for us to get our medication. I'm completely disabled. I don't drive. It takes me a minimum of two busses each way to go get my medication. In another city that is benefiting from my tax dollars on my medication. Why? When our city needs money so badly for this and for that, why can't you guys do this? Why can't you set this up to where you guys are providing our medication? You guys have the dispensaries here in our city where we live. Instead of having to travel, like I said, two busses and an hour and a half each way. And on the days when I'm not physically able to do that. That's. That's it. You guys need to do whatever it takes to provide access to our medications that we need. There's Rite-Aid. There's pharmacies all over. Please do what you need to do to provide our dispensaries. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you, ma'am. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 6: Hi. I'm Larry King. Task force member from the seventh District. And first of all, I'm appalled to hear the word ban all over again. I've been involved in this for nearly seven years. Back in 2010, my mother died while I was sitting here in this room, wasting my time with tat, with city council meetings and workshops with Eric's son and the lottery and everything. When I could have been a better caregiver to my mother in the six months before and six months after she died, I lost about a dozen close family members. And then you say, What is the hurry? People are dying. My a member of my immediate family stayed at the house here in Long Beach a couple of weeks ago. And while I'm apparently wasting my time with the task force, she committed suicide and she could have she what we did treat her and she was fine when she was on the marijuana, when she was on all the pharmaceuticals, they were they addicted her, too? She wasn't fine. And between that and the pain, just three days ago, a first cousin my age died of cancer. And I'll be going to her funeral. And in three weeks, I'll be going to another funeral for my favorite aunt. So I'll miss the 22nd. You say, What's the rush? People are dying. And then I just have I just have one more thing throughout the task force. And you're very you're very appointees. All they did was talk about enforcement and bans the ban, this ban that. And really, they didn't come to any of us that knew what we were talking about who have expertize in this. They didn't they never they not only didn't ask us for any help, every time I tried to give it, I was shut down. And now you're saying that the ordinance that I wrote, along with many experts, was not voted on? It was voted on, and it was voted on nearly unanimously by the Task Force Two to give it to you folks. And so that was the only thing I turned in because I was shut down on everything else. That's the only thing I did. I worked very hard on that ordinance and to be told now that, well, we just don't have time for it. And it was written by with the help of patients attorneys, and it was actually voted on almost unanimously by the very attorneys that were prohibitionists on the task force. So now you're telling me that it wasn't voted on when it was. I was there. So now, after seven years of of of going through this, we have nothing to show for it.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 6: Council Members Thank you for having us today. Um, I live with somewhat chronic pain. I've been a caregiver of people dying of cancer, and I wish there was a magic bullet. I really do. Right now, I have heard nothing from anybody here to address the problems, why this was banned originally, several years ago. And for that reason, I urge you to vote no at this time.
Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 1: Hi. My name is Marianne Safari. I'm a registered.
Speaker 4: Voter in Long Beach. I live in Ms..
Speaker 1: Mungo's district. I'm a chronic pain sufferer, but I'm going to urge you to vote no. My husband and I used to live in an area of Torrens called the Harbor Gateway. And one of the main reasons that we left that area and moved here was because of the dispensaries that were popping up in our neighborhood. And with those dispensaries came, uh, graffiti, with those dispensaries came crime. And, uh, we were also billboards that were, um.
Speaker 4: Advertising the doctors.
Speaker 1: Who would help people get the cards they needed to go to those dispensaries. And when we saw the people going in and out at all hours of the day and night in those dispensaries, what was very obvious was those people were not pain patients. And that's something that people aren't talking about here. Those people all look the same. And they weren't pain patients.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 3: Hello. My name is Rochelle Cramer. I am a resident of Long Beach and a voter. I urge you to vote no on what would have been the ordinance. I understand that will be likely continued, and I agree that more information needs to be disseminated to the public about 8266, and the recommendations from the task force should be better presented to the public for comment. As a realtor in Long Beach, I can say that people that I speak to, they're concerned about property values. And until there is a way that these dispensaries can be regulated properly so we know that they can be safe in our communities. I think that having them can be a real detriment to our property values and our pride in the community. So for that reason, I would urge you to vote. No, thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. I know we have former speakers. I'm going to close the speakers list. Unless there's anyone else who hasn't. Nope. Okay. I'm going to close the speakers off after the gentleman that's getting in line right now. So speaker's list is closed. Yes, sir.
Speaker 6: Good evening. I'm Doug Cramer. I'm a resident taxpayer and voter.
Speaker 2: Here in Long.
Speaker 6: Beach. I would like to respectfully request your.
Speaker 9: No vote in regards to this ordinance.
Speaker 6: I am a proponent of a continued ban of medical marijuana in Long Beach, and.
Speaker 9: I hope that you will take into account very seriously the recent experience that we have had as a.
Speaker 6: Community.
Speaker 9: With this issue, specifically the the marijuana collectives that were recently.
Speaker 6: Operating unsanctioned and illegally, which I know the task force has raised concerns about going forward, in addition to some of the crime issues.
Speaker 9: That we can directly associate with these with these entities.
Speaker 6: Specifically the shooting.
Speaker 9: In Naples that was directly tied to that.
Speaker 6: Dispensary, the high profile and very disruptive arrest in my quiet suburban.
Speaker 9: Neighborhood of a owner of a dispensary who was laundering.
Speaker 2: Cash.
Speaker 6: Among other offenses. In addition to the millions of dollars that this city has spent in.
Speaker 9: Litigation and which it's likely to incur additional millions going.
Speaker 6: Forth related.
Speaker 9: To this issue.
Speaker 6: So I respectfully request. I know we want to be compassionate as a community, but we also have to weigh the interests of the community at large. At large. And there are some serious.
Speaker 9: Safety issues here. There are some serious financial issues here. And I ask that you take them into account. And I also ask that you support at least the.
Speaker 6: Motion to table this until we have proper documentation. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you, sir. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 2: Mr. Mayor. Council Members. Good evening. Rick Adan, United Food and Commercial Workers. I'm the executive vice president of Local 324 22,000 members. We represent a little over 2000 that work here in the city of Long Beach. In addition to representing the retail food industry, we represent the retail drug industry. We represent thousands of workers throughout the state of California. The work at CVS, at Rite Aid, at drugstores, at Kaisers that dispense medicine to patients every single day. We've been on the forefront of an emerging market in this country, passing statewide legislation in New York, Minnesota, Colorado, Oregon, Washington and hopefully here in California to 66 is a piece of legislation that the young C.W., along with the labor movement, has been working together with the industry. We have never seen an opportunity like this in an emerging market where employers and labor comes together as a force to say, we want to provide good jobs to our community. We want to provide a quality service to our patients. Part of the legislation that currently exist in AB 266 will be regulations just like our pharmacists, just like our technicians that will have to go through a certification process to protect the patients out there to make sure they're getting the best service and the best trained individuals. Just like the the bag on the plastic bags. I came before this council. You are proactive and said we're not going to wait for the state. We are going to be proactive and do what we think is right for our community. That's what's right. About voting tonight in favor of the vice mayor's motion. And and Mr. Mayor. And Vice Mayor. You framed it very well. The it's most likely going to be way before the 22nd. And based on our information and based on the lobbying that we've done up in Sacramento, we believe that this is going to be done this week and sent to the governor's desk. So I applaud this council for for moving this forward tonight and and giving the patience and an opportunity to be served in this community, as well as the opportunity of what you talked about earlier, providing some quality jobs. We are talking about, based on the legislation in Sacramento, hundreds of jobs, good paying jobs for this community. So I urge the council to support the vice mayor's emotion. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 2: Hello, Mr. Mayor. Vice Mayor, Council members.
Speaker 0: Firstly, I just wanted to say I'm frustrated. I'm angry. But I'm sad.
Speaker 2: I'm sad because I work with my patients. I work with ALS patients, I work with IBS.
Speaker 0: Patients, I work with Crohn's patients.
Speaker 2: I work with mentally disabled.
Speaker 0: Patients. I work with all kinds of pain mitigation patients. But the one the one that burns me most is an.
Speaker 2: I work with our vets. This is a two page.
Speaker 0: Ordinance from the city of Malibu.
Speaker 7: Two pages.
Speaker 2: That's all it took for Malibu to get off the ground. Here we've got 52 pages. Like I said, I'm angry. And this was written in anger, so please forgive me. At 4:00 this morning, quoting from the Declaration of Independence.
Speaker 0: Governments are instituted among men.
Speaker 2: Deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
Speaker 0: The preamble states that the government derives its authority from.
Speaker 2: We the people. Now Long Beach citizens, what should we.
Speaker 0: Do now that we have in the last six.
Speaker 2: Years voted to regulate.
Speaker 0: And tax both recreational marijuana at.
Speaker 2: 15% in 2010 over 74%. Voting yes here, that number, 74%. And more recently, the voters approved a.
Speaker 0: 6% tax on medical marijuana.
Speaker 2: Over 65% voted yes. What should happen now that we see over and over that we're getting complete more than we need? 43,000 signatures. It was 2013, vice mayor, that you said that it was about time that we take into consideration the will, the wishes of 30,000 people.
Speaker 0: That was two years ago. Now.
Speaker 2: What should we do? We should try to vote you out of office because you just don't hear us.
Speaker 0: Seven years now you just don't hear us.
Speaker 2: This is the city attorney, the planning commission, the other agencies, the task force. I'm just I'm I'm completely perplexed that at this.
Speaker 0: Time, with all the science.
Speaker 2: That's clear, the fact that our would be Surgeon General Sanjay Gupta connected the dots for PTSD mitigation. And we're still talking about denying. Why do you want to make a vet who's already troubled feel like a criminal? As well as their suffering.
Speaker 0: But I read that the VA.
Speaker 2: Touts their success. They are beating their chest about a 14% reduction in suicides.
Speaker 0: You know what that means? Not 24.
Speaker 2: A day. 22 a day.
Speaker 0: And here we are talking about what.
Speaker 2: We're going to do. I appreciate very much that, Mayor, you shine a spotlight on vet homelessness. As I did speak to Chief Luna.
Speaker 0: At a town hall not too long ago, I.
Speaker 6: Said, How many negative.
Speaker 0: Interactions are vets going to have with.
Speaker 2: The Long Beach Police Department this year? Negative influence, negative interactions and could wind up dead. And it's through no fault of their own. It's our fault for not helping them. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 2: Hi.
Speaker 6: My name's Shawn Donahoe.
Speaker 9: I'm a resident of Oakland, California.
Speaker 6: And I've been working actually, I have a background in academia and then I've been.
Speaker 9: Doing campaign consulting. And then about three years ago, I co-founded the California Cannabis Industry Association. I also serve on the city of Oakland's Cannabis Regulatory Commission.
Speaker 6: I also am a senior advisor to the.
Speaker 9: California Growers, and I work with the Coalition for Cannabis Policy Reform, which is a5014.
Speaker 6: That's working on the 2016 initiative.
Speaker 9: I've been coming here since the fall of 2013 and really quite frustrated at what I see as the lack of progress. But I'm used to that. I travel around the state and I see a lot of localities that are also similarly trying to figure out.
Speaker 6: What to do.
Speaker 9: And I understand that profoundly.
Speaker 6: I see that there's a lot of communities that are facing a quandary as to what to do. As I see this absence of action at the state level.
Speaker 9: I have been working quite a lot in in the policy reform arena, and I know enough to know that the, um referred to state legislation in New York and Minnesota and Florida and Washington.
Speaker 6: There's been some horrible laws that have been passed due to certain compromises. I don't think that anything that's.
Speaker 9: Bragged about in New York, where five licenses are issued for a state of $20 million excuse me, 20 million citizens is is a good model to follow. I think, frankly, here in California, we know that we produce, frankly, the highest quality, the safest medical cannabis and cannabis produced anywhere in the world. And we have it because we have a value chain that creates value as we have different vendors that pass it on forward. And I'm extremely happy finally, after a couple of years of working in the capital for the progress that's being done with AB 266 I do see that there are some problems with the way that has been presented tonight from the Governor's draft that I'm referring to. You know, you've already missed a couple deadlines. Section 111 11 says that you're missing you're potentially missing a January one, 2016 deadline to prioritize getting the state licenses. You've also certainly missed the deadline of Section one 117, whereby there was a July 1st, 2015 deadline to get full vertical operations in localities where it's authorized excuse me, required or allowed. And and, you know, the voters voted.
Speaker 6: A year and a half ago at.
Speaker 9: Two 75% of the voters here in Long Beach voted to tax medical cannabis sales. And you're still nowhere close. So in Oakland, what we've been doing since about February is to work behind the scenes and to figure out that there's you know, there's actual business entities that are out there that are actively providing medical cannabis and medical cannabis products. I strongly urge you to disconnect the question of cultivation and manufacturing from the dispensary discussion and to mimic as you go back and study. AB 266 mimics frankly the license types that are contemplated at the state level. You're missing revenue due to delivery services that are.
Speaker 6: Delivering here year after year after year.
Speaker 9: And you're also missing out on jobs.
Speaker 6: That could be.
Speaker 9: Created by other license.
Speaker 6: Types.
Speaker 0: Thank you, sir. And the last speaker.
Speaker 2: Mayor Council. I'm just a local guy. Dean Gray. I was born raised in Long Beach. I'm 63 years old. I'm a dad of two great girls. And I'm a writer, an artist and a craftsman. My family's been in Long Beach since the 1920s. I was born in Saint Mary's Hospital, raised in California.
Speaker 6: Heights, 36, in Orange.
Speaker 2: And Jordan, high school graduate. My dad graduated from Poly. I attended Long Beach City College, California Heights Methodist Church, the North Long Beach YMCA spent a lot of time there. Now I live in Belmont Shore. Long Beach is my home and it's my hometown. I'm a businessman. I worked as a carpenter, a general contractor, a newspaper publisher and a writer. I make art, and I've used marijuana all my life. It was medical and it was recreational. Why should it matter? It made me feel good. Now I have pain. I hurt. What do pain patients look like? I'm one of them. Why should it matter? It made me feel good. Now I have a doctor's prescription to feel good, but I have to travel out of town to buy the medicine. I don't drive. That makes it difficult. Cannabis never hurt me. We all know that marijuana is not the devil weed where we were sold by the government. It's not a drug. It's a plant. It's an herb. It's a weed. It's not a drug. It's not bad. If my pursuit of happiness involves smoking pot, why would you care? I don't tell you how to relax and have a good time. I'm offended. By the words of Councilwoman Pryce, whose. Trying to ban my medicine. I don't tell you what medicine you can have or not have. I don't do that. And I don't want you to do that to me. I want to buy medicine in Long Beach. I want to pay back marijuana taxes to the city of Long Beach. I want a life to be free of pain and trouble free. And I want it to be easy to get my medicine. The business of America is business, and marijuana businesses should not be discriminated against. Prohibition makes no sense. Marijuana dispensary businesses should be regulated like coffee. Please don't delay a decision to make progress. I want to encourage Long Beach to move ahead. And that's what I expect you as leaders to do. Not to find a reason to delay this another day, another week or another year. So doesn't makes sense. Councilmember Price. Please reconsider your bias against marijuana. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you, sir. We're going to go now. Speaker's list is closed. Hopefully we just get to a vote. We've got two motions to vote on and a very long agenda still. So to take this back, we have a substantive motion on the floor. Oh, actually, Councilman Mongo wants Councilman Mongo in the ring to go to the vote.
Speaker 1: The city clerk asked me to clarify the motion, and so I guess I can do that. There are some technicalities in terms of her ability to publish the agenda item by noon on Friday. So the way that the agenda works is that all items that are being submitted for the supplemental agenda get submitted to her by noon on Friday. And even if the city attorney had submitted by the night before, it would not be able to be published until the entire packet had been proofread and attached. And there are times when she can wait as late as 4:00 in the afternoon if it's already pre proofread to make sure that's posted. And so what I'm hearing from the the constituents that have come here today and my colleagues is that we're sure the state is going to act. And so voting yes on my substitute motion only changes things. If the state hasn't acted in enough time to give the city attorney the opportunity to put the attachment on the agenda . So I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of information to constituents that I will amend the language, as Poonam has requested, which is that it is to the city clerk, so it can be published when she publishes the supplemental agenda on Friday. That adequate which ago is that adequate city attorney. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilwoman Gonzales.
Speaker 3: I just want to reiterate my support for the original motion that was on the floor, and I think this is just delaying it even further. I don't think we need to do that at this point. We know exactly the time frame for the state legislature to bring back a, you know, information on regulations. And I think the motion, original motion was very reasonable. I don't think we need to.
Speaker 1: Go forward and add some more complexity.
Speaker 3: To it. So I'll ask my colleagues to vote down the substitute motion, please.
Speaker 0: Okay. So now we go to Councilman Richardson and then to the vote.
Speaker 9: Councilman Richardson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Both of these motions are very close. And I think the the main motion does what we've asked them to do. I think the vice mayor has sort of led on this effort. And in the spirit of that, I think it's appropriate that we allow her to continue leading on this effort. So I'm going to appeal to Councilmember Mongo. It's a week and I don't I don't say I don't believe that this is about not providing input or access to information to our residents. If it hasn't materialized, then there won't be an action item on that agenda on that Tuesday because we won't have I mean, the recommendation essentially says to act based on that information. So if there's an agenda item and we don't have the information, we can't take that action. So I just think it's really close. There are significant things to discuss tonight. I don't want this to go down to a split vote because I believe it's unnecessary. So I'm going to ask you to withdraw your motion and support the vice mayor's motion.
Speaker 0: Councilman Mongo.
Speaker 1: Earlier today, someone said that I think it was the vice mayor, that the people who are speaking are people who have been involved in this since the very beginning. And today we had neighbors who have come down from the ranchos, who lived by an illegal collective, who have never come to council before and never been involved before . They hadn't received the newsletter that they receive under my leadership and known about the opportunity to come down and be engaged. And so, respectfully, I it is still possible that we will hear this on September 22nd, but if the information isn't available, it is difficult for neighbors to get off work early and to come down to City Hall to speak on items that they're passionate about. And very likely it will still happen on the 22nd. And so I stand by. That information is necessary to make good decisions, and I urge the council to reconsider. And please, if we don't have the information by the Friday before at 5 p.m. to just wait one meeting, it's one meeting and it's the information people need to make good decisions. And for our newspapers to write accurate articles so that neighbors can get involved to know what's going on.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Now we'll go to the vote. We have a substitute motion by Councilwoman Mongo. Please cast your votes.
Speaker 1: Motion fails two years.
Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you. And now we have the original version, which is by Vice Mayor Lowenthal. Please cast your votes.
Speaker 1: Motion carries.
Speaker 0: Thank you all very much. I'm going to ask thank you. All the participants, the task force members. I know this is a very passionate issue for a lot of people. I think we get that. So thank you all. Let me get the consent calendar done really quick and then we're going to go from there. Can I get a motion? And the second. Thank you. Any public comment on consent? Please cast your votes. | Agenda Item | Recommendation to receive and file the Medical Cannabis Task Force recommendations regarding the establishment of a medical cannabis regulatory ordinance. (Citywide) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_09012015_15-0879 | Speaker 4: Item 27 is a recommendation to request city attorney to draft a resolution in support of Long Beach hosting the National League of Cities 2018 Cities Summit. I'm sorry, Tate. I was just checking if you were in detention.
Speaker 8: That was on 28. You were talking about 27.
Speaker 4: 28 is the recommendation to request a public report from the city manager with input from the Fire Chief and financial management on the contingency plans and budgetary impacts of the decision by the City of Los Angeles. I'm sorry. Los Angeles County Emergency Medical Services EMS to terminate Long Beach Fire Department's Rapid Medical Deployment Pilot Project RMD effective immediately and the EMS requirement that effective October one, 2015, all approved Long Beach Fire Departments, LLC units must be staffed with two licensed and county accredited paramedics. The City manager.
Speaker 10: Vice Mayor. Council members. If we can get the PowerPoint up. You go to the first page. So here's. There we go, vice mayor councilmembers. We're here to make a quick presentation regarding the R&D program and you'll see the background alternatives approval process, the training implementation, data collection analysis, where we now and what the next steps are. So as you are all aware, late last week we received notice from the county's emergency medical services agency that they are discontinuing our pilot rapid medical deployment program, R&D. We have also recently learned that there is no opportunity to appeal this decision. As your city manager, I want to let the council and the public know that we fully intend to comply with the direction of the agency. We certainly plan to meet with the commission and the agency soon to discuss returning to our previous paramedic model as well as to do a review of the highs and lows of the R&D program. Before we go into the presentation, I do want to take this opportunity to personally thank our entire fire department management team Chief Terry, Deputy Chiefs Sergeant Segura, and Brandt's Assistant Chiefs Kean and Rowe and Administrative Bureau Manager David Honey. As a team. They have worked tirelessly for the past three years on an outside the box program to present a budget solution, which also allowed us to enhance services, if only temporarily. In a moment, I will turn this over to Chief Terry and the management team to simply go over the history of the program, how it came about, how it has been measured, and what we view to be some of the more impressive successes. Obviously, the EMS agency, as sometimes is the case with new approaches to service delivery, has reached some different conclusions in a few areas. But we would like to present to you, per your request, the results of the program and remind us all why we pursued this, pursued this approach in the first place. So the next slide. So let's go back to post-recession and let's look in 2011. So to that assessment, here's what we've been doing with our fire department. We eliminated engine 101 due to budget cuts. We eliminated Rescue 12, the ALS unit, we reduced staffing at Station 14, and we began the daily engine reduction program, sometimes called a brownout. The following year, in 2012, there were more tart cuts. We eliminated another engine. This time, engine 18, we eliminated a truck, truck 14. In 2013, there were still cuts. We eliminated engine 17, we relocated Engine eight to Station 14, and here we adopted the RMD program in the budget to deal with these cuts that we wouldn't have to be facing cutting more engines or cutting more trucks or cutting more or less programs. So in 2014, we implemented the RMD pilot program. While we implemented this program as a budget saving measure. To save the budget, we're also able to do some service enhancements. We added rescue number 12. That's converted vehicles to an A+. We added rescue number 22, converted a bill to an A+. We added rescue three, converted a blessed to an A+. And we also added two more ambulances. Blaze ambulances. Come 2015. No more cuts. The pilot program continued and we were able to add one more ambulance Bell's unit. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Chief three and the management team to go over the deployment alternatives and the next steps.
Speaker 11: Mr. Mayor, council members, we thank you. On behalf of my entire team, we thank you for allowing us the opportunity to discuss the recent developments with the Rapid Medic deployment or RMD pilot program. As you are well aware, since July 10th of 2014, we have deployed our paramedics in a different configuration than we had done previously over the past year of the program's implementation. I have often stated publicly that the program was functioning well and the data that was being produced showed no signs of care, degradation or cause for concern. Last week, however, we received a letter from the local EMS agency that is both surprising and alarming. I want to recognize that if I were in your shoes, I would have a number of questions as to why the EMS agency would shut down a program that we, as the fire department said, is functioning well. Tonight with this presentation, I will recap how this program came to be and provide you with a number of specific data elements that support the fact that the RMD program is an effective service delivery model and has shown statistically significant improvements in a number of areas versus our previous model. However, I do want you to know that we will comply with the direction given us by the EMS agency. As the city manager mentioned, the idea for RMD was not something we created on our own. Of the 33 emergency medical services agencies in the state, 29 of them had already implemented a version of the RMD program. We found that in Los Angeles County, the city of Los Angeles had actually been granted the approval of a single paramedic system in 1999, but never moved forward with the implementation. During our research, we determined that there was value in maintaining a two paramedic system, but did not see why those two paramedics necessarily needed to arrive on a single apparatus. So taking examples, we found that we're functioning at a high level from throughout the state. We made some adjustments to those models to fit our needs here in Long Beach. In 2011, we sent a letter to the EMS agency requesting the ability to engage in a pilot program for deployment of our paramedics. The letter was addressed to Emergency Medical Services Director Kathy Chidester and the medical director, Dr. Bill Koenig. At the time, we presented the idea to the city manager and the City Council for discussion. Concurrently, we engaged in meetings with the EMS agency to develop a guidance policy that would provide the guidelines for the pilot program and also kept the City Council informed through study sessions, budget oversight committee, public safety committee and full city council meetings. In addition, we engaged in discussions with our union on multiple occasions regarding the effects of implementing this program. Excuse me. In June of 2013, the pilot project was endorsed by the full EMS Commission, and we reported to the City Council that we had been granted approval to move forward. Shortly thereafter, we were informed by the agency director that we could not move forward with implementation until policy reference 407 had been vetted by the various subcommittees of the agency. During that process, at an EMS commission meeting, a request to establish the Data Safety Monitoring Board or DSB was made and approved by the Commission. This was codified in the draft 407 guidance policy. Back at one. As noted earlier, the idea for R&D program, the R&D program was initially presented to the EMC Agency by then Fire Chief Allan Pat Alano as a pilot study. The concept for the pilot program was vetted through multiple committees and stakeholders in Los Angeles County, and in May of 2013, the Long Beach Fire Department submitted our pilot project to the EMC Agency for their approval. The next step for us at this point was to update the policy reference number 407, which outlined all of the requirements of the RMD pilot project. Finally, the Data Safety Monitoring Board was created and officially formed by the EMC Commission as part of the policy reference. 407 The EMC Commission created the DSM-V. The board is comprised of four distinguished physicians and etiquette educators from Los Angeles County. The board was tasked with collecting raw data from the RMD program to review and analyze program performance and to identify any issues that could be a cause for concern related to patient care and safety. During the past year of program implementation, we have sent raw data once a month to the DSM B and Agency for review. The DSM-V focused their review on 32 specific data points and provided periodic updates to the full EMC Commission regarding the effectiveness of the program. Concurrently to seeking EMC Agency approval to begin the pilot program, we also provided regular briefings to the City Council through budget process and through periodic status updates to the full City Council, the Budget Oversight Committee, the Public Safety Committee. And in addition, we met with the Firefighters Association on numerous occasions to discuss the effects of the R&D program meetings. Those meetings were held on August of 2012, December of 2012, January of 2013, April of 2013. July of 2013. October of 2013 and April of 2014. During the discussion phase of the pilot program, we highlighted a number of potential advantages and some disadvantages of the proposed program. Implementation of the program would increase the number of advanced life support or ALS units citywide. We would shift from a system of paramedics on only 17 units in the city to a system with paramedics on all 29 units and around 29 units in the city. The program did provide the ability to add paramedic ambulances to stations that currently had none. Specifically stations 12, station three, and Station 22. Response time citywide to get a paramedic on scene of a critical call would improve with the new system. And we realized a dramatic reduction in a reliance on automatic aid from Los Angeles County Fire Department and Orange County Fire. In a year prior to RMD, we relied on L.A. County. Over 200 times to run calls for service in the city of Long Beach. And during the past year of armed implementation, we have only relied on them ten times for assistance. Additionally, we saw a number of enhancements in patient care outcomes and finally, implementation of our M.D. stabilized our budget. The disadvantages of the program centered around the impact of change. The change of deployment would alter a system that had been in place since the early 1970s. We did not minimize this concern and knew going into initial discussions this would be a hotly contested issue by our union, by neighboring unions in Los Angeles County and other stakeholder groups. For the past three years, the EMS agency has received numerous communications from groups that opposed this change. Another disadvantage of the program is a reduction in daily sworn staffing. This reduction, which enabled us to meet our budgeted goals, did reduce the number of sworn firefighters on duty each day and caused us to change our standard operating procedures and revise how we respond to certain non-emergency medical service related calls prior to the implementation of the RMD. Prior to implementation of the program, we engaged in a very robust training effort to ensure our people were well versed on the new program components. We assembled a team of department members to help create the Armed Manual that covered specific operating procedures on various call types not related to EMS that our people face. We conducted department wide training on the RMD program. We established a lengthened academy for our ambulance operators and increased driver training they received prior to moving to field operations. We continued to solicit feedback from the rank and file to identify potential areas of concern that needed to be addressed. And we provided continuing education and ongoing review process of the program and the various components. We convened an armed working group to address staff concerns and discuss potential improvements. R&D after all of this was implemented on July 10th, 2014, after over two years of discussion, meetings and preparation with the implementation, we began a two year pilot program on the new deployment model. We immediately began the process of collecting data that was required of the pilot program that we agreed to send to the SMB and the agency monthly, talking about how we collect our data. One big component of the R&D program is data collection. In order to effectively monitor the system, data was required to be sent to the by an emergency medical services agency on a monthly basis. Initially, we had planned on utilizing electronic patient care records, but a decision was made by the EMS Commission prior to the start of the RMD program that we should continue to submit our data in the same method in which it had been submitted for the two years of retrospective retrospective excuse me, study material. Our data originates a few different ways. First is a CAD or computer aided dispatch data. Second, the majority of the data that we see that comes from comes from individual emergency medical service or EMS report forms that are generated by our field personnel. These forms are manually filled in either by a company officer or captain or the paramedic while on a call for service. This has historically proven to be the most accurate form of data we collect as the information is compiled by the rank and file members in the field and includes a number of data sets not found with the CAD data. Lastly, many pieces of equipment used in the field timestamp the data being produced by those machines and for example, Cardiac Monitor has the ability to electronically transmit data directly to a hospital telemetry machine and show real time what paramedics are seeing in the field. This year, we sent nearly 15,000 emergency medical reports to the DSM-V, an agency to review. These reports were sent over in their raw form, not manipulated or altered in any way. And the Data Safety Monitoring Board evaluated those reports to evaluate our program. This slide shows some key data points that the Data Safety Monitoring Board was reviewing and a comparison between pre RMD and post RMD outcomes. Those areas that are highlighted in green on this slide indicate enhancements in our system over the past year. Next slide. This. Here is a summary of more specific data points that clearly show some enhancements in our system. The response time section at the top. Chest pain, cardiac arrest and trauma are all data sets that were generated by the Data Safety Monitoring Board and show pre RMD and post RMD response times for the first paramedic arrival on scene. The second area down below call volumes per rescue shows this is an average of all of our rescue ambulances pre RMD we averaged 13.1 calls per day per ambulance and post RMD 11.7 calls per day and at the bottom are reliance on automatic aid with Los Angeles County pre rmd 292 calls for service and post ten calls for service and Orange County 450 calls and post 218 calls for service. Since the inception of the pilot program, we've been in constant contact with the Emergency Medical Services Agency regarding the overall performance of the system and the specific data points being monitored in conjunction with our medical director, Dr. Steve Shea, who is here this evening. We have been responsive to any and all questions or concerns that the agency may have. In addition, we have brought forward a number of issues that we felt needed to be adjusted to make our system more effective. During the pilot project, we have only received formal communication from the agency on three occasions. Issues raised by the EMS Commission and EMS agency have been shared with the city manager and the City Council and the previous City Council and meetings throughout the pilot project. The first was the first communication we received from the agency was related to an issue we brought to the attention of the agency when we informed them that due to the large number of basic life support or BLS level non-emergent patients in certain areas along beach. We wanted to put basic life support ambulances into service to address those calls. On the heels of that move, we received a letter from the and the EMS agency stating that that we were not meeting the three minute time differential for arrival of the second paramedic, which was specified in the 407 policy. This specific section of policy states that we need to have a second paramedic arrive within 3 minutes of the first paramedic. 95% of the time, after receiving a letter from the agency stating they were putting our program on a plan for improvement. We met with the director regarding this requirement. We then went before the full EMS commission to discuss this section of policy, and their response was a decision to defer any penalties imposed on the noncompliance of Long Beach Fire Department in meeting this requirement that a one plus one staffed ALS or advanced life support units arriving at the scene of an incident within 3 minutes of 95% of each other of the time. And that that we would report back with calculated, budget driven data as to why we couldn't provide more units. One of their questions there was, why can't we just add more ambulances into the system? The second communication we received came in May. This was a letter that came from the Data Safety Monitoring Board, and it was related to the review of our data. Excerpts from this letter will be shown on the next slide. And finally, the last piece of formal communication came to us last Wednesday stating that the program would be terminated. And I will discuss this letter in a few slides. A new medical director, Dr. Gachet Hill, was appointed to the position of medical director for the local EMS agency on July 1st, after the retirement of medical medical director Dr. Cavanagh, who had been with us since the start of the program. The DSM v letter. This slide shows excerpts from the letter that we received in May of this year from the Data Safety Monitoring Board. This same information was presented to the full EMS commission in June of this year. This, of course, is a very positive letter from the Data Safety Monitoring Board about the RMD program. On August 5th, the newly appointed medical director asked to conduct a ride along to see the R&D program firsthand. This was the third such ride along conducted by a member of the EMS agency over the past year. Medical director Dr. Gachet Hill Road, along at Station one for 4 hours. Following this ride along, the medical director asked for a meeting regarding her observations. On August 13th, we met with the EMS agency and brought up and they brought up numerous concerns with the RMD program, which are now referenced in their letter. We we responded to all issues that they raised at that at this meeting. We're also very clear that our own medical director, Dr. Steve Shea, who is the architect of our paramedic program in Long Beach and who has been our medical director for over 30 years, would be the first person to pull the plug on a program that was a risk to public safety or a degradation of patient care. At this point, I'd like to welcome Dr. Steve Shea to come up to the microphone, and he's going to specifically address one component of the letter that was related to the fallouts that specifically deal with medical conditions and medical complaints. These were items that were put in by the medical doctor, and our medical director wanted to respond to those issues just as way of introduction. Dr. Steve Shea is our medical director. He's the medical director at St Mary Medical Center. He has been the primary and chief architect of the paramedic program in Long Beach since the early 1970s and has been with us every step of the way through this pilot project up until this point. So with that, Dr. Shea.
Speaker 6: I've been here.
Speaker 2: A long time. Yeah.
Speaker 6: I've been here a long time, and I've seen this program grow and develop and become. I think the premiere program in all of Los Angeles County, and there's lots of reasons for that. But when we got the termination letter, I was very surprised, too, to actually have gotten the letter and was surprised by some of the language in the letter. They talked about fallouts and, you know, fallout to me. Sounds like we did something wrong. And when you look at what a fallout really is, we looked at the four or seven requirements that actually we helped develop. And one of the requirements of that was that we guaranteed we'd be having two paramedics in the ambulance transporting Tier one patients. Now, a Tier one patient is somebody that has more likelihood to become unstable and require more treatment than our average patient. So we put that in the 407. We would accomplish that 100% of the time. And we do not accomplish that 100% of the time. And so those all came back as fallouts. Now, we reviewed all the fallout. We sent all the fallouts to the DSM-V. And in my way of thinking, fallout is something where there's an adverse patient outcome. In the fallouts, all the fallouts that we reviewed, we saw no adverse patient outcomes. So even though the numbers that and and we dispute the numbers we got from the county, we actually gave them the reports. I reviewed the reports that they reviewed. I they're their numbers aren't entirely accurate, but there are some fallouts in that. There were cases where two paramedics were not in the back of the ambulance transporting a Tier one patient to the hospital. In most of those cases, the patient improved at the scene, was stable, and there was no need for two paramedics in the back of the ambulance. In our old system. We had two paramedics in the ambulance, but one was driving the ambulance. So what we were doing certainly was above and beyond what we had done in the old system. So to call those fallouts, I think, is a little bit of a misnomer. Now. Do I think this system is better than the old system? Yes, I do. And I'll tell you why. We know that we get paramedics to the scene quicker in the new system than we did in the old system. There are a few time sensitive emergency conditions where that makes a difference. Patients with chest pain. Patients in cardiac arrest, trauma patients. The data from the DSM-V confirmed that in each of those emergencies, we were getting paramedics to the patient quicker than the old system. So I think it's a better system. Our numbers for resuscitated cardiac arrest went up significantly. Some people can say that maybe that's not statistically significant because the numbers aren't that big. But if you look at the data, there's a definite trend to more patients being successfully resuscitated under the new system. So do I think it's a better system? Yes, I do. Do I think we should close the system down? No, I don't. I think that. I think the county. Is jumping the gun with their fallout and how they've been analyzed. And I would like to get a meeting with Dr. Gachet to go over every single one of the fallouts individually. And determine whether or not we really have an issue. I don't believe there is I don't believe we we we have not uncovered one case where a patient was put in jeopardy because we didn't have two paramedics in the back of the ambulance and the county to this at this time has not given us any as well.
Speaker 8: So that's.
Speaker 6: That's kind of my read on the fallouts in and the system, and I still believe it's a better system.
Speaker 11: Thank you, Dr. Shay. So next steps. We do plan to meet with the EMC Commission at their next scheduled meeting to review the letter and discuss transitioning back to the previous model. We will develop solutions to meet fire department budget goals and we will work closely with the city manager and financial management to identify viable solutions. We will comply with the direction provided by the EMS agency and we will revert our system as per their requirements in this letter back to the pre RMD staffing model. With that, I would like to turn it over for to the last slide for Budget Manager Leah Erickson.
Speaker 1: In regards to the budget impact because we received this notice at this late date in the budget process. We are not recommending reopening the budget process. This termination of our M2, you will have an estimated $1.4 million budget impact to fire and rather than having fire come up with structural service reductions to cover those costs, we have a three pronged approach. First, we will house fire to make adjustments to minimize the FY16 budget impact within their budget. But then we'll also be tracking the first responder fee revenue that is being received in FY 16 and we'll be using that to help cover the additional costs. And if those two are not enough, we also recommend reserving 1.4 million of any 515 year end savings. Typically year end, we do have savings that do occur and that money will be a backstop in case there is not enough first responder fee revenue or other reductions in the fire budget to cover these additional costs. That is the solution for a proposed solution for 16, and any permanent fix will need to be addressed in the FY17 budget process.
Speaker 10: So mayor, vice mayor, councilmembers would be happy to respond to any questions now.
Speaker 0: Thank you. I'm going to turn this over to the makers of the motion first. Councilmember Austin.
Speaker 7: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I want to thank Mr. Manager, the fire chief and financial services for the report. I will just tell you that I was extremely taken aback last week when we received this information and this news. And so that is why I took a lead. And I want to thank Council Member Supernova and you Ranga for for signing on to this supplemental agenda item because it's obviously has a major impact on our governance, our budgeting, and particularly for FY16. The information that we read from the the County Emergency Services Emergency Medical Services Agency is a 180 degrees different from what was represented to us on August 18th at our budget meeting from the fire department. And so I'm I'm really perplexed here. I appreciate the the detailed report chronicling how we have arrived to this this point. I have been a I think I've been critical of this this model from from day one, because I was concerned about patient care. I and to Dr. Shea's point, I mean, I do appreciate your opinion, sir, and your service to our city. But it's clear that the the the agency for the county clearly disagrees with your assessment of our program. I do have a couple of questions, and I know there are probably many others behind the rail. But but during the hearing on the 18th, Chief, do you consistently cited reports of the Debris Data Safety Monitoring Board and stated that the data indicated that R&D posed no risk to patient safety. However, the EMS agency later indicated the DMA. The SMB monitoring is only one aspect of the evaluation and not reflective of the entire program evaluation. Did any other parts of the evaluation process raise any other red flags along the way for you, as apparently it did for the agency staff? Were there any other red flags?
Speaker 11: Councilmember. As we went through the process, the only other formal red flag that came up was when we were sent a letter from the EMS agency stating that we were not complying with a section of the four or seven policy that stated we would have the first paramedic and the second paramedic arrive within 3 minutes of each other. That came to us in the form of a of a letter and a formal kind of plan for improvement. We then went back to the EMS agency and discussed what we would do to to work toward that. We had multiple discussions on that issue. Ultimately, we ended up going before the full EMS commission to discuss that specific issue, to discuss that specific section of the policy and its applicability to any other EMS provider in Los Angeles County, which it was not. And ultimately, the EMS commission, the EMS commission, by by motion and a unanimous vote stated that they didn't want to take that section out of the policy, but they were not going to hold us accountable or punish us for not meeting it. But other than that, the vast majority of the communication we had from the EMS agency over the past year of the program has been positive.
Speaker 7: So so when was that that when did you get that communication from the MSA?
Speaker 11: That was you know, I don't have I we'll look up the exact date of the letter, so I give you the exact date. I don't have it off the topic.
Speaker 7: Was it within the last month?
Speaker 11: No, it was it was it was a while back. It would have been. I don't want to give you a I don't want to speculate on the date, but I'll get it for you right now.
Speaker 7: So so in your comments in your report, you also mentioned that there was a four hour ride along. And then after the ride along, there was there was some comments and some concerns raised. Is that true?
Speaker 11: Yes, sir.
Speaker 7: Okay. Is there any reason why you chose to withhold that information from the council when you were asked about the validity or any any risk with in terms of the armed process moving forward?
Speaker 11: COUNCILMEMBER Well, we've had, as I mentioned over the past year, on three occasions, we've had members of the EMS agency come right along with us just to evaluate or just to watch the program, monitor it, evaluate it. Doctor, the new medical director asked for asked for the ability to go ride along. She went and rode along. That's a fairly normal practice, not something I would normally bring up to the council. I didn't see any reason to inform the council that the agency was riding along with us on that date. And back to your previous question, that letter on the on the three minute time differential was sent to us on October 22nd, 2014.
Speaker 7: Okay. And then I'm also in reviewing the letter, it cites a review of 269 records provided by the fire department in which this patient was transported prior to the arrival on scene of a second paramedic. Okay. And if I understand that letter correctly, the EMS indicated that the the fire department deemed all of those cases to be appropriate departure from Tier one transport criteria. Or, in other words, that the patient would be transported by two paramedics. The however, the EMS stated that 48% of the cases, nearly half of them had significant concerns about patient stability in the field. These cases included acute stroke patients, patients in respiratory distress, trauma patients, children with apparent life threatening events, among others. And the letter stated that these issues are too great to ignore and pose immediate threat to patient safety. First of all. Would you agree with that characterization that these cases represent an immediate threat to patient safety? And if not, why not?
Speaker 11: No, sir, I do not agree with that. I believe that I. I do not agree with that. So of the 268, 269 patients that they're referring to, they cut that number down to 128 that they say were still in question, which amounts to out of the 15,000 reports we sent them over the past year, it amounts to 0.08% of our calls for service. And as Dr. Shea mentioned, each and every one of those calls for service that are questioned as to whether or not they are in in compliance with the policy or out get manually reviewed and manually evaluated by both our education team, by Dr. Shea and by the EMS director. We've had a number of these calls that we've looked at as recently as earlier today. And I'll give you an example of one, a patient, 40 year old male that was presenting with cool and clammy skin with a blood pressure of 80 over 40 at the beach after being stung by a stingray. The the patient had just been stung by a stingray. He was cool and clammy because he was wet because he had just been taken out of the ocean. And 5 minutes later, 10 minutes later, when they reevaluated his vital signs, his blood pressure came back up to a normal limit. The EMS agency said that was a fall out, that it had fallen out of our Tier one transport criteria when in fact, the patient had no medical reason to be transported to the hospital at all. So we evaluate each and every one of those things that are considered fallouts, as does Dr. Shea and the EMS agency. And so, no, I would not say that they just automatically constitute an emergent situation for the community.
Speaker 7: So is the EMS agency considered a credible authority in terms of governance over over help services in the county, other fire departments?
Speaker 11: Yes, sir. The EMS the EMS agency provides all the pre-hospital guidelines that we follow to deliver emergency medical service. Yes.
Speaker 7: So it sounds to me like we have some serious dispute with with this this credible body, and that that raises some some serious concerns with me. I mean, I don't know that we're in a in a position to necessarily take them on as a as a as a city, particularly citing the fact that they they do have some regulatory authority. I do have some some some practical questions for you. What is our current staffing level? And are there no firefighters currently in our department to restore these positions, or will it have to be accomplished through overtime?
Speaker 11: Councilmember the we have enough firefighters to staff the organization. What will happen when we revert back to the to the old system is a number of the people who are in a paramedic position now will not be they will revert back to they will revert back to a firefighter position and lose the they will not be functioning as a paramedic in our system anymore. So they are firefighters and they'll just go back into the system the way they were. If you recall an earlier slide, we go from 11 ambulances currently with one firefighter paramedic on it down to eight. So we believe we have enough firefighters to manage. And as a system, there could be we'd have to have I'd have to look at that with my deputy chief of operations. But there could be a need for overtime in some places, but I believe we have nothing.
Speaker 7: And in the budget presentation and I believe on August 18th, you know, the plan was to eliminate 24 positions from the budget. Is that that still going to be the plan?
Speaker 11: Yes, sir.
Speaker 7: So we're still going to eliminate 24 positions from our budget. And because I think I ask you to question whether or not the elimination of those positions were tied to the R&D program. And you answered affirmatively.
Speaker 11: Actually, no, sir. The elimination of those 24 positions, those 24 positions were related to the daily engine reductions or the brownouts that we were carrying in our budget from a number of years back that had never that had remained in our budget, but had never been filled. So those positions had nothing to do specifically with R&D.
Speaker 7: All right. So now I'm really confused. And lastly, and I'll let my my colleagues answer their ask their questions. Are we I heard that we're not planning to appeal it, but I saw a communication earlier that we were planning to appeal it or plan to go to the Imus agency to to to challenge this race and ask questions about this on September 16th. Is that correct.
Speaker 11: Councilman? But we have no plan. We've been informed that there is no appeal process. However, the department and our medical director, Dr. Shea, will be there at the EMS commission because they're going to be giving an update on the fact that we're they're closing down the pilot program. We're going to revert back to our old system, at which point we will speak to the EMS commission about our findings throughout the program. But we're not we're not calling it an appeal. We're just going to go meet with them and discuss how we're going to revert back to our old system.
Speaker 7: Q Mr. GROSS and Lisa, thank you. I think the solutions put forward to mitigate this issue, I think they're they're they're credible options for us to consider as a council. And I just got to say, I'm really disappointed that we are at this point. I know there were high hopes for this R&D model to be successful and forward for it to be a model for for fire agencies across the state. I still think that our model was unique to Long Beach and and and, you know, even though it was implemented and similar models are under are being practiced in other areas of the state, none are as large as our department. And the the the the ideal of putting a sworn firefighter on a rig with a non sworn EMT is. It was I think it was it was fatally flawed. And yes, there were challenges to that. But, you know, at the same time, you know, you have to to step out there and be bold sometimes. But at the same time, I'm going to just be very straightforward. When I read this, I felt like I was was misled. I felt like I was misinformed by by our staff. And that was disappointing to me.
Speaker 0: Councilwoman Price.
Speaker 8: He.
Speaker 0: I'm sorry. Go.
Speaker 8: Don't go there. Thank you, Mayor. I'm seconding this motion. I agree with. With the Councilmember Austin. Either make a motion.
Speaker 7: So the motion is to receive and filed this report and to direct city management, not to appeal the the decision of the Emergency Medical Service Agency.
Speaker 8: Okay. This procedure. I too was very disappointed in the letter. Obviously, when this first came up to me last year, I did question the. Pilot program aspect of this of this whole whole thing and wanted to go ahead and and approved it at the time, considering that it was a pilot program. However, the last budget hearing that we had with the fire department was that it was moving forward, that it was budgeted fully as a pilot project. And yet this letter says they want to go back into contingency to your contingency plan. It's clearly stated here, I didn't see a contingency plan in here. So I'm guessing that the contingency plan is a reversion to pre rmd service levels.
Speaker 11: Council member. Yes, that's true. We sent email communication, a memo type communication to the EMC Agency as part of the creation of the governing document of this program. That that basically said it would be the responsibility of the fire department, the city manager, and ultimately the city council determined to determine how we would revert back to a previous deployment model should we be required to do it. We we didn't get very specific in that in that communication with the county because we didn't want to relinquish the control of this city council or the city manager or the fire department administration to make decisions on how we deploy our resources.
Speaker 8: And that's that's good. However, when it comes down to the budget, we're it's not there. I mean, we now have a hole of 1.4 million that we're looking at. Financial management is proposing a a fix, if you will, looking at the. What's that? I misplaced it near the end here. The. First responder fee using those in addition to any savings that we have at the end of the year. And then some other I guess some other fees that will be addressed out there. And that's my that's that's my problem. That's my concern, is that now that the pilot program basically has been terminated, from what I understand, there is no appeal process to this. So we're stuck with a pilot program that did not work and and without a budget to fix it. So now we're looking at trying to fix a hole in in the fire department's budget to get to revert back to a process that we should have. Basically, I think prudence would have told us to keep that budget in there somewhere in case or in the event of an emergency where this pilot program failed. And we didn't do that. So I'm very concerned with with that aspect of what we're dealing with today. So I'm checking in this motion.
Speaker 10: Councilmember, I do want to point out, though, we're no worse shape off than we were when this started because we had a $1.5 million hole. This program backed it up. So we're just back to where we started. So rather than eliminating an engine or a truck, we tried to do this program. So no one has that intent to make that recommendation. Now, you heard what Mr. GROSS and Ms.. Erickson are saying to to deal with the 1.5 million. But we had a $1.5 million hole, whether we did this program or not.
Speaker 0: Come tomorrow. You are wrapped up. Okay. Councilman Price.
Speaker 3: Thank you. I appreciate the presentation tonight by city staff on this issue. I know that you have been working diligently since you received. The letter on last Wednesday. So I appreciate your efforts in trying to update us. And I get the sense from the the presentation tonight that all parties, in terms of city staff, are in agreement that there was a good faith basis in regards to the implementation and the operation of the project. And I respect that and I appreciate that. And while I appreciate the opinions regarding the effectiveness of the model and some viewpoints, I will say that that conclusion is very much in dispute at this juncture, and the authors of the report are not here to defend their findings. And so while I appreciate the position that our staff has taken in, our leadership has taken in regards to the effectiveness of the model and the foundations that led to the findings of the EMS report maybe being different. We are now in a situation where we as a city are in receipt of a letter from a regulatory agency that raises some very serious concerns about patient care standards. And that is that's the reality. That's the reality that we find ourselves in. And I think it's very important.
Speaker 1: At this.
Speaker 3: At this juncture that when I wanted to offer a friendly, although it was implied in the presentation, that we immediately cease the R&D model in light of the findings that have been given to us in writing and appear to in no uncertain terms, indicate a concern from a regulatory agency regarding the safety of this model for potential patients. So I'd like to offer that friendly.
Speaker 0: Except hey, there's a motion and a friendly that was accepted. Councilman Price, did you have anything additional? I have. Please go ahead.
Speaker 3: In regards to the funding. You know, I think we as council members do our very best, each and every one of us, to understand areas where we don't have expertize in regards to staffing. And, you know, some of the data that you presented tonight, it's very natural for you to present this data. It's this is the language that you speak. But to us, many of us don't have that expertize. And so the big picture issue, I would say, and I don't mean to speak for my colleagues, but I think we look to our city leaders to come up with the innovative ways to resolve this issue. This is now an issue that we've all found ourselves in a predicament. And how we respond to this predicament is, you know, as a member of the city council in this body, I would be looking to our city leadership, specifically our city manager and his team, to help come up with innovative ways to resolve this issue that we now are faced with. And so. I think while I will be open, I'll be open to hearing what some of the ideas and and thoughts of where the funding will come from. And while I appreciate our financial management team coming up with some temporary fixes, I think this presents more of a long term issue that we're going to have to think about, because moving forward, we had all hoped and expected. And I. I do believe that. The fire chief and city management staff believed that the pilot program was something that was going to be well-received and something that was going to be a long term methodology to be used by the city. And so we've based a lot of budget projections on that. And now that has changed. That reality has changed. So, you know, I'd be interested in finding out how we deal with this tomorrow, how we deal with it in FY 16 and what the plan is long term moving forward. And I look really I look to you for guidance. I look to our city management team for guidance in that regard. This is your area of expertize we're looking for from direction for we're looking for direction from you as a team and specifically our city manager who who helps guide us in all things impacting the city through his various department heads. So I want to thank you for the presentation. And again, you know, regardless of of what happens in resolving some of the findings and whether or not there is some agreement on those disputes in regards to the foundations of the either parties opinions, I think all of that is is to be discussed at some future time because at this juncture, we have a report that we need to deal with and act upon. And and I believe we're doing that by tonight's action. So thank you very much.
Speaker 0: Thank you. A Councilmember Richardson.
Speaker 4: Mr. Mayor, can we have the friendly repeated?
Speaker 0: Absolutely. Mr. City Turner. We actually repeat the whole motion as it stands.
Speaker 8: Mayor members of the Council, the motion, as I understand it, by council member Austin and seconded by Councilmember Iraq, is.
Speaker 10: To receive and file the report and not to appeal the decision and that the friendly amendment was to terminate the.
Speaker 8: R&D program immediately. I would like some clarification on immediately, I believe.
Speaker 10: The letter indicated.
Speaker 6: By October 1st and.
Speaker 8: That if more time was needed, the city needed to notify the department by I.
Speaker 6: Think it was September 15th.
Speaker 8: I, I certainly am not the person to answer that question of whether what is immediate and what is immediately.
Speaker 3: Well, I will try to clarify that the intent of my motion was immediately as and as of tomorrow. And the reason for that is because although we may want to be in compliance with the letter, which allows us some time, the letter also has a finding that says we're practicing a methodology that is potentially causing patient care risks. And I just don't know how we continue. Now, we're on notice in writing of a potential issue in the manner that we're delivering medical care. So I guess I would maybe. Ask the city attorney, do you believe that it would be prudent for us in light of these findings to continue the methodology, even though the regulatory agency is giving us time to comply?
Speaker 8: Well, I guess the question I would have is, is what could be done? Practically speaking, how can they convert back to the other program? And I would leave that, obviously, to the experts in the in the fire department. I think the direction that I'm taking from this, as I understand the motion, is to do it as expeditiously as possible, protecting the safety of the individuals. I, I.
Speaker 10: Also think that there is.
Speaker 8: Credible evidence and an argument to be made that, you know, there's a disagreement with.
Speaker 10: Some of the decisions and the letter itself.
Speaker 6: So the letter itself.
Speaker 8: Isn't evidence of specific conduct or instances. It's where they had concerns. And I don't have enough of the specifics and each one would be factually based. But if we had to go through each one of those, we would have to do that and we would have obviously someone looking at those two.
Speaker 3: And I and I understand that and I appreciate. But wouldn't we cease the practice and then discuss the disputes and then. I mean, to me, it seems like we would the prudent approach would be to cease a practice that is potentially detrimental. Now, that's that's my my thoughts on it. But again, I think your wording is probably better as expeditiously as practical, perhaps under the circumstances, because I do understand there are some staffing, major staffing issues that need to be worked out, and I respect that. So the intent behind the friendly is to. Respond to the findings. If we want to take them on or challenge them, that's another thing. I don't think this is the time and place to do it because I think the prudent thing to do is to err on the side of caution.
Speaker 10: If I can interrupt. We have no intention of. Of appealing. We have no intention of going up against the commission on anything. So we're accepting this totally 100%, and we're going to begin immediately. I can promise you that. We definitely I've just talked to the chief. We will have it back to the previous situation by October 1st. If we can do it before October 1st, we certainly will. But again, I just want to point out that we have no intention whatsoever about revisiting anything with the commission. We simply want to talk to them about putting going back to the. They wanted us to talk to you about going back to the the old system.
Speaker 0: Had something because I just want to weigh in, Mr.. Mr.. West. And I just want to just add to that that I am 100% in agreement with that. Just for the record, there is no appeals process. I personally talked to the medical director today, both the medical director as well as her boss. And there is no appeals process. We're not going to appeal. I think that they're aware that the chief and his team are planning to attend the meeting, in particular to share how they would kind of discontinue and go back to the old system by October one. I think the plan has always been to go and go back to the system for the letters request, but there is absolutely not going to be an appeal and there is no even if the city want it to. There's not a process. And so that's not happening.
Speaker 10: And thank you, Mayor. And I do want to point out, too, though, the EMS agency, certainly they've invested a lot in this program, too, and they want to talk to us as we unwind it, because they certainly want to review. They want to come back and interview our paramedics, interview our employees and talk to everybody in the department over the next three, four or five months on what was strong about the program, what was weak about the program. So because they're all about change as well and they see change coming to this is just a program they couldn't get behind. And we are accepting that and recognizing that. And we'll work with them after the program's concluded, because they do want to do a an analysis of the program and publish it and what went right, what went wrong. So other fire agencies can look at this.
Speaker 3: And I think and Mr. West, thank you for sharing that, because I think that's an important point. Again, we're not involved in the the details to the level that the city manager is and certainly the fire chief. And so, you know, maybe there's an aspect of this that they feel most strongly about that might have been modified or changed or tweaked. I don't know. I just want to make sure that we are respectful of the process and their intent and that we are not doing anything that could potentially appear to be ignoring.
Speaker 10: I can assure you that that will not be the case.
Speaker 3: Thank you. I appreciate that. And again, like I said at the outset, I really do believe there was a good faith basis. And I do believe that the fire chief received information along the way that was encouraging. I know that for a fact. In fact, the parts of the letters that he's shared. Prove that. However, the decision, as unexpected as it may have been, has caused us to be in a bit of a predicament, and we need to respond to that. I think in the most prudent, cautious and conservative manner.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilmember Richardson.
Speaker 9: Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and thank you for the presentation and the proposed budget solution. I clearly see that some work has been been been done in the last few days since we've gotten this notice. My top concern is the safety of our residents. And and I want to get down to some facts. I'd like to get more clarity on this particular budget solution. So to begin, I personally I know that we strive in almost everything we do budgetary to be we tossed around words like prudence and fiscally conservative. I think we've learned a good lesson. Well, I think the entire city of Long Beach has learned a good lesson that we can't if we don't control our own fate, we can't gamble by putting the lives of our residents into the hands of some other regulatory agency. So so to get to the specific questions I have number one in the presentation today, I there were a few questions I had. So first it references that we were not the first we were not the first agency to implement this. And it says that Los Angeles I think it says Los Angeles implemented the program. Is that correct? Or Los Angeles approved the program.
Speaker 11: A councilmember in 1999, then fire chief Mama Autry actually brought this brought a similar version of our M.D. before the city council and the mayor there. It was approved. It was taken over to the EMS commission, where it was also approved. So they had approval to move forward on it. It was going to be a localized deployment only in the San Fernando Valley area. And ultimately the Los Angeles City Fire Department never went into that deployment model.
Speaker 9: So the presentation, so it was approved, but it was never implemented or tested?
Speaker 11: That's correct. Now, not in Los Angeles County, no.
Speaker 9: So the presentation is misleading and makes it just at first view. I'm thinking that it just says it says where did it come from? R&D not invented. In Long Beach, 1999, City of Los Angeles Fire Department received approval. Just at a glance. I would want clarity to see, to say it was a received approval, but it was never implemented or tested. So this just appears just a bit misleading. I think secondly and I see in here there's some reference to some communication with the Data Safety Monitoring Board or or or is it, I think, August 13th, some conversation with the medical director. I know that two weeks ago I asked the question on whether we had a sense on whether or not the county would reject this program and what would be our contingency plan. And then I believe the response that we got was, Councilmember, I don't have any indication that the county would step in given the data that was submitted to them over the past year and given the data safety monitoring boards letter that they submit to the full EMS commission, I don't have any indication that the agency wouldn't look at the data and see clearly that the program is effective based on the data. So I think there's I'm unclear on to today's presentation says that that there was some conversation but last week it it says that there wasn't some conversation. And then the letter the letter that came in says that the agency conducted multiple ride alongs with different agency staff from July 2014 to August 2015 and identified major concerns regarding training, mentoring, oversight and system performance. And while some of these are expected at the beginning of the pilot, the persistence after a year is most concerning. These issues have been brought to your attention on multiple occasions, most recently during our August 13, 2015 meeting. And then and then it goes on to say that because my original question was about the contingency plan, and what I heard was that it's really not necessary to have a contingency contingency plan. But it says here that per March 14, 2014, the contingency plan for City of Long Beach paramedic pilot staffing model was referenced. So what I would have preferred to what the more clear, direct answer would have been, there is a plan. It's not very it you know, it hasn't been fully developed, but there was a plan submitted until 2014 because that was the question. So I guess I'd like for you just to respond to these three areas where I left the last council meeting with some certainty that there was no indication from EMS. But then the letter references, not only an indication, but also that we submitted a contingency plan. If you could just respond to that.
Speaker 11: COUNCILMEMBER The August 13th meeting that we had came on the heels of of a phone call, the new medical director, she did her ride along. She ended up making a phone call to Dr. Steve Shea, basically stating that she had some concerns, wanted to have a meeting. We set up the meeting on August 13th and a number of my staff went and met with the EMS agency. I need to point out clearly that this was a fairly common practice, even with the previous medical director. We. Since July 10th of 2014 to that August 15th, August 13th, excuse me, it was fairly common for them to have a question or concern come up at the EMS agency and we would mobilize our staff. Sometimes I would go some most of the time it was our staff would respond out to the agency. They would sit down and they would engage each other on whatever the issue was, whether it be a specific data set issue or response time issue or whatever. Those meetings were very, very common. And so this meeting that we had scheduled for August 13th was we viewed it as a very common practice. This was consistent with what we had dealt with all the way along when we left that meeting on that day. Everybody in the room, including Dr. I'm speaking for Dr. Shay is including Dr. Shay. And my entire staff felt that, yes, we still have some unresolved issues as we have had in the past. And we're going to continue to engage in discussions with the EMS agency, agency to ensure that they are in a comfortable place. We're in a comfortable place and we will continue to move forward. When I told you at the City Council meeting at my budget presentation that I had no expectation that based on the data we had submit to the county, that we would be in a situation where they would terminate our program. I didn't I didn't use those words there, but that was honest. We were in the midst of discussions that were consistent with probably 15 other meetings we had had over the previous year. So I had no reason to believe when we walked out of that room that the that I would we would receive a letter a week later or a week and a half later that would terminate our program. Going back to the contingency plan, the contingency plan was merely, we felt, a simple kind of budgeting exercise. If we had a $1.5 million hole in our budget that we used at that time, or $1.4 million budget, and we created armed so as to avoid a future engine closure or closing another ambulance if if that system were to be unwound. We viewed that as a simple kind of budgeting exercise for us. And we would then be faced with a $1.4 million hole in our budget, at which point I would bring my staff together. We would work with the city manager, we'd work with financial management to determine feasible solutions to the budget hole that existed if they were to unwind the program. So the contingency letter that we sent back to the agency, while not overly detailed and specific we felt was sufficient enough to give us the ability to determine what we wanted to do, should that should that situation ever arise.
Speaker 9: And, Chief, I think I understand the intent, and I think it was all well-intended, and I do understand the miscommunication on. I asked for certain things, but I think you were asking for you interpret it as did you receive anything outside of the norm? And I get that as well. As a leader, you have to make those calls. But I think I think we all understand that there are ramifications for the decisions City Council makes. I think we're elected to make those decisions with full information, not necessarily filtered information. We'd like to just know that whether there was communication or not so we can make, you know, an informed decision on our own. And that's just my opinion, I would say, next, I think the way that's been framed tonight is that this this has been a program that the city of Long Beach has openly welcomed and that this you know, this comes as a surprise. But the truth is, I've been in every city council meeting the last five years for the most part, and this has been controversial since day one. And so in that said, I know that there have been very vocal opponents and the rank and file I know that certain council members have expressed concerns with this program. And I understand your role as a leader and I totally understand the budget ramifications. My question is, what have we done over the last two years? Have we had any specific outreach in terms of joint labor management meetings to meet and consult on an informal basis, on an ongoing basis about this program so that you can bring the rank and file on on board so that maybe we wouldn't have had this this this sort of outcome. So has there been some ongoing joint labor management discussions about this program?
Speaker 11: Councilmember We, as I mentioned in my presentation, we we had seven specific meetings where we discussed the RMD implementation and the specific effects of that of this program. As we went into the program during the period of the program's implementation, we've had a number of labor management meetings scheduled, which the labor group has canceled or not showed up on about three months ago. We actually it was almost three months ago, right about three months ago under Chief Rose Leadership, he established a working group within the Department of Members of all ranks to come in and offer their opinions. What we wanted to know through that. We knew what the data says. We know what the the call the response times are. We know what the outcome data says as as I showed you in the presentation. But we wanted was more of kind of an experiential. Employee satisfaction how they feel about the program and we were going to put to see if we could identify some themes that we could put together and address with the input of, of the work, the actual people who are doing the work in the stations we have at this point, those those groups are still functioning at at this point, we may be best suited to have them turn their direction on to what the department looks like going forward into fiscal 17 or something else will continue to utilize that. But yes, we've done we've made numerous attempts to reach out and in a collaborative manner ask for and solicit input from all stakeholders in the organization
Speaker 9: . So I think and so I think it's in just as much in your interest and our department's interests that we that we build and cultivate that relationship with the rank and file and not necessarily leave it up to the union to attend certain meetings. This isn't necessarily about the the union. I think this is we bet on this. And we left it our relationships up to a non-binding board when there was essentially a number of individuals who could have canceled this program. I think considering how fluid and how volatile this program was, we should have we should moving forward, work on that rank and file relationship because it matters. Employee morale certainly matters. And it actually was represented here in this in the letter employee morale. So I would that's my suggestion moving forward now regarding the budget. I see that there are budget solutions that restore the a million and a half hole that R&D filled. Now. If we were to return to pre armed levels, how many rescues are in place at the two 2013 pre Ahmadi levels as opposed to today?
Speaker 11: Councilmember there currently we have eight advanced life support rescue ambulances in excuse me we have 11 advanced life support rescue ambulances and service. When when we revert back to the old system, we will we will have eight.
Speaker 9: So again, the the budget for the presentation today, if the question wasn't specifically asked, I think that the public might have saw it as we have a solution to where there's no service impacts. And that's not true. There will be at least three there will be three taken out of service which it which have major budget, major impacts to the quality of life of our residents. And I think that's something we need to just be upfront about and address. So that said, in terms of now that we're going back to this baseline of eight. What will be our process for deploying those eight and making sure that we that we have as as in as efficient a program as possible or a process as possible.
Speaker 11: Councilmember over as we move forward over the next few weeks, what we will do is we will utilize our run modeling software systems that we've used traditionally over the past ten years to make data driven decisions. We typically use them, unfortunately, for when we're going to select something to take out of service. In this case, we will apply all of our historical call volumes into the run modeling systems, and we will make decisions on where it's not only about rescue ambulances, because we're going from 11 rescue ambulances down back down to eight. But right now, we currently have a firefighter paramedic on every fire engine in the city. And we're going to take that back down to only nine engines in the city. So we will use our run modeling software to determine where those paramedic assessment engines should be and also where those rescue ambulances should be in order to meet the needs of the community to the best of our ability when we move forward.
Speaker 9: Thank you. So as I understand it, what you just said, we're not going to use some methodology from the past and 2013 methodology, but we're going to use data from today current data to justify how we implement this model. Is that correct?
Speaker 11: Councilmember That's correct. I mean, the data from a year and a half ago in the fire service tends to change constantly, which is why we constantly evaluate it. And because this is a big change to go go back to a system with fewer resources in it. We're going to need to reevaluate the existing data, the best up to date data that we have to determine. We're placing our resources where they need to be.
Speaker 9: Okay. So it's fair to say that whatever happens now may not be the exact same deployment strategy as it was in 2013.
Speaker 11: That's quite possible. Yes.
Speaker 9: Okay. I will I will agree with that. I think there's no magic wand to solving this. I think that we we need to look at this as we're going back to rebuild our system. We're going down eight and going to rebuild our system the right way based on today's data. And we're going to be upfront and honest about how we build that. And we're going to, you know, and acknowledge that we do need to make investments again in our fire department. So those are my statements. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Councilwoman Gonzales.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. I have a few questions myself. Of course. First, why did we believe that there was an appeal process? I understand yesterday there was mention of an appeal and now there's no option for that.
Speaker 10: Counselor. That was probably my problem. So this all just hit us pretty fresh last Thursday. So we thought there was an appeal process. I assume there was one. And as I delved into a deeper, I discovered there was not.
Speaker 3: Thank you. And then next question, which it says budget adjustments will be made, of course. Will they be in addition to the 24 eliminating the 24 vacant positions? I mean, what else are we looking at in terms of budget implications for the fire department at this time?
Speaker 1: Councilwoman Gonzalez, the fire department is tasked with trying to find ways to reduce their cost to minimize the impact of the 1.4 million. But we are not asking them to make like a fire truck eliminations or other other types of service impacts. So we really believe that the the mass vast majority of this will be covered by the first responder fee revenue and if not that, the backstop of the year and savings.
Speaker 3: Okay. And if for any reason that doesn't isn't sufficient, is there another idea?
Speaker 1: The so the we're recommending 1.4 million be set aside at year end 15 as the backstop to cover the additional costs. And so that that would assume like $0 came in with first responder fee. And we do know that there will be some revenue coming in with first responder fees since that has been approved.
Speaker 3: And then last point here. So I see in the letter it says no effective mechanism to aid high risk. And also mentions data collection is not robust enough. But then in ours, of course, it says it is.
Speaker 1: So where is the.
Speaker 3: In that sense? Where is the confusion or where is the difference? Because we see.
Speaker 1: That that's a huge.
Speaker 3: Difference. And I don't know how we work through that and still believe that that's a good model for us.
Speaker 11: Councilmember with this with the first question specific to an inability to identify high risk patients, nobody in my command staff, nobody in my in my education team, in EMS and even my medical director have the slightest idea what that is. What it refers to, we have no idea. We are baffled by that statement completely. The the robust data collection we believe that that is referring to. If you recall, prior to implementation of RMD, we had talked about going to an electronic patient care reporting system. In fact, we were all kind of ramped up to do that. We were ready to go. But just prior to implementation of our M.D., the EMS Commission came back to us and said, We want you to continue to provide your data to us the same way prospectively as you have retrospectively. So we for an apples to apples comparison, we want you to collect your data the same way going forward. So we stopped the electronic patient care reporting in our last meeting with the the director of the agency, Kathy Chidester. She pretty much she pretty much came right out and said that the way that we're collecting our data, the pen and paper reports did not provide them she felt did not provide them, and an ability to kind of query information out of the data fast enough. And we believe that that line in that letter is basically saying that they would like to see us move to electronic patient care reporting or whoever else is going to do this program, use an electronic means of communicating that data to the agency. That's what we believe.
Speaker 3: Okay. That makes sense. Thank you. And then. Okay. All my other questions were answered. I will just touch on the point that Councilwoman Price and Councilmember Richardson mentioned, and it is the relations between the rank and file and management. And I can't stress that enough. I know we know that there's issues there. And I just would hope that I think some of this could have been resolved on maybe the the back end if we would have had better relations between the two. And I think I would ask that our city management staff really step up to be able to be that liaison in between, because I think it's very important. Now we're put in a situation where on paper and.
Speaker 1: Whatever the case is, it just doesn't look.
Speaker 3: Good. And now we have the perception that we've been we have a model in place that just hasn't worked out. And whatever side we're on, it's this is now the reality that we're faced with. And so I would just really stress that somewhere along the line that we're working on that relationship somehow, some way, I think it's very important.
Speaker 1: So thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 5: Yes, thank you. You know, I think everyone kind of realized that the public safety is our most important, you know, priority to the local government, the city of Long Beach. You know, I'm always supporting our firefighters and our police because I think they do a great job and the safety, you know, to protect our city. You know, I've seen how hard that these Long Beach firefighters and the police department work. You know, so the first firefighters and the paramedic California then I am proud to support at any and all times. But. When the chief first proposed the Earth M.D. program to the city. To the city council. I have some concerns. In my opinion, our previous EMR system with the two professional firefighters and paramedics response to each serious medical call was working very well. But along with the rest of the city council was assured that the new AMD program would save our city money that would not be diminished and the quality of care would provide to our residents. In fact, we were all told that the AMD program would actually improve our emergency medical response system. And because of the cheap shots I supported and proposed our M.D. plan, as did a majority of the City Council in the Art AMD program, has been in effect for, I think, more than two years now. And throughout this time all I've heard from the fire chief is that the program was working well. And now we found out that this is not true. I am disappointed. And sadly, by this transfer, I have lost trust and confidence because the fact that all we asked for, each one of you, you know , top assistance is the true. And that says an opportunity like that, especially we're dealing with safety and protection. I think the truth is the most important thing. You know, the L.A. County Emergency Medical Services Agency canceled the R&D because it had failed. And let me read just a few of the lines from the letter sent to Chief DAVIES, director of As Agency. You know, the RDM has created an environment that is not conducive and good patient care. Rescue ambulance are being shipped with a newly trained paramedics and EMT who has very limited experience. You know, I could go on, but why should I? Because we've heard most of this tonight. Colleagues. I am disappointed that I am even in this position tonight made of the proposed project never measured up to the promise made. I'm not interested in hearing any more of the same things tonight and trying to say that program. So I think it's time for us to terminate R&D once and for all and get back to the system that provides first class care for the people of Long Beach. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Vice Marie Lowenthal.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I know there has been a lot that's said today, and I wanted to thank my colleagues for articulating their thoughts on the position that we're in right now. I especially want to thank staff having been on the council almost as long as council, actually a little couple of weeks longer than Councilman Andrews. I recognize my role in in this, and I will reiterate what Councilwoman Pryce stated, which is we look to our staff, our department heads and our city manager to come up with strategies, especially during the horrible budget times that we experience, to come up with strategies and ways to close our deficit, our budget deficit. And so we provided parameters for each department. And the chief came forward with a model that, while it may have been unique to Long Beach for a Long Beach's history is not necessarily unique in the state of California. I believe we did this in earnest and that the staff did it in earnest and also did it in good faith, as Councilwoman Pryce mentioned. And so what I hope I know that we have shared a lot of frustration this evening, and it's rightfully placed. I, I don't dispute that. I think our challenge today and what I hope that we can focus on going forward, we have a week and a half, two weeks before the charter requires us to pass the budget. While Ms.. ERICKSEN indicated that this does not impact our current budget process structurally, we do have to look forward. Councilwoman Pryce articulated that very, very well. Looking forward, our obligation is to work with our department head, work with our city manager, and ensure that we have a structural solution to this and. While it doesn't necessarily have to be visited tonight, we did earlier in the Budget Oversight Committee have a short discussion on this. And as it is the case with any other department, the department will have to manage any deficit that comes up. So and I say that just to acknowledge my role in all of this, my personal role in all of this, there is no city staff versus council leadership. This is this is all of us. And we find ourselves in this position. And I would like us to be focused on doing, again, exactly as Councilwoman Price indicated. Let's move forward. Let's terminate the pilot. I believe it was a good effort. I believe in our data. I don't want to dispute. Our own staff information at this time, I don't think that's that's healthy to do that. And I also don't want to go line for line into what the letter indicated. I that's not what we are called to do today or call to move forward. And we're called to move forward in a very judicious way. And so I support Councilwoman Price's friendly. We will move forward. And I look forward to the next couple of weeks hearing about the three prong plan that Ms.. Erickson laid out for how we will manage this deficit if there is a deficit after we look at the first responder fee within the department, because we don't need a reminder that we do not have resources in the remaining 20% of the departments to extract any deficit that comes from this. This will have to be managed by the department. And so. To the fire. Chief, I want to thank you for coming forward with. What I believe is still a good effort and coming forward tonight in sharing your thoughts on it. But I look to you to get us through this and figure out how we're going to manage our deficit. Thank you.
Speaker 0: But thank you. Jason, your comment?
Speaker 11: Yes, I was going to say thank you, vice mayor. The the reality is and I just I feel I need to say this. This is this is a profound disappointment for me and my staff as well. And the men and women in the fire department that worked so very hard on this, my entire command staff, the deputy chiefs, the assistant chiefs, our nurse educator, our director of education, the all the educators there worked very, very hard to make this program successful. Unfortunately, as a result of the letter from the EMS agency, we will revert back to the previous program. And that's that's okay. But I don't want to diminish the work, the good work that our folks did. We took a very bold step at a very uncertain time, given our budget, given a series of reductions that impacted our operational capability. And I just don't want to minimize the impact and the chance that our folks took to do the right thing for the city.
Speaker 4: And I want to thank you for saying that. I do want to state that I believe every day the good men and women of fire show up every single day to do right by our residents. And they do it not in consideration of any budget model or any particular model, but they do it because they're doing right by our residents. So thank you for that.
Speaker 0: Councilman Price.
Speaker 3: Thank you. I'll be very brief, but I do think it's very important, given the the time that. Staff and the chief and his command staff have put into this project just to say one thing, and that is we consistently ask our department heads to look for innovative ways to deal with our budget. And you did that. And I know there's a lot of department heads who are sitting in this council chamber tonight, and I don't it would be a shame if even one of them walked away from this and thought, I'm not going to try anything new. Because of a risk of what might happen. That would be a shame. And I say that. And when things like this happen, I mean, you can really only analogize them to your own life experience. And I can't tell you how many times I personally have gone to court and a judge has given a ruling or a jury has done something. And I've come back to my colleagues and said, I have no idea where that came from. That was totally unexpected. And there's a disappointment there. And I and I completely get that. But that doesn't mean I don't keep trying innovative things and ways to do things. So, you know, that may be a very lame analogy, but I say it because we have a lot of department heads who are sitting in the council chambers. And I want you to know that personally when we say please think of innovative ways to help us with this problem, I speak only for myself when I say I mean that meaningfully and authentically. It's not just lip service. It's not like try something new and if it doesn't work out, shame on you for trying something new. I'm not going to say that. The bottom line is, and I agree with the vice mayor that, you know, we don't want to be in a position where we're going line by line because it's a disputed issue. You know, there are very few facts that are undisputed in this right now at this time. Maybe that will change in the future upon further discussions with the entities, I don't know. The one thing I will say, and I respectfully I don't even know that I disagree, but I will say that if in fact, there is going to be a necessity for a budget. Cut. Let's say that are you know, the only thing that I would change is, you know, we try innovative programs and we have a definitive contingency plan. If it doesn't work out, here's what we're going to do. I know that we now have a plan that Ms.. Erickson has articulated that seems great, and I'm very hopeful that that works out for us. But if in fact, it doesn't and cuts are necessary, I will say, speaking very personally, I cannot imagine that I would support any further cuts to public safety. I'm just going to and I may be alone, a lone council member on that voting on my own, but I cannot imagine that I would support any cuts to our police department, our fire department, including our lifeguard services. I just can't imagine a scenario where I just think that everyone is operating on a bare bones level right now. And so I would be interested if there is going to be cuts to look at where else cuts might come from. Because, you know what, maybe we put off our fleet program. Maybe we I mean, I'm not I'm not saying suggesting that. I'm just saying we need to look at please, nobody nobody from Fleet get upset. I'm definitely not suggesting that. But we as a city have to work together to get through these next few years of tough times. And we have tried the proportional share model. It's it's working. There's data that supports it. But maybe as a result of this predicament, we need to do something different for a few years to make sure that we're keeping up the public safety standards that we need to keep up. Maybe we need to cut more in administrative resources. I don't know. But I'm just speaking personally on my own behalf that I would put up a very strong opposition to any further cuts for the next few years of our fire department and our police department. I just think that those are two areas where we need you more now than ever. So that's just, again, total personal opinion on that. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilor Richardson.
Speaker 9: Thank you. Just a couple more questions that that I forgot to ask. So. One of them. What is our what, chief? What would you say would be your timeline to evaluate and get back to the council and to form for your approach to deployment moving forward?
Speaker 11: Well, Councilmember, we have already started having these discussions. We will run our system, ah, run modeling system here over the next the remainder of this week and get into it next week. There's a system that we have, a process that we're going to have to go through in addition to determining where the resources go. But we're talking about rebidding. We're going to have to rebid the entire department, move people all around to different places. We're going to have to engage in a meet and confer with the union. We're going to have to talk about station moves where you move the apparatus, all that stuff. So at this point, I mean, the process, the earliest we can even consider being ready to go or being able to articulate to you what's going to happen is probably, I would say, October 1st.
Speaker 9: So that was problematic about that date. And thank you for for clarifying all the work that needs to be done to actually explain that to the Council. The challenges, the budget, the next budget will be adopted by then, and I'm not entirely sure that I want to move forward with the next budget until I actually have certainty and clarity on what our staffing models are going to be once the new fiscal year. And just another question we have. How much does one rescue cost now? And I remember the figures back in back a couple of years ago, but what do they cost today?
Speaker 11: It's about $1.1 million.
Speaker 9: 1.1 million. And then and then are we still moving forward with our academy and how much does that cost?
Speaker 11: We were budgeted just a little over $1,000,000 for Academy. We're in the process of of interviewing candidates for that academy. But we'll make a determination based on attrition months down the road as to whether or not that's going to be needed at this point.
Speaker 9: Okay. So so the the the evaluation, is there any way you can speed that up so we can get that done, say, in a week?
Speaker 11: Councilmember I don't think that's going to be possible. We want it to be accurate, which means we're going to have to load the system with a lot of data and rely on our contract partners from Deccan to put that together. So I don't think we'd be able to put that together in a week and have it be accurate.
Speaker 9: Okay, so so what? You'll get back to us October one and then so we won't know when we approve this budget, what our staffing model is going to going to look like. Okay. That's enough for me to digest at this point. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Councilmember Supernova.
Speaker 9: Thank you. Thank you, Chief, for the presentation. I'd also like to thank Council Member Price for articulating that brilliant legal analysis of where we are right now without any legal. And she had four days to do that without any legal background. Last Friday, we're under a deadline. We had to have this item in by noon, and I had to make that same decision in 5 minutes. And I guess I was just lucky. Our guest. Right. But that was a point. I thought this letter was incredibly serious. And to me, this item here simply states, what is plan B and how much will it cost? That's what we're here for tonight. I don't want to look back at how we got here. I'd also like to thank Councilmember Richardson for bringing up the issue of morale. My dad was a Long Beach firefighter, so I do have a little bit of an understanding of how important that is. Very few jobs in this world other than the military may be do the employees live together? And morale is a critical piece. So I agree with Councilmember Richardson that we need to get that fixed very quickly. I guess other than that, I do have a couple of questions. I guess, to Dr. Shea's point about that he would like to talk to the medical director. My big question is if we can get a system in place where that happens instantaneously, because I know it seemed like a quick timeframe, but that was ten days that we lost where, you know, then it just all came crashing down. It seems like if there were questions there and maybe you didn't have a heads up, that it was that this serious. But I see some room for improvement in the medical director of Long Beach speaking to the EMS agency, maybe directly and and more often. And other than that, I think that just just moving forward here, my other concern last Friday was the budget, because it's not completed. That was my other thought is how do we fix this? Councilmember Price says she can't imagine any more cuts and she still has three fire engines in her district. As I pointed out weeks ago, my district council district four is the only district in Long Beach without a single fire engine. Guess what? I can't make any more cuts there. It's just not going to work. Okay? Yep. Yeah. 414 and 22. Okay. So, anyway, that's. That's all I have to say. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you. At this time, we go to public comment on the item and I'll come back to the council. Any public comment on the item? Seeing no public comment on the item. Then I'll come back to the city council. I don't think any more public no more council comment at this time. There is a motion on the floor which is to receive and file and also to. You essentially eliminate the program? There's no appeal. I mean, there isn't an appeal anyways, but I think that's the the nature of it. There was an also a friendly by Councilman Price and Mr. Parker. You want to just repeat it one last time so we all know what we're voting for.
Speaker 10: Certainly, Mayor, members of city council, the motion to receive and file the report and.
Speaker 8: As you mentioned.
Speaker 10: Not to appeal the decision of the EMS agency and.
Speaker 8: To terminate the program as and I believe, as the chief has indicated, as quickly as possible.
Speaker 0: Councilman Richardson.
Speaker 9: Before we vote, I'd like to ask for a friendly amendment. Councilman Austin I think waiting a month is a long time, but I get it. It takes that much time. So I'd like a weekly update on where we are in this process, because I'd like to know I'd like to track this as we approve this budget. Would you accept that?
Speaker 7: I'm actually I will accept that because I think in light of the fact that we are moving forward with our budget situation here and we're trying to approve a budget in the next few weeks, it's it's important that we have as much information regarding this situation as possible. And I just wanted to clarify the not appealing means. I was really trying to to to emphasize the point that, you know what? Let's let's let this go. Let's let's not go back and contest this with the emergency in any way and let's move forward. I do agree with Vice Mayor Lowenthal. There's no future in the past.
Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you. Members, who's going to cast your votes?
Speaker 5: They all spoke.
Speaker 1: Motion carries nine zero.
Speaker 0: Okay. We did consent calendar already. So we're going to go on to, I believe, item number 19, please. | Agenda Item | Recommendation to request a public report from City Manager, with input from the Fire Chief and Financial Management, on the contingency plans and budgetary impacts of the decision by the Los Angeles County Emergency Medical Services Agency (EMS) to terminate the Long Beach Fire Department's Rapid Medic Deployment Pilot Project (RMD), effective immediately, and the EMS requirement that, effective October 1, 2015, all approved Long Beach Fire Department ALS Units must be staffed with two State Licensed and County Accredited Paramedics. | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_09012015_15-0870 | Speaker 0: Okay. We did consent calendar already. So we're going to go on to, I believe, item number 19, please.
Speaker 1: Communication from Councilman Austin, Councilwoman Gonzalez, Councilmember UNGA recommendation to request the city attorney to draft a resolution urging the governor and legislature to identify a funding source for local, street and state highway maintenance and rehabilitation.
Speaker 0: Councilor Austin.
Speaker 7: Thank you. You know, as the council representative on the League of California Cities, they are moving forward in Sacramento with a with the legislature and the governor to develop a funding mechanism that will help fund our streets and highways throughout the state in a significant way. This campaign to support our Fix Our Roads campaign, which has legislation attached to it. And and there is there are a number of moves being made in Sacramento to to appropriate funds and identify new funding sources for for infrastructure, which obviously is extremely important to each and every one of us as council members in our districts that have significant needs for for road repairs throughout our communities. And so I want to thank Councilmember Roberto. You run efforts for signing on understeer. Obviously, he understands the importance of this. I would ask that the entire council support this thing and send a strong message to Sacramento that we are on board with the legislative and governor's plans to to fix our streets and roads. And I'd like to get a staff report on this from Diana Tang.
Speaker 1: Sure. Mayor and city council, as the councilman had mentioned, and the mayor was in Sacramento just yesterday actually advocating for funding for local transportation projects. This is the part of the state legislature special session. So while the special session while the normal session ends on September 11, this could or could not proceed beyond that time. I think that there's a general agreement that it will take about $6 billion for the state annually to maintain the existing streets and roads and state highways that are already in existence in California. And so the challenge now in the legislature is to find an agreement on how to raise the $6 billion a year. And in LA, which has been continually advocating for a 5050 split of those funds between the state and local governments. With that, available for questions.
Speaker 0: Councilmember Austin.
Speaker 7: Thank you, Ms.. Tang. And I also want to acknowledge Councilmember Gonzales for signing on to this a measure as well. I had the wrong one in front of me, so thank you very much as well. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilman Ranga.
Speaker 8: Thank you. And I, too, want to. Extend my thank you for including me in this. Love to partner with with Al. All with Cosmo Gonzales on this effort. You know one of the most. Frequent questions I always, always get is, What are you doing about my streets? And sometimes I have an answer, and most times I don't because the money is just not there. So I'm really appreciative of of this effort here that we need to get more funding into Long Beach. We need we have a lot of streets we need to fix. And I'm very happy to say no to this proposal.
Speaker 0: Councilwoman Gonzalez.
Speaker 3: Just want to thank Councilmember Austin for this. I know he's taken a lot of a a lead role in a lot of our state legislative matters. And I also want to thank Diana for her leadership in this as well. And I think we do always get that question. What are you going to do with my street? What are you going to do with my alley? What are you going to do with my anything related to infrastructure? So I think it's important that we're looking outside of the box aside from our our city general fund. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Councilor Austin.
Speaker 7: Hey, listen, I wanted to acknowledge our public works director and the great work that our public works department actually does on behalf of the residents throughout the city. We are making progress with our streets, with the limited funds that we have to work with. But I'm sure he would acknowledge if we were to get a windfall from Sacramento, it would make our situation much, much better here in the city of Long Beach. So I wanted to make sure I acknowledged the hard work of our public works department.
Speaker 0: Councilman Longo.
Speaker 1: I, too, want to echo the compliments to our public works director, and I do see this as a potential first step of outside funding. Should this get through. We would still be ten years away from where we need to be and we need to continue to look inside as well of what else we can do within the fifth District alone. We have $40 million of needed street repair, $40 million of needed street repair. And so while this could be a starting point, I think we have a lot of work to do. I appreciate this item coming forward and I hope that we can continue to collaborate and receive any ideas from our constituents.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Any public comment on the item signal? Please cast your votes.
Speaker 1: Motion carries nine zero.
Speaker 0: I mean, do item 26 next? | Agenda Item | Recommendation to request City Attorney to draft a resolution urging the Governor and Legislature to identify a sufficient and stable funding source for local street and state highway maintenance and rehabilitation to ensure the safe and efficient mobility of the traveling public and the state's economic vitality. | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_09012015_15-0866 | Speaker 0: I mean, do item 26 next?
Speaker 1: Report from Police Department recommendation to receive and file the application of Lola's for a premise to premise and person to person transfer of an ABC license at 4140 Atlantic Avenue District eight.
Speaker 0: Councilman Austin.
Speaker 2: Art.
Speaker 7: I move to support this item. This is a exciting new development that has great community support. Surely Councilmember Lowenthal will attest to the success of Lola's. It's great restaurant, responsibly run by good ownership. I've had an opportunity to meet with the owner. He talked to me about his plans and I'm fully in support of this. And as you do the same.
Speaker 0: Mary Lou, I.
Speaker 4: I concur. They have a fabulous operation on Fourth Street and very responsible owners and really do quite a bit to support the neighborhood and the business district. So I urge your support as well.
Speaker 0: And the Lola's team is here, actually. They've been waiting very, very patiently the whole night. And so so thank you very much. Any public comment on the item? CNN. Please cast your votes.
Speaker 1: Motion carries nine zero.
Speaker 0: Okay, now we're going back to 21, right? Yeah. | ABC License | Recommendation to receive and file the application of Navarro Hospitality Group, Incorporated, dba Lola’s, for a premise-to-premise and person-to-person transfer of an Alcoholic Beverage Control License, at 4140 Atlantic Avenue. (District 8) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_09012015_15-0863 | Speaker 0: Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Perfect. Item number 23.
Speaker 1: Report from Long Beach Airport. Recommendation to accept the Airport Improvement Program Grant for fiscal year 2015 from the FAA for funding of the Perimeter Security Improvements Project District five.
Speaker 0: Think I'm actually going to have this is actually kind of a big deal so I'm just going have staff kind of briefly touch on what's actually happening in this item.
Speaker 10: Airport Director Brian Francis.
Speaker 9: Good evening, Mayor Garcia and members of the city council. Is it morning. I had like 1157. I wanted to say good morning. But just to give you a brief overview of what's before you this evening at your meeting on November 11th, 2014, you authorized the city manager to accept an airport improvement program grant from the Federal Aviation Administration in the amount of $5,098,169 to fund the Perimeter Security Improvements Project, which has several components, all contributing to creating enhanced safety and security of the airport's operating environment. After the bidding process for the project was completed earlier this summer, it was determined that costs would exceed the original grant amount requested from the FAA. Consultation with the FAA resulted in a direction to submit a new application to include the additional funds required for the project. That application was submitted last month. Funds are pending receipt of grant offers from the FAA. The grant will require shared financial participation. The estimated cost for the Perimeter Security Improvements project is $7,794,545, of which $7,066,535 will be federally funded through the app program. The airport share, which is $728,010, will be funded with passenger facility charges within the application approved by the City Council on November 5th, 2013 and through airport capital as needed. Once funds are awarded, airport staff will work to execute a contract with the responsible low bidder. And that concludes my report.
Speaker 0: Thank you. There's a motion and a second general public comment on the item saying that please cast your votes.
Speaker 1: Motion carries 801 absent.
Speaker 0: And you know and you have to this at the abs and just eight zero whatever sorry next line of. You're doing great today, by the way. Awesome. First meeting. | Contract | Recommendation to authorize City Manager to accept the Airport Improvement Program Grant for Fiscal Year 2015 from the Federal Aviation Administration for funding of the Perimeter Security Improvements project; and to execute grant documents, and amend grant documents and grant amounts with the Federal Aviation Administration for entitlement and discretionary funds, in an amount not to exceed $7,066,535. (District 5) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_08182015_15-0825 | Speaker 3: Item number 23, communications from Councilman Al Austin and Councilmember Rex Richardson. Recommendation to receive and file a presentation on success and challenges and the Long Beach Freedom School.
Speaker 1: Gentlemen, also.
Speaker 6: Thank you. And it is a real pleasure for me to recognize a nonprofit in our city that is doing exemplary work with with our young people, with families, particularly in the North Long Beach, Uptown communities. Success and Challenges is a Long Beach based nonprofit grassroots social service organization. It was founded in 2001 by our own Reverend Leon Wood and its executive director, his wife, Paula Wood. In 2005, successive challenges established the Long Beach Freedom School, the first of its kind in Southern California. Today, there are dozens of Freedom Schools operating throughout Southern California, impacting thousands of young kids. The Freedom School is a six week summer reading enrichment program that is part of the National Children's Defense Fund Freedom Schools Program. It's based on a motto of high quality literacy programs parent and family involvement, civic engagement and social action. Inter-generational Leadership development and health and mental health and nutrition. In addition, Freedom Schools to Freedom School Success and Challenges provides a number of other valuable resources and services to the community, including Saturday Tutorial Academy, Youth and Art Program and After School Program at the North Point Apartments. Providing homework assistance, enrichment activities and healthy snack to a population of more than 500 at risk youth. Mr. Mayor, a city council. I just felt compelled to recognize this exemplary work from a couple who have dedicated and dedicate and do dedicate so much of their time, their heart, their resources, their their, their intel and collaborative approach to bringing our community together. And I wanted to recognize success and challenges. And more importantly, Mr. Leon and Paula would I'd like to bring them forward to say a few words after Mr. Richardson. Councilmember Richardson.
Speaker 2: I want to thank Councilmember Austin for for taking the lead on recognizing freedom, schools and success and challenges. I got to tell you, this is an organization that finds this program finds its roots in the civil rights movement, the Mississippi Freedom Summer program in the 1960s. And here here we have it today. It's a high quality program that really works with with with our youth from north along the north Long Beach area. We've been tremendous supporters of this program. It's bounced between all corners of North Long Beach. It's been at Hamilton, I think it's at Perry Lindsay now. And so this is a program that we're all we're all tremendously supportive of. My predecessor, Councilmember Neal, is now on the board, I believe, and we're in and his his wife, Tanya, was, I think was she the fundraising chair this year? So so this is this is very much so an important priority to North Long Beach. Just a couple of weeks ago at our state of the ninth District, we recognized the now president, Paula Wood, for her leadership here with an Empower Uptown Community Partner Award. And it was the first first of its kind. And we had to obviously go back to Dr. Wood and Mrs. Wood for this award. So it absolutely makes sense. Again, I want to thank Councilmember Austin for his leadership. I really want to thank you for your hard work in keeping this program going for so many years.
Speaker 5: Thank you so very much. I would like to know where.
Speaker 4: Go for it.
Speaker 1: Thanks for doing the video first.
Speaker 5: Okay. On the screen, you'll see some of the highlights from our summer program that we just completed. Like the council member said, our program was at Perry Lindsay this summer in North Long Beach and in our district, actually. And we served 110 youth and the program is a six weeks program. It finished on August the seventh. And so these are some of the highlights from that program. While we're here, I'd like to introduce some of the staff that work our hard working staff that I have behind the scenes. I'd like to introduce our program director, Yvonne Nuttall Pace. And our sister site coordinator for Freedom School this summer was Vicki Oliver's. And our youth organizer was joined on the block. He works very hard with our teenagers. And so I was going to just take a lot of what I was going to say, our council members covered . So what I would like to do is just kind of have a very quick, brief remarks by each one of our staff and how they're involved with Freedom School and what keeps them coming back every year. Ms.. Ms.. Oliveira is actually a kindergarten teacher, but every summer she manages to arrange her schedule so that she can be involved with Freedom School. We are the longest operating Freedom School in Southern California and we've been operating now for 11 years. The program is free to the families that we serve, but we do have to raise a lot of money in the community to serve about 100 children. It costs us about 85000 to 100000 each year. And so we have a gala that we put on in the spring. And this year we were very pleased and honored to have Mayor Garcia as our guest speaker for our gala in the spring. And I'd also like to thank Councilman Urunga for his support with this program as well. And many people in the Long Beach community as well, we really have reached out and so many of the community leaders have come forward and are working to help us put on this program, either financially or serving in some capacity as a reader during our R&B portion in the morning or coming in the afternoon and providing skills where they can help with a craft or a special project. So just briefly, I'd like to have Ms.. I'll start with Ms.. Yvonne.
Speaker 3: It's an honor to be here today to talk about Freedom School.
Speaker 5: Freedom School, I mean, a lot to me, cause I started off as a college student.
Speaker 3: Going back to Tennessee for training, and it was extremely a lot of work. And for the 11 years I have been a part of this movement, it has been awesome. I have taught students, they came back and now they begin to be certainly the interns. So now we actually have our scholars that grow up in a program and come back and actually do the work as well. So it's just a love and a joy. Each scholar walk away with six books from our program, and they actually began to build their library and me as a mother first.
Speaker 5: It was a great opportunity to have my daughter there in the program. She'd been a part of the program now for ten years, so just extremely blessing. I turn over to my sister.
Speaker 0: Thank you so much for your time. Reading is Power and Language Freedom School. We encourage reading over the summer six weeks reading program. As an educator, I am excited to be part of the program. Been there for 11 years and will continue.
Speaker 3: Working in the community. Thank you.
Speaker 6: Thank you.
Speaker 8: Thank you for having us. As a fellow.
Speaker 2: Long Beach native, born, raised and educated, I feel it's my duty to give.
Speaker 4: Back to my city. So this is.
Speaker 2: What keeps me going and keeps me.
Speaker 4: Helping the youth of the city. Thank you.
Speaker 5: I'd like to have our youth center here. Stand up.
Speaker 9: And we have come here.
Speaker 5: All right. And I won't take too much more of your time. But I did want to mention, I think Councilmember Austin mentioned that we started an after school program this year. We were blessed to get a contract to do an after school program about the Northpoint Apartments. And we completed a full year. We served over 70 to 100 children every day there. And we also, while we were doing Freedom School, we had a summer enrichment program going on at North Point as well. So we just want you to know that we are out there. We're actively engaged working with the youth in Long Beach, and we encourage you to check us out at our website. WW W dot success and challenge dot com and look up information about our programs and we hope that we've maybe inspired some of you who might want to call and volunteer. All right. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Councilor MacGregor.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Mayor. I want to extend my congratulations to the previous group for all the work they've been doing around the community. And of course, Reverend Leon and his wife, Paula. I've known them for many, many, many, many years. And you continue to be an amazing couple with all the work that you do. And I congratulate you on this presentation tonight. And I join Councilmembers Austin and Richardson in this recognition. And congratulations to you.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Councilman Andrews.
Speaker 7: Yes, thank you, Mayor. I also would like to thank Councilman Richards in Austin for bringing this to the nation tonight. I would really want to give a special thanks to Dr. Leon Wood. And Paula was for all they have done for our youth and family throughout the city with this program. You know, it's educated on many levels and most important, it restores hope in many lives that participate in this. And I really don't see how Dr. Woods can be in many places that he goes to and still run a school. So efficient as this. Dr. Woods, I'll take my hat off to. I can't say I take my hat. I don't have it on tonight, but I just give you all the thanks and pleasure for that. Thank you so much, Doctor. What you and your wife and your staff, you guys are doing a great job.
Speaker 1: Thank you again, Councilman Austin.
Speaker 6: Yes. I'd like to also just just close by asking the woods and the staff and all the children to join us down here for a photograph. I can't tell you how important this Freedom School is and just how I've personally witnessed over the last few years young people who have come through the program and now who are coming back in and acting as as kind of camp counselors and leaders and inspiring young people, paying it forward. And so I loved to hope that this Freedom School is around for another 11 years and another 50 years doing and continues to grow throughout our city doing positive work for behalf of families throughout Long Beach. So if I could get Councilmember Richardson, the mayor, to join us up front for a photo, please.
Speaker 1: Okay. I'll call for public, obviously the vote real quick and also the photo call for public comment. Okay. Great. Please cast your vote and I will do the photo for to receive and file on this.
Speaker 3: Motion carries eight zero.
Speaker 1: Okay, we'll do the photo.
Speaker 4: What I'm doing.
Speaker 1: Why don't we just. Why don't we? Come on.
Speaker 2: Hey, man know. They always made me think. You look good.
Speaker 10: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Look good.
Speaker 6: You go out on the ground.
Speaker 10: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Very much. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you.
Speaker 7: Thank you. Thank you. Great job, Dr..
Speaker 1: Okay. We're going to try to get through a couple two quick items as well, and then we'll get to our budget hearing. Since we're on a roll here, so why don't we go ahead and do item 22? Actually, let's actually let's do 24, which I believe there's a folks here for its 24. 24 is a Cultural Heritage Commission ordinance. So why don't we do 24 since I know there's people here for that and and then we'll go from there. So, Madam Clerk, item 24. | Agenda Item | Recommendation to receive and file a presentation on Success In Challenges, Inc. and the Long Beach Freedom School. | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_08182015_15-0811 | Speaker 1: 24 is a Cultural Heritage Commission ordinance. So why don't we do 24 since I know there's people here for that and and then we'll go from there. So, Madam Clerk, item 24.
Speaker 3: Item number 24, report from Development Services Recommendation to receive a report and consider amendments to the Cultural Heritage Commission Ordinance as recommended by the Cultural Heritage Commission VERSIONE or as recommended by the Development Services Department. Version B Request City Attorney to draft an ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code related to the Cultural Heritage Commission. Virginie Irby and amending Long Beach Municipal Code related to administrative citations and penalties and increase appropriations in the Development Services Department by 69,000 citywide.
Speaker 1: Okay. Vice Mayor Lowenthal. There's a motion and a second. Vice Mayor Lowenthal.
Speaker 11: Thank you. I had a couple of questions. One. I know the staff report acknowledges the use of other cities in forming this policy amendment. If you can tell me, your staff can tell me what do the cities of Los Angeles, Pasadena and Glendale say about property, property owner authorization?
Speaker 8: The staff member answering these questions will be our development services.
Speaker 12: Manager, Linda Tatum.
Speaker 11: Continue.
Speaker 0: Good afternoon. Members of the council. Mayor, in response to the question about the city, specifically the cities of Los Angeles, Glendale and Pasadena. Of those three cities, the one city that does require owner notification prior to a landmarking process is the city of Glendale. The other two do not require owner authorization.
Speaker 11: Okay, I appreciate that. And the second question I have is from my staff. I know they asked about the policy in other cities in Southern California, such as Claremont, Sierra madre and Santa Ana. Do you know if they have a similar ordinance and what it requires by way of owner consent?
Speaker 0: Yes. I have the list. 1/2. We'll get the list.
Speaker 13: Yeah, we have that list as well. We did look at all of the cities in Los Angeles County that do have these types of ordinances, and it's about 5050 as to whether they actually require owner consent or not, specifically for. Claremont. Owner consent is not required. Okay. Uh, what were the other cities?
Speaker 11: Santa Ana. Sierra madre.
Speaker 13: Santa Ana is not on here because we only looked at Los Angeles County, and, uh, Sierra madre does require owner consent. Okay, so it is. It is a mixed bag.
Speaker 11: 5050. And, Mr. Mayor, I apologize. I'm sure staff has a proper report, and I should have waited till the end, so thank you.
Speaker 1: No problem. We'll go. We'll come back to you, Vice Mayor, as soon as don't we go to the staff report on this and then we'll come back to the to the council.
Speaker 0: Okay. Back in early 2015, our the development services staff was we began initial discussions with Long Beach Heritage regarding the process to designate some of the city facilities with the landmark designation. And as a result of that list and looking at the process, we realized that the process was fairly cumbersome and lengthy and there was some redundancy in the process. As a result, staff requested our historic preservation consultant, Galvin Preservation Associates, to to work with staff to come up with a recommended way to streamline the ordinance, to make the process a little bit more straightforward and a little simpler and more efficient. So working closely with that staff, we did with staff. The consultant looked at other ordinances in Los Angeles County. We also got feedback from Long Beach Heritage and from of the some of the historic districts in the city over based upon our annual meetings with those groups and based upon our experience with the process for previous historic preservation designations. So as a result, we came up with a recommended ordinance and you see that in your exhibit. And I'm just going to briefly tell you some of the changes to the ordinance. We added some definitions that were recommended by our consultant to clarify some of the terms that were contained in the ordinance. Really importantly, we simplified the designation criteria. We narrowed it down from, I think it may have been 11 or so criteria down to three. And the important component of that designation is that those criteria are now consistent with the State Office of Historic Preservation, as well as the federal regulations. So the benefit there is that once a designation is made at the local level, it can can go forward to the state and the national level a lot more simply and consistently. We also streamlined the application process. We made it less cumbersome. It now goes directly from the Cultural Heritage Committee, directly commissioned directly to the City Council, rather than the intermediate step of going through the planning commission. The other thing that was really important in this process, in terms of the recommended process, is that we we feel that it enhances the credibility of the designation with the process that we now have in place. Because for every application, whereas in the past, the application, along with whatever documentation, would go forward without any additional staff analysis or assessment of the application in the material submitted in the application, the city will now with every application that we receive for designation, either for an individual property or a district, the the city will pay for a consultant to do a much more thorough assessment of the property and do a proper survey. This was based upon some of the concerns that some of the current designations did not have a very thorough vetting based upon their current designation. So we wanted to remedy that. And the city will contribute resources to make sure that that occurs and that process would occur prior to it being taken forward to the CHC for a recommendation. The other items that we did was establish a process to either rescind or amend the designation that was not previously included in the process . And lastly, we took out some of the redundancy by the leading the the section that addressed the publicly owned resources because when city properties are involved, the city had the right to to go through the existing process. So in addition to that, the less what we think was a really significant change to that process is that we added provisions for administrative citations. Currently, the code enforcement staff does not have a way to cite property owners for making additions or changes to historic designations. And the change that we're recommending with this adoption is a change to add citation provisions or administrative citations to Chapter 9.65, the administrative citations and penalties section of the code entitled to the Long Beach Municipal Code. So with that, that's an overall summary. So what? You see in your packet, there is a an exhibit A which is a CHC recommended ordinance and staff and the CHC agreed on all of the components of the ordinance with all of the changes to the process and the additions of the citations. But you also see in your packet a version B, which is the staff recommended ordinance. And the one difference between the two ordinances is that staff is recommending that we get owner consent as a part of the application packet. The Cultural Heritage Commission did not agree with that direction or with that recommendation, so they recommended that the owner, the language that does not require the owner's authorization, which is not in the current code, that that the current language remains. And in the staff report, we've provided more specific details of that language. The last component that I bring your attention to is the fact that this ordinance is also looking at the fiscal impact, and that impact is approximately up to approximately $70,000 each year because staff, as we said before, the recommendation is that the city fund full assessments of any applications that come before the city. The thought being that we want to make sure that the city's resources are being wisely spent as a part of that process. And we feel that the recommended ordinance, which includes the owner authorization before a process is going will essentially it's a good balance, we think, between the private property rights of the owner too, because the designation will affect the the owner's property and it will indeed establish some limitations on their property. And we felt that the owners informed consent to go forward with that process was an important consideration for the city to make, especially given that the city will be committing resources to have these properties fully vetted and that that commitment of resources is not to be taken lightly. And that concludes staff's recommendation or its presentation, and we're available to answer any questions you might have.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I'm going to turn this back over to Vice Mayor Lowenthal.
Speaker 11: That's all I have right now for questions. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Okay. Then I mentioned this over to councilman. Now, just to be clear, is there is there a motion on the floor or. No.
Speaker 11: There is a motion for option A. Is that how we're doing this?
Speaker 1: Well, there's two there's two versions. So there's version. Version. A, which is the recommended Cultural Heritage Commission version. Correct me if I'm wrong. Ms. BODAK And then there's version B, which is the staff recommended version.
Speaker 11: So the motion I'd like to make is for version A.
Speaker 1: Which is the cultural heritage recommendation. Yes. Okay. And Councilman Richardson. Okay. So there's a second by Councilman Richardson. So that's the motion on the floor. Councilwoman Gonzalez.
Speaker 5: It's so good.
Speaker 0: Okay. So I had a couple of questions. So is it possible I know we had just mentioned, Linda, that research within city staff would be about $70,000. Is it possible for us to do some sort of outside research, maybe using Long Beach heritage or using an outside group to be able to do this research that would show that that that amount.
Speaker 13: We actually did some preliminary research on a list of properties that were being considered by Long Beach Heritage. And we actually used a member of Long Beach Heritage to reach a certain point in that research. So we did have the benefit of that, and we do expect to be able to rely on those research capabilities. But beyond that, we still need to have them in a professional form and do a bit more research than I think volunteers are capable of. So it also would not necessarily be staff costs that are incurred, but actual outside consultant costs that we would we would incur in order to move those nominations forward. We did provide you a maximum. The $70,000 is a maximum, assuming that we have a very, very robust landmarking program and we're moving forward with multiple designations in the course of a year.
Speaker 0: Thank you. And then I know, of course, many people are afraid that if we go ahead with owners property rights, that it could potentially lead to demolition of these potentially historic buildings. So is there a way I mean, how do we I know that's difficult because we still need to do research, but is there an answer for that or is there a way to minimize that risk?
Speaker 13: And certainly, I think the issue before you today is is really an issue of a matter of trust. And we have not had an active historic preservation program for at least ten years in the city. And with the addition of Linda Tatum and with the addition of our advanced planning officer, Christopher Coons, and the addition of a of a historic planner funded by the city council during this fiscal year 15 budget, we do have a renewed emphasis on a historic preservation program. Linda and her staff have put together a work program that is actually presented to the the Cultural Heritage Commission. And that work program should hopefully demonstrate a renewed commitment to historic preservation that also includes the landmarking process. In this instance. The difference is that that we want to be able to work with the property owner ahead of time and make sure that the property owner understands what they're getting into and the potential impacts to the private property owner rights. With a landmarking designation, however, if a if an owner chooses not to landmark, we are fully informed and we have a lot more resources in place than we ever did before, that we know that that property is potentially historic. We now have those properties identified through surveys which we currently previously did not have. We now know that those are potentially historic properties and can put them in the computer system so that when an applicant comes forward and wants to demolish a building or a house, a commercial building or a house, it's in the computer system that gives us a warning that says we can't just automatically issue them a demolition permit. And I think that there has been have been cases in the past where that has occurred. And so there is a legitimate fear that there is that opportunity that a new property owner could come along and just ask for a demolition permit. I think we've put safeguards in place and that we have the programs in place now to prevent that from happening. If a private property owner says, I want to demolish the property and we know it's potentially historic, we have an obligation under secure to to look into that analysis and to actually complete a square review before we issue the demolition permit. That's a big change from the practice and the protections that we've had in the past. So I don't see this as weakening our ability to stop an unintended demolition from from occurring. I think that the protections that we're putting in place and the renewed focus on historic preservation will will provide us those protections that the preservationists are looking for.
Speaker 0: Thank you. And I just think your commitment and I thank you for bringing that forward, because I know you did speak at the Banbridge House to the Cultural Heritage Commission and some members there as well. As, you know, we had a great historic forum and we got I felt like there was a renewed sense of that as well. So I thank you for bringing that up. So appreciate it.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go. If there's a Lester's any objection, I'm gonna go to the public comment, and they will come back to the councilmembers. So public comment on the item. Please come forward. Any public comment on a cultural heritage item? Nope. There's one come forward and they're going to move on.
Speaker 5: Good afternoon, Mayor. Vice Mayor, City Council. My name is Lee Fukui. I'm a sixth district resident. I'm a member of Wrigley's Going Green, Wrigley Clean, team member of L.A. Conservancy and Long Beach Heritage. Basically, I'm a local volunteer and architecture geek. Overall, I think the language of the ordinance is great.
Speaker 2: Especially with version A. It gives better.
Speaker 5: Enforcement in protecting Long Beach landmarks. I have great concern with version B, but it's a deciding factor with potential landmarks, you know, solely dependent on property owners. Even though we have the computer survey.
Speaker 2: And.
Speaker 5: Those protections in place, mistakes can happen. I'd prefer someone to.
Speaker 2: Be to double check, go on.
Speaker 5: Site.
Speaker 2: And and see.
Speaker 5: The site in particular, you know, up front and physical, because I know mistakes do happen. And with whatever survey you have, once, once a demolition goes through, that's it. You're not going to get that landmark back. And for example, the press telegram building is not landmarked, but it was fortunate to have Molina health care come in and adaptively reuse that building. But what would happen if Molina decided to sell that building and a new owner wanted to tear down under version B? That could happen and it would be a dramatic loss to the city. Um, as a council, all of you have historic landmarks or future landmarks in your districts. We've all seen positive transformations in areas like East Village Arts District, the art theater on Retro Row, the insurance exchange, and American hotel buildings near the promenade. These landmarks helped energize and encourage investment in your communities and the city overall. It makes Long Beach unique, and these places matter. This Council as a governing body should have the final determination on what is best for this city. This decision is far too important to let property owners.
Speaker 2: Have the last word. Please vote for CHC.
Speaker 5: Recommended version A and keep Long Beach a landmark.
Speaker 2: Destination. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Next speaker, please. We think we've got three speakers. I'm going to if there isn't any warm closing the speaker's list of the three and then we'll go back. Yes, ma'am.
Speaker 0: He's with me.
Speaker 1: Oh, together. Then you're the last speaker.
Speaker 0: Go ahead. Hi, I'm Mary Vaux. I'm the executive director for Cure VI, which is the Community Foundation for the Preservation of the Iris Queen Mary. I have a few comments related to the current item. As a community based 501c3 nonprofit for the preservation of the Queen Mary. We're kindly asking City Council and the mayor to please consider postponing the vote of the recommended R 24 amendments to the Culture Heritage Commission ordinances to allow the community and Council members ample time to consider the cultural aspects and the possible outcomes they might have on historical properties and those yet not designated by the City of Long Beach as a historical landmark. I gave a few examples, one being the Queen Mary. It's been a long time intention by local preservationists, Long Beach Heritage and Termite to have the Queen buried designated as a city of Long Beach landmark. The Queen Mary was added to the National Register of Historic Places in April of 93 and remains recognized as a significant landmark around the world today. The possible outcome of these proposed amendments will directly affect the long term preservation opportunities for the Queen Mary. Also taking into consideration the mayor's newly formed Queen Mary Land Task Force, these proposed changes could interfere with national community preservation efforts of the Queen Mary. I gave a copy of this letter to each of you, and I'll hope that you'll take a minute to read it. Some of my points aren't directly related to this particular item, but I guess what my main concern is is we're in favor of option A. We would like the Cultural Heritage Commission to be as involved in the preservation of the city and the Queen Mary as possible, because right now we have no oversight or policy in place . Anything can be done to the ship. Right now it's being done and the city and city council has allowed it. So I would just urge you to read the fine print. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Sir. I Makaurau.
Speaker 2: Kill my secretary nonprofit Long Beach.
Speaker 1: While sitting here. I came up with a couple of questions.
Speaker 2: I just want the the council to consider and the staffers. You mentioned streamlining the process. The one question I has is let's not streamline history. Once you demolish history, it's gone. It's just gone. The the projected penalties and fees that you that you put into their proposal. I completely am in favor of that. Was there any.
Speaker 1: Projections made of what that revenue.
Speaker 2: Source would would create.
Speaker 1: To offset the costs, you know, the.
Speaker 2: $70,000 that you mentioned? When you talk about property owners, does this include long lease, long term lease holders? Let's say if somebody has a 20 year lease, 50 year lease.
Speaker 1: Does that fall into that.
Speaker 2: Category as as a property owner? We're obviously in favor of version A. You mentioned trust. That's a tough one to swallow sometimes. So. I would I would trust the CHC on their opinions more than anything right now because they they've been they've been the constant with preservation in Long Beach. So I would trust their opinion and their their recommendation. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I take this back to the to the council. I know. Uh, Vice Chair. I'm gonna get back to you, Councilman Austin.
Speaker 6: Thank you. And let me tell you, I don't feel very strongly one way or another on this particular item, version A or version B, I got to tell you, I am a bit concerned about, you know, the ethics with property rights here in the conversation. They're seeing that this is not a time critical issue. I feel a lot better if we we have some time to talk to the Cultural Heritage Commission and the commissioners. I haven't had any meetings with anybody regarding this matter prior to reading it over over the last few days. It would it would make me feel a lot better if we would continue this item for for 30 days or so to allow us to study this a little bit more, because obviously this is a decision that is going to be a significant decision. I did so. So I'd like to put forth a substitute motion to continue this item for 30 days if there's any appetite or will or the council to do so. And. I don't hear any. So we can no motion. Okay. Well, you want to. That would be be something that I'd like for this council to consider this evening. I did have a question regarding the volume of applications for cultural landmarks or historic landmarks that we actually get as a city. And maybe that's more appropriate for staff. Can anybody answer that question?
Speaker 13: Uh, Councilmember, we have not had an active request for landmarking status in in the last several years. This conversation really started with our renewed partnership with Long Beach Heritage and their request for us to consider a potential list of properties to consider potentially landmarking. That list has maybe eight or 11 different properties on it, three of which are city owned assets. The commitment that we were talking to with Long Beach Heritage was that we would look at the city assets first because that would be easy since we knew the property owner and we wouldn't have to have the discussion, the difficult discussions with the property owners if they chose not to move forward with landmarking. So I'd say that in the next two years or so, there's probably a minimum of three, but upwards of maybe ten or 11 properties that we would look to be landmarking. I do want to correct something. For the record, we are not talking about imminent demolition of any buildings. We're actually not talking about erasing history when we're talking about improving the process. The ordinance, as it is currently written, is so incredibly cumbersome that I don't even know if we could actually landmark a building if we actually followed the process. And the criteria that is used for the city of Long Beach does not match the criteria that is used by the state. We would like our criteria to be simplified to actually match the state criteria, which we think would actually make it easier to landmark properties. So I just want to correct a couple of those issues for the record.
Speaker 6: So when was the when was the last time we actually did land a property?
Speaker 13: We landmarked a building that I don't know the name of it. You might remember it. It's the the emancipated youth facility on Anaheim.
Speaker 8: The Hotel Pacific.
Speaker 5: Hotel was on it.
Speaker 13: Council members who were not.
Speaker 2: Are you referring to the Palace Hotel?
Speaker 13: Yes, it's the Palace Hotel was landmarked in order to assist it in getting historic tax credits and in order to allow that building to be rehabilitated. I'm going to say that building was probably landmarked in, you know, 2005 ish, somewhere around there. And that was probably the last building that has been landmarked.
Speaker 6: And I'll just like in with the statement, again, I'd like to know more and learn more about this. But if I can recall, when there was a debate to build a new North library, there were several people who were in opposition to doing that because of the historic value of the theater there. And had we had this kind of provision in place, we may not have a north library under construction as as is today. Martin.
Speaker 1: Before we go on, I have a couple more council members. I just want to just remind everyone that I think it's really important. There's been a lot of work that's gone into getting us to this point. And I just want to be clear that the commission and staff agree on probably 95% of the document coming forward. And so there is a disagreement on one item, which is the notification piece. But I just want to also just refocus that on a vast majority of the items in that are in discussion. There is agreement. And so a lot of work has gone gone into it's important that we update our codes and our audiences here. So it's good to have a debate about this one issue. It's an important issue. But I also want to just make sure that that everyone knows that were generally in agreement on where on where this is going. Vice Mayor Lowenthal.
Speaker 11: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I think you covered it for the most part and misspoke. I want to thank you for correcting some of the misnomers that were stated here. I think typically. We would like to have a suspicion that the city and municipal government are not interested in preserving history, but that's an anathema to who we are . I think that is exactly who we are in Long Beach and we are not raising history or demolishing anything. If anything, I think the staff's work and the Cultural Heritage Commission's work leads us down a path where we can actually landmarked something. So, Miss Burdick, if if you could give us some examples, for instance, of the 8 to 10 potential properties that were mentioned and what the ownership would be, I would appreciate that.
Speaker 0: Certainly one of the ones that come up.
Speaker 13: Off the top of my head is the Alamitos Branch Library on Third Street near Cherry. It is a city owned facility that is a beautiful Spanish Mediterranean facility that is very qualified to be a landmark but has not been considered as a landmark. An example of a potential private property is a beautiful craftsman, a two storey single family home in Virginia Country Club that was constructed by famous architects Green and Green Brothers. That is a private property that the property owners have spent an incredible amount of money restoring to the version of the Green and Green Brothers that that it was originally intended to be viewed as. But that house is not a landmark. And so, you know, one of those could potentially be a landmark. Another one is the community center at Highland Park. We've had discussions with Councilmember Richardson about that. It is not designated as a landmark now that the has the Long Beach Heritage Association pointed out their concerns, along with the Cultural Heritage Commission, that the building was not landmarked and may be potentially considered for demolition in the Highland Park master planning process. We talk to the council member, we talked to the city manager, we talked to Parks and Rec. We made it clear that it had value as a resource. They all agreed and that building will not be subject to demolition as part of the master plan, but will actually be incorporated as a master plan even though it is not landmarked today. So I think that in particular shows that we have a willingness to work with the preservation community to meet their preservation needs while still meeting our facility needs, particularly on city property, and that we are willing to have those conversations and not just consider demolition.
Speaker 11: I appreciate that. So also. So for the most part, I think it's safe to say we will have examples where the city of Long Beach is the property owner. And I should have clarified earlier when I made the motion to support version A that I do believe for the most part we would be the property owners. And so and I think when there is a private property owner, you will find an example such as the one that Ms.. Murdock elaborated on with the green and green home. You have invested owners who are already investing in preserving the historic aspects of their home. And a landmark status process is not cumbersome. And Ms.. Burdick, remind me, when we were working on activating the Jurgens tunnel, the Jurgens Trust at one point was on some registry, and we had looked into opportunities to possibly designate the tunnel as a landmark status. Is that something that the Cultural Heritage Commission has looked at?
Speaker 13: The Cultural Heritage Commission has not looked at any of these properties. We haven't gotten that far in the process. I don't believe the Jurgens tunnel was on the initial list that the Long Beach heritage provided to us, but we can certainly look at that as an option. Related to the initial list, I would say it's somewhere around eight or ten properties in length. I can recall three properties at a minimum were city properties and the others were private properties.
Speaker 11: Okay, thank you, Miss Burdick. So I recognize and understand that there might be some interest in delaying this item. But what I don't want to do is call the good men and women of our community to participate on our commissions and have them spend an exorbitant amount of time doing so and staff putting that work into it and cause unnecessary delays on our part. I'd like to emphasize to my colleagues that the motion I had made for version A is one that is fully vetted by the commission that we charge with these with these items. And it's also been vetted by the staff. And as the mayor said, it is identical. The two versions are identical except for the consent by the property owner. And for the most part, I think we can assure everyone that we would be the property owners city of Long Beach. And so with that, I urge my colleagues to support version eight. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Councilman Andrews.
Speaker 7: Yes, thank you, Mayor. You know, I want to thank the staff for their hard work on this item, but I also want to acknowledge the success. A resident emailed me on this concerned about this item. You know, as we have presented these two choices today, I can see that there may be a chance of losing some of our city heritage, which makes Long Beach a very unique place. And I just have a question that I'd like to ask Mrs. A anybody. I have a question for the staff. If it goes to option B and the property owner decides not to sign off on the property to become a landmark. Which option is there for the public to pursue landmark status?
Speaker 13: So in option B and the city, you know, we approach a property owner. The property owner says that they're not interested in landmarking the property and they're not interested in doing anything with the property at this point in time. The public frankly, it the property stays in in situ. It just its status stays current. However, what is known is that it has a it is a potential resource. It gets logged in to our system as a potential resource and a demolition permit or an adaptive reuse permit or a building entitlement permit will not be issued on that property until we have that discussion. Two years go by, three years go by, the property owner decides to sell or the property owner decides to do improvements to the property. At that point, we can then have the discussion with them about potential landmarking, particularly if the property owner is interested in receiving discretionary entitlements. We do have the ability to make it a condition of approval at that point in time that that they are required to landmark it. So we do have the opportunity to do that. And Option A does not wipe that opportunity off the map. Or option B excuse me, option B does not wipe the opportunity to landmark off the off the charts, I should say.
Speaker 7: Okay. Thank you. Thank you. You know, I'm kind of inclined to think that time is of essence really with this. And I would like to kind of I would like to see a little more time because I really haven't had that much time to really go. And I think 30 days or 60, what it would take in order to get this right, because this is something that would be extremely unique for the city and for, you know, people who in the city of Long Beach, when we talk about historical, you know, venue. So I would really like to kind of wait. And if we could get that, I would like to you know, if Mr. Armstrong is willing to make that motion, I don't know what it would go, but I would go with it. Yeah. You want to for any emotion, I like to ask, could we get it from the emotion to maybe for 30 days or more?
Speaker 1: I think the the friendliest asked the maker of the motion to move this move this a 30 days.
Speaker 11: I decline that.
Speaker 7: Okay. Okay.
Speaker 1: Okay. Councilwoman Mongo.
Speaker 3: I think that first, I want to thank so many people that worked so hard on this. And again, I know I say this often, but not each and every person is here every week. I really appreciate the written testimony that comes in in advance because it gives us an opportunity before Council to really go through the deep questions. And I think that the part that has had some concern with neighbors and I think that Ms.. Bodak and Vice Mayor Lowenthal, you've done a great job of really outlining some of the details, is that there's a fear from property owners that they will be forced to be a landmark. And the current document that I read from President Perry related to that the record owner may petition to withdraw from designated status. Really seems reactionary to me more than proactive in in reaching out to them. And so I'd be open to maybe instead of prolonging it 30 days to just give a direct result that it meets the concerns that I've heard, which would be that before. That the owner is involved before designation.
Speaker 1: Can can Steph maybe weigh in on that?
Speaker 13: We thought we had done that with version B. So we version B does not require the property owner to come before the city council after the property has been designated and ask for that designation to be withdrawn.
Speaker 3: So I think I'm asking for something slightly different. I think what I'm asking for is before it becomes designated that the property owner is reached out to and given the opportunity to speak with their council member to potentially prevent it from becoming designated. If they feel that they have cause. To maintain its current status.
Speaker 11: Vice Mayor. Mr. Mayor, if. I could. Understand this a little bit better. I think what Councilwoman Mungo is asking us to consider is more along the lines of the level of involvement we're. Yes. So Maverick, while version B approached it from that aspect, I do think there's an opportunity in version A to keep that in tact, but ensure that the property owner has the opportunity for a greater level of involvement in the process so it doesn't appear or in reality feel as though they are not in control. And again, I have to reiterate, for the most part, almost always there is cooperation because it is in everyone's best interest to go through this process.
Speaker 13: So if I could get some direction from the city council, that would be greatly appreciated in understanding it. At what point in the process would the property owner involvement be required? Would it be before it goes to the Cultural Heritage Commission, or would it be after the Cultural Heritage Commission has made an initial recommendation, but before it gets to City Council, or is it at the City Council?
Speaker 3: So my friendly would be that it would be before it goes to the Cultural Heritage Commission so that the owner could be there and present and present information should they request not to not receive that designation. And I think that it's important, again, a majority of the properties that are currently under consideration are owned by the city and are all in agreement. But when we legislate at this level, we really need to think of the potential unintended consequences 30, 40 years from now. And so if we could out of friendly that the property owner would be notified in advance of it coming to the Cultural Heritage Commission that would give them the opportunity to be present and a part of that process.
Speaker 1: Vice Mayor.
Speaker 11: I would accept that.
Speaker 1: Okay. So there's a motion on the floor with a friendly amendment.
Speaker 6: Councilman Austin I'm satisfied with that.
Speaker 1: Okay, then.
Speaker 13: Mr. Mayor, may I just ask one clarifying question, which is important to us, that this would occur before it was even scheduled for CHC hearing, or would it be at the CHC hearing?
Speaker 11: Before.
Speaker 13: Before. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you. We're very satisfied with that resolution. We do think it still balances A and B. So if that's the will of the city council, we would be pleased to implement that. Great.
Speaker 1: And before we go to a vote, I just want to because I've been hearing some of the I've been getting the emails and the had had some conversations. I just want to also just say that there is no question that when the city had a recession and an economic downturn, that there was definitely the level the level of commitment the city had to start preservation as far as having a dedicated staff member. There's no question that that suffered. I think everyone on this council recognizes that. Well, I think everyone has in their hearts wants to preserve and want to preserve our history. I think the city did slip a little bit when it came to having a commitment that was consistent. And so I think I want to I think it's important that we recognize that and the community understands that. But I'm also hopeful that now we can all move forward together, realizing that we have great new, new planning staffs on board that has this expertize, new historic preservation planner and new director of planning in Ms.. Tatum, and that we move forward with trust because we're all on the same page. We're all on the same team. We want to preserve our buildings. We want to make sure that there's trust that's there. And certainly that to me is important, I think, to this to this council and certainly to staff who's working very, very hard to ensure that we have a strong historic preservation program. And so with that, there is a motion on the floor. Please cast your votes.
Speaker 3: Motion carries eight zero.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I'm going to go. We're a little bit behind on doing the budget, but there's there's been a request to hear Ms.. Ridder. So I think Kimberly Ridder here in the audience, if we can have Ms.. Ritter, please come forward and know she has a few folks here in the room to go straight to the budget so we can have the budget. Folks, please start setting up. We're going to go into the budget after this. | Agenda Item | Recommendation to receive a report and consider amendments to the Cultural Heritage Commission Ordinance as recommended by the Cultural Heritage Commission (Version A); or as recommended by the Development Services Department (Version B);
Request City Attorney to draft an ordinance amending Long Beach Municipal Code Chapter 2.63 related to the Cultural Heritage Commission (Version A or Version B), and amending Long Beach Municipal Code Chapter 9.65 related to Administrative Citations and Penalties; and
Increase appropriations in the General Grants Fund (SR 120) in the Development Services Department (DV) by $69,000. (Citywide) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_08182015_15-0810 | Speaker 3: Item number. Item number 22 Communication from Councilwoman Lena Gonzalez recommendation to provide an update on the recently completed downtown parking study, which was requested at the November 11, 2014 meeting.
Speaker 1: Councilman Gonzales.
Speaker 0: Yes. We'll start with a staff report from Public Works, please.
Speaker 1: Great step.
Speaker 8: Our director of Public Works, our Malloy, and we'd be happy to make this presentation.
Speaker 10: Thank you, honorable man Ann Arbor Council members. Good evening. It is my pleasure to provide an update update on downtown parking since the department's initial report to the city council in June. As you're aware, the City Council requested a comprehensive assessment of downtown parking at the end of last year. The department provided a parking study after months of data collection, outreach with downtown stakeholders and rigorous review of existing practices. This present presentation today summarizes those findings and provides an update on the action items described in the report. Tonight's presentation will provide a background of the issues, discuss the changes to parking facility management practices in downtown, including the principles which guide our management practices, cover important next steps we are undertaking to further enhance the experience of residents, businesses and visitors. As always, it's my pleasure to take any questions at the end. The city owns 14 public parking structures in downtown Long Beach. The largest of these facilities include the city place garages located on third, fourth and fifth streets, and, of course, the Civic Center garage on Broadway. In total, all 14 facilities provide 4151 parking spaces for residents and visitors while the city owns these facilities. The city has standard parking plus formerly central parking, operates and maintains this facilities. The City Council approved this contract in 2013 and the contract will expire at the end of the March next year. This section will highlight the changes to parking facilities and in light of face feedback we received from various stakeholders in downtown Long Beach. Our commitment is and will always be to be responsive to the concerns raised by residents, businesses and visitors in a timely manner. To that end and to fulfill that commitment, we have three established principles that guide our approach to managing the parking assets in downtown. The first is to ensure safe parking facilities where residents, businesses and visitors feel welcome to park in downtown. The second is to provide well-maintained facilities that have operational elevator elevators, light and other amenities. And finally, we endeavor to provide guidance to and from parking facilities to ensure that motorists safely identify and travel to parking facilities that best meet their needs. With the first principle. We have accomplished the following. Since issuing the June report, public works crews have replaced and added new lighting fixtures to to enhance security, installed new high definition cameras and recording systems to cover key entrances and exit points. And finally, enhanced security patrols and measures at the garages. We have also enhanced the parking experience with key infrastructure improvements. For example, a persistent issue was nonfunctioning elevators in some of our garages. Our crews identified the issue as overheating in elevator equipment room and invested in new cooling systems to keep the elevators operational. We have also worked with local businesses to enhance the timely removal of shopping carts, and city staff are prepared to intervene and remove the cars quickly if the business is unresponsive. Having excellent well-maintained parking facilities provide little if our visitors don't know how to get to them. We have made strategic changes and parking guidance, including researching and selecting through the RFP process a candidate for an advanced parking guidance system working with the City Managers Special Events team. Public Works is making progress in designing electronic message boards to direct motorist to open and available lots. This project would also include occupancy detection devices to convey the number of open parking spaces available. The project is funded by grants received from Metro. We broadly categorize these next steps into the following. Parking management, community collaborations and innovation. Parking management. Many of the discussed changes came as a result of a change in parking management early this year. We consolidated our parking operations under the Public Service Bureau, Uniting or parking management with our parking maintenance due to hard work of Public Service Bureau. We drastically improved our responsiveness to many of the issues brought to our last brought to the to you last year. We continue to advance and make more management practices, recognizing the complexity of the breadth of the city's parking operation. The city manager presented a budget to the city council that would add a citywide parking manager for our parking operations, both downtown and along our coastline. This position is offset by other reductions. Our committee members are our partners and our boots on the ground for delivering feedback to us. Our parking staff have embarked on extensive community outreach, having walked the garages with stakeholders and work with them to identify challenges and potential solutions. Since our last report, we have worked with DDR to offer free validation for parking at the park with the opening of the outlets. We have closely monitored and solicited feedback about the first five free program for the on street meters. And as we saw, public works rapidly responded to the decision to have a meter holiday. In the wake of the power outages by efficiently changing the meters after authorization from city manager West will remotely change the parking meters so the residents and visitors could support our downtown businesses. We will continue these efforts to ensure a partnership with our community. Last, but certainly not least. We answered the mayor and City Council's call for innovation by thinking strategically about how to use technology to further improve the parking experience. We're working to further centralize parking information already consolidated at w w w that long beach topgolf slash parking. We're looking into technology that would provide real time street parking meter and parking structure, occupancy data and to motorist more mobile apps. And with this new data, we're examining data strategies and analyzing of real time data. The current example of how our embrace technologies are smart parking meters that were installed in April. Since then, we have collected valuable data. And I would like to share with you some some briefly tonight. Credit card usage has grown by eight percentage points since the meters were installed citywide. That translates to 34% of users are paying by credit card. The park in particular has seen remarkable success, with over 50% of users paying by credit card. And our business friendly approach with the first three five program is popular as well. In July alone, we have over 41,001st five free initiations. This translates to over 250,000 free minutes. Over 3403 hours. Or over 142 days of free parking. While we have made significant progress within a short time frame to implement important changes to better improve the facilities, it is our philosophy to proactively identify next steps to further improve the experience. I would like to share with you the next steps we're taking to further fulfill our commitment to our parking principles. We're continuing our continuing work on the parking guidance system and wayfinding. We're awaiting the decision of another metro grant that could fund additional projects. We have obtained coats for painting and Spaulding, which is the process of repairing daily wear and tear on the parking structures. We seek to standardize parking signage. We will prepare to review data with stakeholders as we reach our six month anniversary. And we will continue to proactively work with our community collaborators to identify projects for other improvements funded by the parking meter revenue collected above baseline projections. Thank you for this opportunity to present. I'm happy to answer any questions you have.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Councilwoman, another vice mayor?
Speaker 0: Yes. If there's public comment, I'll take that first before we get into. Okay.
Speaker 1: Is there any public comment on the item saying no public comment. Councilman Gonzales.
Speaker 0: Okay. So I have a I want to thank you, Ari, for putting this together. As you know, as many of us know, downtown parking is like the hot topic item in downtown for both the first and the second district. And, you know, putting this together was I'm I'm certain, very difficult on your part because it was a lot of there are a lot of nuances. And so I just thank you for putting this report together. But I still do know that we have a long way to go, especially as our downtown is thriving. It's getting better. The development around it is is certainly looking better esthetically. But also there's just more interest in the downtown. I see that there's a lot of potential that we have. So I have a few questions related to your presentation. So you had mentioned I have seen some enhancements to security and maintenance, but I still don't think it's enough at this point. So I would like to ask you, what more will be done for security and maintenance? You said, you know, enhanced security patrols and rigorous maintenance schedule. And then related to that. I know there's been some issues in some of our city play slots specifically. And I know the calls for service were pretty high. So how much is the in addition to that, how much is the maintenance and security costing us?
Speaker 10: Thank you for that question. It's kind of a complex question, but I will try to answer that as coherently as possible. So Central Parking has a contract with the city to provide the maintenance and the security. They, in turn are in contract with Platts security to provide security for these parking structures. From my understanding, they are paying 30,000 a month to Platts security to provide security in all our parking structures. And that translates to 312 hours on a weekly basis. So what the city has done in addition to that, we have increased or work asked Platts security to increase about 264 hours per week of additional parking security in those facilities. So we have total of 576 hours of weekly security that's provided. So we've kind of doubled the security that existed in addition to what was in their contract. So that was the basis of the original contract. Now we have practically doubled as far as the security is concerned, similar questions in regards to maintenance. The existing contract, which will expire next March, has provisions for maintenance. The city is also adding maintenance to these parking structures since we have reorganized our parking operations as of the beginning of this year. So you have kind of added our personnel working and doing maintenance issues in the parking structures. So we we sometimes will reimburse central parking for the maintenance cost or we will do it ourselves. But we I can say that practically we have doubled the amount of maintenance that's going on in those parking structures. And I have to say that I've personally walked the parking structure and I'm aware of every single issue. I spent close to 3 hours with our business partners and our staff looking at what opportunities we can have to increase. And that's that's where the list of improvements came from. We are adding or we added more lights, we're adding more signage that there are security cameras. We fixed the elevators that were not functioning properly all the time. We have done power washing. We have re stripe the parking structures as far as refreshing the stripes so that the users can see the existing spaces. And we have much more potential enhancements to the parking structure that that will give a better experience to to our customers.
Speaker 0: So when do we think that all of the main you know, all of the issues that are still existing, when will those be completed?
Speaker 10: So part of, as you can understand, the parking structures are 2 hours free, so they're practically not making any money for every transaction. There's a $0.14 that the city gets on every ticket that's sold. So that's part of the challenge. Fortunately, we have a business partner that has purchased a tremendous amount of parking spaces and one of the parking structures, and that's really giving us a good source of income to to to enhance the, the the security issues and also the the maintenance issues. Part of our parking meter installation was that with collaborations with the LBA, we have a baseline. So any time finances or the income exceeds that baseline, we're going to use those funds to improve our parking structures. So we're still in for two years. We are basically at, you know, in four months or 15 months of our parking meter installation. So we have not seen that revenue yet. But when we see that revenue, we will definitely use those monies for two years to enhance our parking structures.
Speaker 0: When we're going to see that fact. Was that after six months or how how long was that time frame to realize the revenue coming back from the smart meters?
Speaker 10: I think in six months as part of the installation, if you recall, it was recommended by city council and staff agrees that we're going to come back to city council and give you a report on the status of the parking meters and how it compare to our previous baseline. So we have data from previous years. What was the income at that point per month? And then when we complete that six months of installation, we will come back to City Council. I think that's a good point to discuss. If the revenues are up or not, I would say in October would be a good, good opportunity.
Speaker 0: For us to come back. So we'd get a report basically next month and see about how much above we're above our baseline and how much could be allocated potentially to the downtown.
Speaker 10: In October.
Speaker 0: In October. Next month. Right. Well, I'm sorry. September. I think we're in September.
Speaker 10: I wish I wish we had passed the budget.
Speaker 0: So I know.
Speaker 10: It would be in October, but I will definitely in October.
Speaker 0: Welcome back, because that's kind of my next point. So I know that in relation to receiving more funds or more revenue from the parking, you know, for instance, we didn't get an online payment system for the parking structures at City Place until, I think earlier this year. So I think we need to rework our marketing and we really need to remain committed to that. I think it's very important that we have residents, you know, I use well, I live across the street, so we were able to pay for parking, but we had to go in this dingy hallway and it was just such a nightmare. So people don't want to do that. They want to be able to have something at their fingertips, pay online. I think that would be more beneficial, of course, to the city in receiving revenue that way. But as far as marketing as a whole, I would really like to look at receiving information back from you in October about the smart meter revenue and seeing how that could be. How that could work for our marketing. And aside from that, were we looking at any other funds to be able to use for marketing for this or what was the thought?
Speaker 10: Honorable Gonzales. Let me go back to the first issue that you raised. Currently, customers can go online and purchase their their parking passes, they can go to WW dot, SPL, USA dot com, or they can go to Long Beach dot parking guide dot com. So we have two sources that customers, visitors, residents and businesses can purchase parking online so they don't have to physically go into a space. If some residents want to go to if they want to pay cash, they need to go physically to the office at 275 East Fourth Street. That's where a central parking office is located. They can do that. After they do that, the first time they can renew online, they can also choose to have to pay continually, automatically. Or they can go to month to month. So. So there are definitely options and we will try to communicate that information since we have a new website. We could probably put that on the website to show that information that which is available to us.
Speaker 0: It would be good to have a one stop shop, you know, so it's not you have to go to HPD, you got to go to Long Beach parking slap, hash tag or slash parking. It's just a one stop area. So maybe I'm not clear where we're going to pay for. How are we going to pay for marketing? As far as you know, I mentioned a smart app in the original agenda item in a wayfinding signs are in the in the work so how is that all going to come together and be paid for by the city
Speaker 10: ? Well, the wayfinding is a completely separate project that we have. We were successful in getting a $1.2 million grant from the MTA that will help us with the wayfinding and also identification. How to get to the parking spaces, which is which is a large project as far as marketing we can come back to in October and come up with a program. I'm hoping that we'll do that next month before we get to to October. We'll probably accomplish that via communication with our business partners and the LBA and homeowners associations that are our community partners. We can provide that information via a flier or we can tweet or a bunch of technologies that's available right now . We can do that.
Speaker 5: And Councilmember, if I may, just to add.
Speaker 2: We're really looking at three different.
Speaker 4: Areas where you can invest here. One of them would be the grants that we talked about. MTA has specific grants that can help with some of the signage and the message count or the the automatic counting. So that's.
Speaker 2: One. We also do have a stream of revenue.
Speaker 4: Coming in that we can and we have a budget for some maintenance. And so that's that's an ongoing program and we'll continue to have that. And then really, we wanted.
Speaker 2: To have the money coming.
Speaker 12: Back from the parking meters.
Speaker 2: That was a commitment to reinvest that into the downtown area for two years is, as Mr. Bohan said, that's a couple of hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 5: And so that'll really.
Speaker 2: Be for the extra services, the parking app.
Speaker 4: The excuse me, the parking app.
Speaker 2: The we could do painting all of that additional maintenance marketing program.
Speaker 4: That really was envisioned for that, a dedicated funding source.
Speaker 0: Well, I was hoping to find that in this presentation. So is so I guess now we can go back to, I guess, directing you in October to come back with that information, like detailed information on how we can formulate the smartphone app, if possible, maybe a one stop website, more emphasis on on on all of those components that Tom had mentioned. And then last question is for the parking manager. What will be the role of the parking manager? If it is approved.
Speaker 10: If you're kind enough to approve that position, that person will be dedicated to managing all the parking facilities within the city and also all the parking lot. So it's it's all the parking in the city will be under that the purview of that parking manager.
Speaker 0: Okay, but what would I mean?
Speaker 10: And then that person will be managing, doing our piece for the for the maintenance or for the new. If we did, they will they will manage the contracts. They'll be focused on marketing and focused on bringing new technologies.
Speaker 0: Okay. And so from now until October, can we make a good effort in ensuring that central parking is stepping up their maintenance and security? I really I can't stress that enough. Currently, as it stands, we still have complaints of. Shopping carts. We still have complaints of trash. We have complaints all over the place. And I just don't think that there's enough being done. So from now until October, I would love to see a commitment on our part to meeting frequently with our with our stakeholders and then also ensuring that we're I don't know if someone has to be there every single day until the issue gets better, but we really need to remain focused on this. There's a lot of folks in the area that have invested both businesses and both residents, and I just think we need to make that commitment to our stakeholders here and our residents and business owners.
Speaker 10: Well, do.
Speaker 1: Bison really want for?
Speaker 11: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm. Did we have any public comment on this? We did.
Speaker 0: No, didn't.
Speaker 11: They didn't speak. I concur with Councilmember Gonzalez's. Issues that she raised. I don't I'm not going to reiterate them. I think staff's done a great job in getting us this far with this study update. And I'm pleased with the report and progress on downtown lots such as City Place. I know Councilwoman Gonzales spoke to it very much. These are the complaints that she had expressed are really coming from our property owners, residents and visitors, especially when you have our parking assets adjacent to condominiums and apartments. So that impact does transfer over to our residents. So the increase of security by doubling the hours, I believe you said, is something that's that's critical. Mr. Malloy, if I can ask you, I know you said a few sentences or expressions regarding the parking position. What's the title of that position? Please remind me.
Speaker 10: It's in the proposed budget as a parking manager.
Speaker 11: Is that the same position that Mr. Maldonado held until two years ago?
Speaker 10: I believe so.
Speaker 11: Okay. So I know that my office and certainly Councilman Gonzales, his office has spoken to you and your staff, I hope, regarding some of the challenges that we had when Mr. Maldonado was here. And that probably could have been the mayor's office at the time. It was the mayor and I Mr. Maldonado, did a fabulous job. But I think we were not prepared to establish the type of authority for parking and parking management that we seem to be today. And you were not here. So I'm not directing any of this as responsibility for you. But we had an immensely talented individual with the best of intentions and the greatest of skill to manage our surface lots and as well as our other parking assets. And we were, as I said, ready for that. I'm comforted in knowing that through this study and through your work, that I think we're in a different place as a city. And if I can hear from you that you feel confident that we are bringing someone else in to ostensibly be a parking authority for us of sorts , not only to be able to manage parking and do it demand based and probably get us into a place where we can think of managing demand through price, all things that we think can be done with parking, aside from ensuring that the facilities are safe. Do you feel confident that we can do that, that we're in that place here in the city today?
Speaker 10: I would definitely would like to have that discussion. And maybe since we don't have the position and we haven't finalized the job description, that could be the qualities that we could ask for the next parking manager to have. As I said, this this person will be dedicated to providing that and depending on the policies that the city council directors will will implement those. So the answer yes, and I wish that we could have more specific job descriptions that or skills that you require from this individual we can seek in our recruitment if the position was approved.
Speaker 11: So if the position gets approved through our budget process, I think we can certainly help you with the attributes for the candidate. I think I was more speaking about our own attributes in terms of supporting that position, and Mr. West is aware the city manager, West is aware that it's one thing to have great talent on hand , but if we don't support or empower that that particular position, it accomplishes very little. And so that's really what I was getting to. Not so much of the candidate's qualifications. I'm I'm pretty certain you are immensely qualified to determine what those qualifications are. I'm talking about our own qualifications. And maybe I should have asked the same question of Mr. West since he has that history. So I think I've made myself clear. I think possibly. So with that, Mr. Mayor, I do want to express my optimism about this report and the progress on downtown lots and staff is to be commended . Absolutely commended. I couldn't. Now, I do have to say I couldn't help but notice the mention of the community parking program on page five of the report. I would have to. I would be remiss if I wasn't a little cheeky about this. So I do question the characterization of the online program being new, since, if you recall the second district's involvement we originally created and offered it in 2007. But I'll say that I am pleased nonetheless to see its inclusion in the report as phase two of the implementation. Maybe that was your passive way of allowing me authorship of Phase one, but I'll thank Councilmember Gonzalez and Mayor Garcia for their work on this. And as they know, the use of an online parking program was and remains an important resource for residents inside and outside downtown to fight find overnight parking in our parking impacted area. It's also important for property owners. During the first iteration, which my staff and I worked on, the community parking program created in consultation with I Park. It enabled property owners to manage the administrative portion of overnight parking online, which was a great tool for them, and leverage for our efforts to convince more businesses and churches to participate in the program. And for those of us who were here during that time, that required a lot of door to door walking and footwork and and really physical exertion to to get those arrangements in place. I'm wondering if that component would still be offered the business component.
Speaker 10: Yes, ma'am. Unfortunately, I Park decided not to be a partner with the city. That's why that darn application went away. We're in process or central parking is in process of creating a very similar application, and that would be in our total package. As we discussed, we're kind of expanding this. The first application would be for on street parking. So when we have completed that, it will get into the parking structures that the city owns and operates. And thirdly, we can expand that to all possible parking and parking lots. And I have to acknowledge that this was before my time and also acknowledge that that something that I learned my with my briefings with Mr. Brock Calvert that this was your program. So I appreciate that. And your your thought process behind that. Unfortunately I decided not to participate with would continue that business with the city and it was a proprietary program that they used. They used.
Speaker 11: You're right, I. It was too bad that they left. Thank you. I don't know that you'll find too many people that are enamored with parking and managing parking as our offices. So, finally, timeline for completion of phase two. Do we know?
Speaker 10: We're waiting to complete the RFP for for that component. I think we should get the results back by the end of this month. The on call for that consultant and then. Yeah. And we can get back to you on that. As far as when that RFP is approved and contract is awarded.
Speaker 11: Okay. Thank you. I am looking forward to it. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
Speaker 1: Councilman Gonzales.
Speaker 0: One more thing I failed to mention. I know we talked about this aura was the parking around the courthouse. And so I know the courthouse is a major impact for residents and businesses there. So in studying that, perhaps that could be something that would come back as well in October, just a preliminary study of the area and what the impacts are. And I know we've talked about parking meters in that area that might make more sense. So, yes, we'd love you to do that. Thank you.
Speaker 10: Absolutely. As we discussed, we had reviewed the parking, the residential impacts from the courthouse parking. We have discussed about the possibility of having a preferential parking district. That's going to be difficult to justify. But we will discuss or try to come out with any out of the box thinking and try to come up with some solutions for that residential district, for sure. So my staff and I will be discussing this in our next meeting, and it's on my radar for sure.
Speaker 0: Thank you. I appreciate.
Speaker 10: That.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I'm going to just make a couple a couple comments and then we'll go to the vote first. Mr. Miller, could you say also make sure in the future that we're at least thinking about how we're going to manage or work with the private lots? I know that there's a different relationship, obviously, but if you go to the private parking lots throughout downtown, there is there are some inconsistencies or upgrades that need to be also completed. And I think I don't know if sure were encouraging that some of the private lines but that could be could be helpful as part is part of the future phases and many private lots that are not that don't have a relationship with the city. So for example, one of the lots that's right off of Pine Avenue adjacent to the promenade is one of those lots where I think that there could be some they still have, but they just installed the the coin, the credit card machine, for example. They still have the old, you know, stick a dollar in machine right next to it and some of the old machinery that needs to be removed or updated. And so just some thought about some of the future lights would be would be great. And I just want to just add to what the vice mayor and the councilwoman said. I think the the truth is, is that the reason why we're not able to do all this stuff, because the lots aren't paying for themselves. And so I think we're at a point where we have to and I don't know that you didn't say that, but the truth is that we haven't budgeted these lots to where we would like to see them be. And I think that's just the fact. And it should be should we be receiving better service from the the vendor and that's operating? Absolutely. Are the lots a mess? Absolutely. They're twice or three times as bad at night. I mean, there there's trash everywhere. There's shopping carts all over the place. It's not something that we should be proud of as far as a service as being city lots. So I'm certainly not satisfied with the service. But we also, I think, should recognize that long term we have to think about what the investment that needs to be made to actually get those lots to where we want them. I think we've been trying to operate on a system of we we invest what we're getting in return for the actual lots and we try to balance out that we only spend what we are actually making. The truth is that what we're actually making is not enough at this point to actually fix the lots to where they're actually appropriately funded. So we have to have that conversation, I think, broader in the future. So I appreciate that. And with that, we'll go and go to go to a vote.
Speaker 3: Motion carries six zero.
Speaker 1: Okay, go ahead. Let's start the budget presentation.
Speaker 3: Item number one. Report from City Manager Financial Management Recommendation to conduct a budget hearing to receive and discuss an overview of the proposed fiscal year 2016 budget.
Speaker 1: Actually, you know, Madam Clerk. There's only, I think, four public public comments for the speakers lesson. It's getting late and I want to make sure we do them before it's too much too late. So why don't I just do this real quickly and then we'll go to the budget presentation. So I have please come forward. Elizabeth Andrew. Mary Rau. A rate goblets. Please come forward. Please go ahead.
Speaker 0: Hi there. Good evening there. Council. I'm Elizabeth Andrew. My address is on file. I reside in Long Beach on seventh July 7th, six of you voted to study an international expansion at Long Beach Airport, a calculated response to JetBlue's quest. Nothing about the study is being released to the public regarding who, when, the cost and how the study is being designed. Research is a guided activity and it is easy to omit facts, insert half truths and skew results. Denying community input and access to the study is extremely alarming. We suspect JetBlue and the fourth, which is the fourth largest airline, is the authoritative voice behind the scenes. They are the driving force for expansion. JetBlue secretly has worked with the city since 2013 on this project, when collusion between JetBlue and city staff was leaked. The precise words from city staff and I quote, I guess the cat's out of the bag. End quote. This statement is a hallmark of corruption. Now the city is having a study that's secret councils, providing no mechanism to ensure the study is fair and guided with the best interests of the public. Railroading the public with a study like this. Hmm. Interesting. At the February 2015 study session, both the city attorney and the city prosecutor's office explained the costly legal ordeal that we fought to have the airport protective noise ordinance today. Our municipality insures a rare asset that maintains a quality of life in neighborhoods and schools across Long Beach because of the U.S. Congress. Virtually no other municipality in the U.S. has this remarkably unique airport noise ordinance protection for our neighborhoods in schools. The grave risk is losing it by changing Long Beach Municipal Airport to Long Beach International. No one's talking about this. That in addition to JetBlue's international flights, this is opening the entire city to unlimited international charter, unlimited international, private and cargo jets. That thwarts the very point of protecting neighborhoods and schools will not be just a few friendly flights. And JetBlue going on vacation destinations. We're talking 747 Airbus large aircraft flying over us. I read in a Long Beach newspaper, quote, International flights and the noise ordinance are separate issues, end quote. Wrong. Intentionally misleading and irrelevant. Statements like that one horrified the community emissions of the irrevocable negative consequences of unlimited international charter, unlimited international, private and cargo jets can catastrophically destroy your neighborhoods, your constituents neighborhoods and their children's classrooms. For the public record, the City of Long Beach must have meaningful dialog. Staffs already kept a secret from the community for two years. You must give a voice to the neighborhoods on this study.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 0: Hello again. First of all, I want to thank you guys for passing a version. It's very good news. I gave everybody a copy of some of the comments I want to make. But basically, my ass before I start speaking is I just want to know what a community nonprofit needs to do to speak to the mayor about something very important. I don't understand why it takes a year and a half. I don't understand why I have to be here to ask is not getting it.
Speaker 5: So.
Speaker 1: Ma'am, I know that you've had a chance to meet with members of my staff, as well as multiple conversations with my staff. And so we try the best that we can with the schedule. But if you want to continue with the comments, go ahead.
Speaker 0: Okay. Well, I haven't actually met with anybody from your staff.
Speaker 1: So that's how you met with Sharon Weisman, who's in the room?
Speaker 0: I've never met with Sharon.
Speaker 1: Okay, go ahead.
Speaker 0: Um, so QMI formed in 2012 and we met with then Councilmember Lowenthal, his office eight times over the course of a year. Um based Vice Mayor Lowenthal attended one of those meetings. During our last meeting, two of the staff members basically told QMI that because of direction they've gotten from the city attorney's office that they could no longer support us as possible ambassadors for the ship and that we needed to continue our conversation with the ship leaseholder, which we've diligently tried to do for a year and a half. What we're being told now is that all of our preservation objectives have to be put on hold due to the new direction that you're taking with the Queen Mary task force. We're trying to understand how they're linked, because it's my understanding that the new task force is going to be focused on the surrounding land and not necessarily the ship. And as a nonprofit, we don't understand why all of our efforts to help are being ignored. So that's my question that I'd love to hear any comment or suggestion from any of the council members or the mayor.
Speaker 1: Thank you. You're done?
Speaker 0: I guess so.
Speaker 1: Okay. So, ma'am, after the meeting, we'll be in touch that I think you're referring to the Queen Mary task force, which has nothing to do with whatever's happening currently on the ship. So I can't speak for for garrison or evolution, but they're the ones that are managing what's actually happening on the ship as far as a historic preservation piece that I think you're referring to. I think that, you know, John Thomas, who is the historic preservation officer on the ship, is the one that manages that portion. The city refers to historic preservation when it comes to the ship through John Thomas. And so I know that some of that we refer, or at least my office referred you to, to speak to. And so that is kind of what who is managing the historic preservation piece as far as the ship and as far as what they're what they do and Garrison does. That's I mean, that is that's what they're doing.
Speaker 0: So my question to you that.
Speaker 1: Well, we can so that public comments are probably happy to talk to you offline. Okay, we'll talk. Well, it's a.
Speaker 0: Promise.
Speaker 1: That we will talk to you offline. Thank you very much.
Speaker 0: Ray Gavlak, eighth District resident. On July 7th, six council.
Speaker 13: Members voted to proceed with an RFP to further study.
Speaker 0: Items.
Speaker 13: Related to for approving a customs facility at Long Beach Airport.
Speaker 0: Austin, Urunga and Superdome. Voted against opening this Pandora's box, since it has the ability to compromise some of the most successful.
Speaker 13: Neighborhoods within our city.
Speaker 0: Your RFP requests include planning and design for a customs facility. Isn't that premature since the decision has not yet been made, at least publicly, to support this enhanced service to our municipal airport? Will project plans not add to the costs associated with this study and move closer to clearing this project for takeoff? Councilwoman Mango, you initiated the desire to gather the.
Speaker 13: Facts, yet there is yet to be a public discussion.
Speaker 0: On the studies that were already completed. In addition to the process, a study of November 2013 that is still viable today. That was a there was a January 2014 request made to Cal State Professor Joe Maga Dino to do an economic impact study. The cost of this study was $12,300 on January 29th. Professor Maga Dino stated the following. The main question appears to be the impact of new visitors on the Long Beach economy. We deliberately left it out of the proposal since we believe the impact.
Speaker 13: Of visitor expenditures on the.
Speaker 0: Long Beach economy will be small. He attached the following reasoning that most of the anticipated 15,000 travelers will be leisure travelers, a large number of them will be U.S. citizens and live within the region having little impact on expenditures beyond those.
Speaker 13: Within the airport facilities. Foreign travelers are likely to use the airport as.
Speaker 0: Entry into Southern California rather than visiting Long Beach per say. Since foreign passengers are leisure travelers, their destination is not a convention hosted in Long Beach. And as for flight crews, the numbers were not included since the proposal.
Speaker 13: Is to add foreign flights and to reduce domestic.
Speaker 0: Flights. Since this economic study was never finalized, I will assume direction was given to not complete it, given that the opinion of the independent expert did not produce the desired outcome. We will continue to use this platform to further educate Long Beach residents and ask them to visit LP Neighborhoods First AECOM to join the movement to put our residents ahead of corporations. Council members.
Speaker 13: Your industry expert will give.
Speaker 0: You what you ask for your two community meetings. Allowing residents a brief three minute comment is not sufficient to gather the concerns from thousands of citizens.
Speaker 13: Please do your due diligence on materials available today.
Speaker 0: Host your own district meetings or attend a meeting held in airport impacted communities. Identify the unattended consequences that could be related to this venture and then vote with your elected elected conscience to receive and file when this returns for your votes.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Gabriela Hernandez, please. It's Gabriela Hernandez here. Okay. Jerry Thomas, is Jerry Thomas here? Please, sir.
Speaker 5: I just want to make a quick.
Speaker 4: Comment that I think it's a great idea that.
Speaker 2: Now we step forward.
Speaker 7: And.
Speaker 6: Make a statement.
Speaker 2: To the world.
Speaker 6: I raise.
Speaker 5: Minimum wage for nine months.
Speaker 1: $9 an hour to $15 an hour.
Speaker 2: Make sure you are at.
Speaker 4: 3% payroll tax.
Speaker 10: Bearing.
Speaker 6: Tax.
Speaker 2: So you got a nice.
Speaker 5: Tax base on that. And and that that.
Speaker 2: It's our chain reaction.
Speaker 6: Is election.
Speaker 5: Year.
Speaker 7: It might make a big difference that you're in make.
Speaker 1: Thank you, sir. That because the public comment. Mr. West start with the budget presentation. | Agenda Item | Recommendation to request City Manager to provide an update to the City Council on the recently completed Downtown Parking Study which was requested at the November 11, 2014 meeting. | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_08182015_15-0737 | Speaker 2: We will be doing our budget presentation and first we will be hearing from our police chief and his team. Then we will be going to the fire.
Speaker 12: Department and then we will be hearing from.
Speaker 2: Disaster preparedness and emergency communications. And with that, I'll turn it over to chief unit. Good evening, our mayor Garcia and members of the city council. As you know, our public safety efforts in Long Beach are a true partnership. So I would like to start with some acknowledgments. First of all, I want to recognize the men and women of the Long Beach Police Department who work every day under very difficult or work very hard every day under very difficult circumstances to keep our community safe. I would also like to thank our city departments and the community for their partnership in making this city a safe place for all people. Finally, thanks goes to the city manager and the City Council. Your ongoing support is very much appreciated. You are familiar with our core services. These services are guided by our recently developed strategic vision, which closely aligns with the Law Enforcement Code of Ethics and Sir Robert Pils nine Principles of Policing. Our goal is to make Long Beach a safe place for all people. And our mission is simple, yet effective public safety through partnerships. Our core services include safeguarding lives and property in our community, providing law enforcement services in a constitutional manner, responding to calls for service, thoroughly investigating crimes, and proactively seeking to build partnerships with our community. This slide addresses some key accomplishments. In FY 14, officers were dispatched to nearly 170,000 calls for service on an average day. This translates to officers responding to 487 calls for service. They proactively initiated contact with our community over 1100 times and made approximately 63 arrests again. This represents activity on an average day. In addition, our daily workload includes COPS projects, which are special projects for long term problem solving, handling special events and high profile incidents incidences. And we also address many council requests for services. Many of you well know when you dial 911 in an emergency situation, officers are arriving on scene on average within 4.8 minutes. That is an incredible accomplishment. We also continue to place a strategic focus on gang suppression efforts through various investigative methods, including working with our city prosecutor, Doug Halbert. To conduct citywide enforcement on gang court orders that encompass several gangs. Partnerships with other agencies to address gang crimes. Gang detectives and a probation officer assigned to the gang enforcement section to help augment the work of our officers in the field and to highlight some of our enforcement. 90% of our human trafficking arrests. Led by our vice section, are gang members and an estimated 50% of compliance checks for subjects released pursuant to AB 109 involve gang members. In the past two fiscal years, the use of discretionary overtime and non-recurring funds approved by the City Council have helped us to focus or help us to focus our efforts on certain crime trends. You may remember in 2014, we received nonrecurring funds to combat human trafficking and conduct prohibitive possessor enforcement. Both operations proved extremely successful in FY 15. So far, we have been successful in reducing residential burglary by 19 4%, which equates to 218 crimes citywide. When it comes to our approach in addressing crime today, we devote our resources in a data driven, focused manner, as opposed to using more traditional police sweeps, which has a common which was a common enforcement tactic used in the past. In our efforts to increase the level of community engagement, we will continue to seek expanded partnerships with our community. This will enhance communications and information sharing. Some of our key partnerships include the Ministers Alliance and the organization. Why'd you stop me? We also work closely with other city departments, community based organizations and our community on the public safety continuum. The safe Long Beach violence prevention plan and to provide safe passage to our students. We are also looking forward to working with the city's new innovation team. We are grateful for our continuing academy classes because they are allowing us to replenish police officer positions as a result of attrition. Academy class number 87 graduated 24 recruits in December of 2014. Class 88 started in May of 2015 with 45 recruits and will graduate in November of this year. Testing for Class 89 is currently underway with an expected start date in May of 2016. Lastly, we also want to highlight that over the past 15 years we have improved most substations in the city and are close to completion of our substation. We anticipate moving in in early 2016. As you see, most of the police department budget comes from the general fund. In FY 16, there are no changes in our sworn full time equivalents. However, we are transferring civilian employees to another department, which I will explain later in my presentation. Grant funding is an important resource for our department in FY 14. The police department was awarded 15 grants totaling $4.8 million in FY 15. The police department continues to receive both allocation and competitive grants. There are some key changes in the FY16 budget. One of the most significant changes is the creation of the Community Engagement Division, which will increase our ability to build stronger relationships with our community. This is very important or this is a very important part of our ongoing effort to build public trust. This division will continue to explore community partnership opportunities, social media communications, manage our youth explorer program and volunteers, as well as develop a more robust internship program. Through $150,000 in nonrecurring funds. The department will continue to train officers in the areas highlighted in the president's 21st Century Task Force report. These topics include mental health issues and homelessness. Verbal de-escalation. Fair and impartial. Constitutional policing. Cultural diversity. And alternatives to arrest. In this proposal, the department has been allocated $2.2 million to fund overtime for prevention, enforcement and investigation of violent crime, as well as to address other emerging crime trends. The Academy lieutenant position will focus on new training initiatives, developing the lateral process and recruiting. We will continue to partner with civil service to identify law enforcement recruiting opportunities in an effort to hire people who best reflect the diversity of our community and who will uphold the high standards of our police department. Another change is the upgraded criminalist positions, which will provide a higher level of sophistication for investigative assistants and managing evidence collection. Because we have a large general fund budget and many grants to manage the financial bureau will be enhanced. By the addition of an accounting technician, financial services officer and an administrative intern. Lastly, as I alluded to earlier, 65 public safety dispatcher positions will be transferred to the Department of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Communications. The demands, expectations and the level of accountability placed on our officers have never been higher. Today, our officers are more carefully chosen, more diverse, better educated and carefully trained, and more technologically and tactically sound. In these next two slides outlining significant issues and opportunities, you will see a common theme in our efforts to build trust, increase capabilities, and have a more strategic focus. Part of that strategic focus includes our communications plan, which will involve assistance from communication professionals to better shape information about the police department with our community today. There are many emerging technologies for use in law enforcement. We have been working on several new and innovative technologies such as online reporting, a new personnel scheduling system. Our mobile AI camera platform. And we are exploring E-Ticketing, which will reduce time spent on data entry of citations. In addition, our department is in the selection process of a vendor for our body camera pilot program. The pilot program will provide the department with a better understanding of resources needed to operate this initiative. We need to point out that this program may require additional resources as the pilot progresses and as we prepare for full implementation. It is important that we employ a data driven approach to our enforcement strategies to maximize our limited resources. As part of the mayor's proposal, non-recurring funds may be added in the FY16 budget for a new gang analyst to augment violent crime strategies. We are all concerned about the violent crime increases we have seen this year, and we will continue to make focused enforcement a priority. While the city achieved the lowest reported number of violent crimes in 2014, this year, overall crime has increased by 6.3% based on a five year average. And since the beginning of summer, there has been a spike in violent crimes. I recently attended a violent crime summit convened by the Major City Chiefs Association in Washington, DC. The preliminary findings of the summit among 35 participating cities were very revealing. On an average homicide increase, 19% this year. 62% of the cities have had increases in nonfatal shootings. 40% of the cities are reporting crime scenes with shootings using multiple firearms. Almost half of the agencies report an increase in gang retaliatory violence. Synthetic drugs have reached have not reached all cities yet, but 30% reported increase in violent crime where the offender is under the influence of synthetic drugs. I would like to reiterate that these preliminary findings after polling 35 major cities nationwide. In FY16, the department will focus on improving the quality of existing resources and equipment. As I mentioned earlier, the police substations have received improvement over the last 15 years. However, other infrastructure, maintenance and repair needs have been identified. These issues these issues will require attention in future years. It is essential to provide a clean, safe, functioning work environment for our employees to enhance employee performance and morale. In addition, the Department is expanding the procurement of projectile launchers and munitions to be more readily available to police officers in the field for improved alternative moderate force options. The Police Department is grateful that FY16 will afford our organization an additional year of resource stability with minimal impacts to our current level of service. We have implemented many new programs and efficiencies with a budget neutral impact to the general fund. In closing, the police department will approach FY 16 as a year of transition. We will diligently reevaluate the department's structure, along with citywide priorities and emerging crime trends, to identify the most optimal way to guide the department through the budget limits forecasted for FY 17 and f y 18. As part of our many strategies, a police department will continue to actively seek available grants, explore technology that streamlines administrative functions. And we will continue to work with our internal and external partners to develop comprehensive programs that maximize city resources to address public safety. This concludes our presentation, and I believe we're going to do the other departments first, and then I will be available to all of you for any questions that you may have.
Speaker 1: Okay. Let's move on to fire.
Speaker 8: Good evening, mayor garcia and members of the city council. This evening, I will be giving you a brief overview of the Long Beach Fire Department's fiscal year 16 proposed budget. My presentation will also touch upon the services provided by the Fire Department some of our key accomplishments for the current fiscal year. Significant changes in fiscal year 16 proposed budget and some major issues and opportunities for fiscal year 16. The Fire Department delivers fire rescue, emergency medical services, hazardous materials response and non-emergency response services to residents, businesses and visitors of Long Beach. We provide a 24 hour operation for which all first responders must be prepared at all times. A primary goal of the fire department is to reduce the number of fires in the city through our fire prevention efforts. These include services such as fire inspections and code enforcement, investigation of suspicious fires to our fire investigation and arson detail , the implementation of environmental safeguards and efforts to reach out to the community with fire prevention and safety messages and related information. Additionally, are training division provides essential services to the entire department. They prepare entry level fire recruits to be effective firefighters through our fire academy. And equally important is their work in ensuring that all of our first responders receive the continuing education needed to maintain skills and stay current with their knowledge of firefighting and emergency response tactics. I would like to outline excuse me, I would like to outline some of the fire department's accomplishments and highlights for our current fiscal year. Over the past 12 months, the Long Beach Fire Department has responded to 62,000 fire, emergency medical services and other emergency incidents. This equates to more than 130,000 unit responses. We have been and will always remain a very busy fire department. Included in this number is over 45,000 medical calls and over 5000 fire calls. This number also includes hazardous material responses, airport responses, marine safety responses and other non fire responses. Earlier this year, 20 new fire recruits graduated from our fire academy. It's our plan to continue running annual academies to keep up with attrition and ensure adequate staffing levels at all times. And as you know, last year, on July 10th, the fire department implemented the Rapid Medic deployment or RMD program throughout the city. The program has been in place for one year, and I'm pleased to report to you that the data that we have submitted to the Los Angeles County Emergency Medical Services Agency and the Data Safety Monitoring Board has shown has been shown by them improvements in response times and patient care. We continue to have a very active Community Emergency Response Team or CERT program. This year was unique in that we conducted the city's first ever Spanish language cert class. It was. We also conducted a teen cert program. CERT classes provide community members with practical hands on instruction and demonstrations of how to respond to emergencies. And we continued to effectively utilize federal homeland security grant funds. This year, we were able to secure funds to continue to improve our response capabilities and to improve our effectiveness in working with neighboring agencies to manage large scale regional emergencies. The proposed fiscal year 16 budget for the fire department is just over $98 million. We have a total of 485 budgeted full time equivalent staff consisting of 364 sworn muftis in the fire ranks. Another 26 full time year round marine safety first responders, over 160 seasonal lifeguards and 33 full time ambulance operators. Additionally, the fire department is supported by civilian staff in fire operations, support services, fire prevention and administration. The bulk of our budget, over 70%, is in the general fund, which supports most departmental activities. The proposed FAA 16 general fund budget for the fire department is just over $72 million. Additionally, Tidelands Funds supports marine safety activities as well as our fire operations in the Port of Long Beach. The Harbor Department provides cost reimbursement for the services provided to the port, and that is included in the $23 million Tidelands Fund budget for fire prop fund. Funds from the oil production tax continue to provide additional support for fire staffing in the amount of nearly $1.8 million per year. And along with the Health Department, the fire department provides environmental protection services that are supported by the Cooper Fund. The stands for Certified Unified Program Agency and through permit fees, it provides funding for inspection services and businesses emergency plan reviews to ensure hazardous chemicals are handled, stored and transported in accordance with current state and local standards. The Fire Department's proposed fiscal year 16 budget includes several changes that I'd like to highlight. First, as you are aware, the city has been transitioning to a consolidated and public safety communication center for the past several years. The next step in this process is to transfer the fire department's dispatching staff and associated budget to the Department of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Communications. A second budget change reflects the need for additional staff to provide administrative oversight and planning for the fire department. The professional administrative staffing level in the fire department is very low for a department of our size and complexity. Therefore, we are proposing the addition of an administrative officer who will be responsible for managing the department's personnel safety contracts and many other administrative functions. We are also proposing the addition of a part time clerical position to assist with the many Public Records Act requests we have been receiving. This will partially replace a full time position that was dedicated to providing these services, but was eliminated from our budget in fiscal year 2008. Additionally, the proposed budget provides ongoing funding for a CERT coordinator. We have had an increased support for the CERT program over the past couple of years, first with grant funds and then with additional one time funds for cert enhancements. The short term commitment of funds has allowed the CERT program program to grow, giving us an opportunity to train more adults and teens. The addition of the budgeted CERT coordinator will allow us to support the current level of CERT program activity on an ongoing basis. The CERT coordinator will be responsible for coordinating the activities of the City CERT Program under the direction of the Deputy Chief of Fire Prevention. Duties will include recruiting and training volunteers, developing lesson plans and conducting training and drills. The CERT coordinator will also assist sworn fire staff in the Community Services Division by planning and attending CERT program meetings with CERT team leaders on topics related to emergency preparedness under direction from the Deputy Chief of Fire Prevention. The position will also help coordinate the department's social media and website efforts, and the CERT Coordinator will have a strong, analytical, organizational, strong communication skills as well as experience working in a public safety organization. The next change in our budget is to realign the number of budgeted, total sworn positions to reflect our actual staffing levels. The Department will eliminate 24 budgeted positions that were kept on the books as overstaffed positions to reduce budgeted overtime. However, these positions had never been filled. Therefore, there will be no effective reduction in staff. The net effect of this change is a savings of $200,000. The final change in the budget is in the Tidelands Fund. This is a reduction in marine safety staffing. We are proposing the reduction of one vacant marine safety sergeant rescue boat operator position. Looking forward to fiscal year 16, the department has several significant issues. The first is to conduct a thorough analysis of all potential cost savings efficiencies and cost recovery mechanisms in an effort to maintain staffing levels for fire suppression and emergency medical services. The fire department has reduced our budget over the past seven years by eliminating four fire engines, one fire truck and one paramedic ambulance. Therefore, we'll be looking at all options for maintaining our service. Another challenge is to continue our multiyear multiphase plan to address workforce privacy issues in our fire department facilities. The Fire Department and Public Works Department have made great strides over the past several years to ensure that our facilities foster a positive work environment and provide privacy for all our employees. Our facilities are unique in that our employees utilize them on a 24 hour basis. Therefore, it is essential that all facilities offer private dormitories, changing areas and restroom facilities. Fire and Public Works will utilize existing capital improvement fund appropriations to conclude these workforce privacy projects. And finally, the Department will begin implementing the first responder fee, which was approved by City Council on July 21st. In conjunction with financial management, we will determine collection rates and the amount of revenue received. This information will be essential in determining the level of funding available from this new revenue source in fiscal year 17. And with that, that concludes my presentation, and I'll stand by to answer questions after Mr. Harrison.
Speaker 1: Thank you. And now we're going to hear the last part of our presentation from Emergency Preparedness Management.
Speaker 10: I hear. Mere members of the City Council. It is my pleasure to present the first budget for this new city department, the Department of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Communications. I am joined in this presentation by the Fire Chief, Mike Derry, and by our police chief, Robert Luna. As we join, as we become a part of the city's continuum of public safety. This new department was created in fiscal year 2013 to centralize and bring greater focus to disaster preparedness and emergency communications functions throughout the city. This reorganization was implemented to better align Long Beach with a growing demand for integrated public safety services and strengthened collaboration between city departments, county, state and federal resources with responsibility for disaster. Prepare, preparation, response, recovery and mitigation.
Speaker 6: Thank you.
Speaker 10: In terms of our core service. Long Beach is fortunate to have miles of waterfront coastline that attract tourists and visitors from across the world. We operate our own airport gas utility and the second largest deepwater port in North America. These are great amenities for the city to have, but they also make Long Beach a complex city in terms of disaster preparation. Earlier this year, the City Council approved the updated Natural Hazardous Mitigation Plan that identified and provided mitigation measures for many of the risks we have. Therefore, our plans, exercises, training events are all designed to be flexible enough to adapt to all hazards as well as natural disasters, biological incidents, and that and national security emergencies. While an earthquake is the most probable natural disaster for Southern California, we can see from the recent power outages that a disruption of significance to our quality of life for a prolonged period can have detrimental effects on a community. We also we also administered a Homeland Security Grant program to provide training and equipment acquisition for our first responders and disaster preparedness organizations. And integral to the department is the provision of 911 Emergency Communications Services for Police, Fire and Emergency Medical calls for service during a disaster. The call center would activate a mass notification system to alert residents of the status of a pending or actual major emergency. The call center would also provide updated information to first responders, information that we receive from the public. Thanks. The new department hit the ground running in terms of accomplishments for five days beginning July 15 through July 19th and again on Friday, July 30th through August the first. The city suffered its first major power outage since the 1950s. The power outage was caused by fires in Southern California, maintained utility vaults at the height of the power outage. Approximately 30,000 residents were affected. The city responded by activating its EOC emergency operations center at its highest level for a sustained period to assist police, fire, public works and other staff to manage city resources to restore power to the affected area. This was the first activation at this level since the 2004 Verizon service interruption. And we will and we will report on this interruption in greater detail at the September 1st City Council meeting. But I'd also like to say, Mayor, City Council, as you are aware, the city's response was matched 141 by this by our residents response as well to this major disruption of our quality of life and services to our residents. We had just an outpouring of support from residents, nonprofits, the business community, just resident two resident camaraderie and mutual respect helped us to manage this major disaster and move forward. There were no increases in crime and criminal activity during this period of time, and there were no major accidents during this time. Our response was aided by almost 300 city staff and community partners that we trained throughout the year through our whole community approach to disaster preparedness. Many of those staff responded to the incident or to the D.C. Department Operations Centers or at our EOC or at the emergency shelter and food distribution points went through that training during this past year. I spoke earlier of the probability of an earthquake affecting Long Beach, and I'm really proud to state that Long Beach is one of the few cities nationally to participate in the earthquake early warning system to provide seconds or minutes of warning before an earthquake might strike. We are beta testing this technology to see how departments could use 20 seconds, 40 seconds, a minute of warning before disasters strike to put in operational changes that would save lives and property. We oversaw a $9.1 million in Homeland Security grant funds to provide training and equipment acquisition for disaster preparedness and response activities. With this equipment activities, with this equipment acquisition. We're not talking about militarizing our police department. There are no armored personnel carriers associated with this acquisition. But rather, we we emphasize our acquisitions on communications, the provision of generators and training for all hazards. Not yet. The 911 center received over 700,000 calls for service last year and exceeded state requirements for answering 90% of those calls within 10 seconds. And finally, we reduced overtime for our public safety dispatchers by 30% by recruiting and training 22 dispatchers, reducing the fire public safety vacancies to one position and reducing the police public safety vacancies to three positions. No. Our budget is made up entirely of the city's general fund. It is cost neutral to the city. As you heard, the two police chiefs before me indicated the transference of public safety dispatchers from police and fire to this new department. There is a net zero budget impact from this transference of staff. Major changes. As I stated earlier, the next step in a transition of the consolidation of the police and fire dispatch is duties as the transference of the dispatch staff to the new department. This will facilitate the ongoing consolidation and cross-training program to improve services to residents requiring police, fire and emergency medical services. We will, if approved, upgrade a public safety dispatcher to communications and center coordinator to provide oversight to the communications in our operations. And we will add, in addition, an administrative analyst one to provide support to city departments and community partner organizations in developing their development preparedness plans. This slide provides you with an update on the emergency communications consolidation and cross-training program through a phased approach. We are across train police and fire department dispatchers to improve customer service, eliminating the transfer residents calls and realizing economies of scale through staff performing similar work. Consolidation will also position the call center to handle next generation 911 technology, including receiving texts and pictures to 911, which we are currently not able to provide this service to the public. Phase one is to cross-train staff to eliminate the transfer of resident calls from police dispatchers to fire dispatchers. Phase two is to cross-trained staff, to provide dispatch services to police, fire and emergency medical calls for services. The next steps are to complete the Animal U with police and fire that address operational protocols, create consolidated policies and procedures, and continue recruitment and training successes. And then finally looking forward, our significant issues and opportunities are to maintain emergency communication staffing levels to facilitate cross training program. Continue to implement emergency operation plans that benefit the whole community and maintain training programs for all hazards response teams. With that may remember City Council, this concludes our presentations and we are available to answer questions that you may have.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you. We're going to go now to questions of the council for the department heads. So I'll start off with Councilman Richardson.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I want to I want to thank thank our city departments for those presentations. I want to thank Reggie Harrison for that presentation. I think that's fair. This new department is really one of the core roles of government, and I think it's smart that we aligned some of this duplicative services of services that are already taking place in fire and police department in those. I want to start with some just some comments on our police department for our chief. So so first I want to I want to just applaud a number of things in this in this budget. And so so first, I want to applaud the establishment of the community engagement division. And I think with the establishment of our community watch programs, you know, innovative things we're doing, like with the Security Committee on on the Atlantic Avenue in North Long Beach. I think that's that's really creative. Could you span just a moment on the role of this division? The Community Engagement Division. Yes, Councilman. And happy birthday, by the way. Thank you. I'll try to get out of here quickly. This division is going to be focused on making sure that we have partnerships with everybody in the city, collaborate with not only our community on a consistent basis, but to make sure that we're communicating the right way, the right message to everybody involved, and then looking for any opportunities to get better at what we're doing from a partnership perspective through the media. Just to give you an example, that division is already training a lot of our lieutenants and is going to be training our sergeants in how to give more and more rapid information to the media out at the side of events, which is going to to help us a lot in the perspective that our community has with the. So that's just one example. I could go on for a long time. They're going to be doing some great things for us. Sure. And I also want to applaud the the conversation about the 21st century policing. I've I've read the president's report. A number of the president's recommendations were were received as controversial in the law enforcement community. So I'm very proud that you're embracing it and that there are there's a proposal in this budget to actually train our police department on it. So I just want to acknowledge that next, I have sort of an anecdotal statement. You know, I've personally seen a, you know, a lot of human trafficking activity and increase personally. I don't know if that's justified or if that's represented statistically, but I've seen an increase there, but a decrease in gang activity. There was, in my opinion, more activity last year than this year. And could you just sort of elaborate a little bit on have we sort of placed more of a focus on one and taken taking a lesser focus on the other? Because I it's sort of getting disproportionately to one side. I'd love to not have either of them, but but human trafficking is is really a it's stepping up in North Long Beach this year. So what can you tell us about that? Human trafficking is an awful crime. And I'm proud to say that our department, specifically our investigations bureau, our vice unit, is a leader in the nation. They are going out and not only enforcing or suppressing the crime, but they're actually working in collaboration with many community based organizations in arresting the individuals who are involved, but getting assistance to what we formerly saw as prostitutes, but now we see as victims and connecting them back with their families. From the gang perspective, our strategies for this department have really changed over the last several years where everybody is focused on gang suppression. So for example, under the human trafficking example, our vice unit leads the efforts and gets other specialized units involved around the department. And we make these arrests. And 90% of these arrests we find are gang members that we're taking off the street for many years at a time. So they are not victimizing other people because we find that they're not only doing human trafficking, but they're dealing narcotics. They're suspects in shootings at times are victims in shootings. So all in all, it's it's a strategy that I think will make this city safer as time goes on. Well, I would just say that we're seeing more victims of human trafficking on the street. So maybe we can have a conversation off line about some of those hotspots. Absolutely. Many more victims. Whereas I can tell you, you know, I was skeptical about the cross-training approach of sort of eliminating the gang unit, but cross-training, training. Everyone and I expressed this last year, but I have to give it to you. I've seen the statistics in District nine. I've seen the direction their head and I've seen the, you know, the the arrests that have been made, the high profile arrests have been made and the lack of activity this coming summit, this past summer, this current summer, it's I've seen an improvement. So I have to I have to hand that to you. So the next the next thing is, are we at the same level of the exact same number of sworn officers? Are we at the same staffing levels this year? Last year, we have 806 budgeted. And yes, we're at the same level we were flagged. Yes. And I wanted to clarify something you said in your earlier statement that we had gotten rid of our gang unit. We actually still have a gang enforcement section which investigates gang crime on the vice side, right? No, no. We have a vice section that investigates ABC prostitution and does human trafficking and a couple of other things. But we also have a gang enforcement section that specifically is assigned all of our gang cases in the city. That section also has a very good intelligence portion of it. What we eliminated due to budget reductions in the last several years was the field enforcement portion of that gang section. No, I get it. I understand that the gang field field team was what was eliminated. But, you know, it seems that you're on the same same level of staffing. Is that from last year to this year, have calls for service increased across the years? We do have a slight increase in the calls for service that we're handling. And I know that the trend we commonly see every year, there's an increase in calls for service, not necessarily. In the past, we have seen a decrease. We've seen a decrease because in the way we approach work, especially through our patrol bureau, is we do more problem, long term problem solving and we work with the public safety continuum. So, for example, when we get dispatches, instead of going back to the same place over and over and over, we figure out different ways to approach it to eliminate the problem. So we're not going back. That being said, in the last year we have seen an increase in dispatches, which is a little different from the previous years. Okay. So in I'm a believer in the public safety continuum. If we're if we continue to see increases, I think it's unfair to expect your department to continue to do perform at this level without having a conversation about increasing staffing levels. I think that's unfair. I think you've done a great job and you're doing a great job this year, but I really want to watch that closely. The next thing is our our academies. So we have academies schedule and they are how many people are going to be in this year's academy? We currently have an Academy class that's about halfway through and we have 37 police recruits who are left in that class. We are currently we have recruited and we're in the process of hiring for the next class. And Mr. West has made it very clear to me that he wants us to over hire to make sure that we don't run into vacancy. So we're currently assessing that within our police department to see what we can maximize as far as taking on a larger class that I'm glad to hear that. I know that there's a attrition rate in the class and there's a attrition rate in the department. So we want to make sure those are actually level. And then so finally, I've learned a lot over this last year about just all the resources that the federal government has for us. And I'm glad that you are engaged in the like the National Forum on Youth Violence Prevention and a number of other things. I think we should we should continue to place a focus on identifying grants that could support us. I know that Office of Justice Programs and the Department of Justice, they have a cops hiring grant that we. It was my understanding that we are you know, we haven't pursued those because of certain contingencies related to if we hire someone, we have to keep them on our on our roster for a certain period of time. I think we should. Can you tell me have we gone after that? Has that changed? Have we gone off of the cops hiring grant in recent years? So this is the grant that covers three years of staffing. It's a federal grant that helps departments hire or rehire police sworn officers. Yes, sir. We have looked at that, but we did not pursue it because were we as a city are not in a position to go out and hire more police officers because we can't just look at our budget for this coming year. But we're in the forecast, which are very well aware of in the next 2 to 3 years. I don't want to be in a position where I'm recommending to the city manager that we're hiring more officers and then we have to maybe lay them off. We will continue to pursue every angle on every grant and if at all possible. I don't think there's anybody in the city that doesn't agree that once we can afford it, we would like to have more police officers, but we have to be fiscally responsible when we're recommending those things. And I would expect that you do. You do just that. My thought is that if for some if there are conditions on these grants that make them not suitable to our city, then we should take a legislative approach and make sure that the next round is crafted to where cities like Long Beach can take advantage of. Because we are hiring. We we've done an academy for, you know, the last few years, and those are all new recruits. So I would love to see if we can offset some of those costs with federal grants. So I'd love to have that conversation perhaps at the Fed Ledge Committee. It's a an idea. Thank you. I'm sorry. It's a great idea. Thank you, sir. Certainly. Next the next one, just to mention, there's a community police community policing development grant which provides one time funding for things like our our community engagement division or the our training. So that's something that's closed this year, but that's something that I encourage we continue to look at. And then there's the, the, the OJP anti-gang initiative grant, which seems like we're doing innovative stuff around there. We should, we should look at those if we haven't already. So those are just comments. I want to thank you and all of your the members of your department for the tremendous job that you're doing. Thank you, sir. Thank you. So. So I just want to I have a couple questions for our fire chief.
Speaker 1: Okay. So, Councilor Richardson, there's been a request to see if we can do any of the PD questions first so they don't have to keep switching. Do you mind if we do that?
Speaker 2: He's up there now. I'd rather just knock it out so I don't have to speak twice.
Speaker 1: Okay. This was a request from me. Know from Fire PD. Would you mind if they. They want the command staff up.
Speaker 2: They're just doing one. Everyone else remember to talk twice.
Speaker 1: I'm just. This is a request from PD and fired.
Speaker 2: I would.
Speaker 1: Do you want to go ahead and go ahead and just go ahead. Gunfire. Go ahead.
Speaker 2: Because that's the question that everybody's asking questions. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chief. So. So I wanted to first ask about the implementation of the fire fee. How's it coming?
Speaker 8: Councilmember the we are currently working through the process of when and how will implement that fee with the director of financial management, John GROSS and his staff. And we expect to issue some some type of memo to this council that will outline how and when that will go live here in the near future.
Speaker 2: Okay. You have an idea of a timeline.
Speaker 8: As of right now. I don't I can't give you a specific timeline, but I can tell you that between the fire staff and financial management staff, we're working diligently and trying to make this thing come online as quickly as we can, but we want to make sure it's right in the process.
Speaker 2: Great. And is there I see I'm looking at the memo from Long Beach firefighters 372 and it says that there's a proposed elimination of 24 vacant positions. Is that true? Can you elaborate on that?
Speaker 8: Councilmember The the budget solution that we put in place this year eliminates 24 vacant positions. If you go back to 2008, when we first started, when during the Great Recession, we went through a series of daily engine reductions. It started with one where we would have the engine in a station but not staff it. And then the following year we went into two engine reductions where we had two engines without that were there, but we weren't staffing them. And since that time, we've carried these budgeted positions that have been unfilled in our budget since 2008. So basically what this issue does is it makes our budget actually reflective of how we deploy in the organization every day. It makes our budget reflective of reality.
Speaker 2: So these positions haven't been filled in. How long?
Speaker 8: No, sir. Since 2008. Prior to fiscal year, 2007.
Speaker 2: So none of these have been filled since oh seven?
Speaker 8: That's correct.
Speaker 2: And and I would just be concerned about that's a cut. I would be concerned about that moving forward. So I'm going to I'm going to continue to look at that. Next, I know that last year we had the conversation about R&D, and I'm going to bring it up again. I know that we are still dependent on L.A. County EMS to approve or deny this this program. And so the question is, now that we have a fire fee, are we? If in the event that the county were to reject this program, what will be our contingency plan to make sure that there's no loss in service to our residents?
Speaker 8: Councilmember. I don't have any indication that the county would step in, given the data that has been submit to them over the past year and given the data safety monitoring boards letter that they submit to the full EMC Commission, I don't have any indication that the agency would not look at that data and see clearly that the program is effective based on the data. If the if the committee or excuse me, if the EMC agency through the commission came back to us and said, for whatever reason they were going to shut down our pilot program, we would then be required to revert per the four or seven guidance policy, revert back to the system we had in place with regard to how we deploy our paramedic rescue ambulances. But that would force us in fire management to take a very hard look at the overall system, the organization that would support those paramedics in their work. And it would require it would require probably a month or longer for us to put together a plan that I can articulate to you to tell you exactly how we would minimize the impact of that.
Speaker 2: Okay. Well, thank you so much. That satisfies my my questions.
Speaker 1: Rosemary Lowenthal.
Speaker 11: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I have. I have a few questions. I'll start with fire. Since you're sitting there, I. And then I will ask a few questions of police as well. Chief Terry. And I know we've discussed this in briefings and in other meetings, but if you can share with us when we expect to hear back from L.A. County, the EMS agency, regarding our pilot R&D program.
Speaker 8: Councilmember the the pilot program when it was approved, when it started on July 10th, 2014, it was initially established as a two year pilot program. So we have standing a plate standing placeholder at every EMS commission meeting where the commission is given an update from the Data Safety Monitoring Board or EMS staff on an on the Long Beach paramedic program. So if anything comes up, that's where they would address it. So as it stands right now, we're still in the middle of our pilot program, although we had the Data Safety Monitoring Board submit a letter to the EMS commission at their last meeting with a report that that basically said that they felt the data that was being submit to them was coming in on a timely basis. It was stable, and it showed across the board some that they said they had no issues with regard to patient care or quality of service. So they the Data Safety Monitoring Board made a recommendation to the for EMS Commission that we stopped submitting the data to them. We then went back to the EMS agency, the director, and said, okay, well, what are our next steps? And so basically what she told us was they don't they don't know exactly what the next steps are, what the process is from here. But we're just going to stay in the pilot program for now while the county works out whatever the next steps are going to be.
Speaker 11: So are they giving us any feedback on our response time parameters or anything like that?
Speaker 8: So. The data set. I'm going to let Deputy Chief Sergeant weigh in on this, because I believe you're referring to the letter that was submit to the boss potentially by the Firefighters Association, where they call out a specific. Yes. And we'll let Deputy Chief Sergeant talk about that. He's got more knowledge on that.
Speaker 2: In regarding the two reference.
Speaker 4: 407 there was one section that stated during the pilot study the time difference between the arrival of the first paramedic.
Speaker 2: And the second paramedic should be within 3 minutes.
Speaker 4: 95% of the time.
Speaker 2: When we looked at the data prior to R&D, we achieved that goal 79 to 80% of the time after initial start of the R&D. We were remained at the same amount, 80%. That issue was discussed at one of the IMS Commission meetings. We made some changes and have improved that time difference down to meeting at.
Speaker 4: 84% of the time. We relate.
Speaker 5: To them our.
Speaker 2: Discussions as far as the ability to meet that. And they stated they they believed that it was not a realistic timeframe or time goal and that there would be no penalty for not meeting the 95%.
Speaker 4: They would continue to look at it for the remainder of the the pilot program. We would continue to try and improve the time on the timeframe.
Speaker 2: Within 3 minutes. And if there is any sign of any patient degradation that they would look at again, other than that, they considered it an irrelevant mark, unable to achieve and they would just continue with the pilot program.
Speaker 8: And Vice Mayor, if I can just add on to that. So this time differential, this get the second paramedic on scene within 3 minutes of the first was an issue that was put in through a subcommittee of the EMS commission as we were ramping this program up. We had no knowledge of it. The reality is there is no agency of the 31 fire departments in L.A. County. There is no agency in L.A. County that is held to that standard. We weren't held to that standard prior to the information implementation of our M.D. There is no agency in Los Angeles County unless they have a firefighter, paramedic or a paramedic standing on every corner that could meet that time standard. So when, as Deputy Chief Sergeant said, when we went back to the EMS commission, we said, this is an unrealistic standard that's not applied to anybody but us. It wasn't applied to anybody pre or M.D. So why are you applying an unrealistic standard that you can't validate with any sort of justify in any way? And the EMS commission unanimously agreed. They said, you know what? We agree with you. It's not applied to anybody else. It is an arbitrary standard, and we're going to keep it in the policy. But there will be no penalty if you don't achieve that. The 95% of the time they said continue to work on it. We want you to constantly try and strive for better, but there is no penalty. I think the most important thing on this, though, is that what we do know with the data is that we are getting a paramedic on scene faster today than we were prior. And I think that's the most important thing for our community.
Speaker 11: And I agree with you. I think that is paramount here based on what you said. I'm just curious what criteria they end up using to evaluate our pilot program or our or our R&D pilot program if there is no other example.
Speaker 8: Well, so this was a this three minute time standard was a unique thing. As I mentioned, they got kind of kind of put into the policy at the very end of the preparatory period before we went live. And we on it, candidly, we didn't even know that discussion was happening until it was too late. The Data Safety Monitoring Board of the EMS agency has asked us to send them 32 specific data points every single month. So they range from response times to times for specific treatment modalities, like how long does it take to do an EKG or how long, you know, electrocardiogram, or how long does it take to defibrillate a patient or how long to start an I.V. or what's? Our ROIC is a big one. Return of spontaneous circulation. What's what's how in a percentage? How many of your patients do you find in the field that are pulseless, not breathing? But by the time they get to the emergency department, have a pulse. So there's 32 data points that the Data Safety Monitoring Board looks at every month. And they're primarily they had been primarily looking at the data to determine whether or not anything that we were doing constituted either a degradation of care over the previous system or constituted anything that would pose a safety risk. The letter that they sent to the EMC Commission in May said clearly that the data was stable and poses no risk.
Speaker 11: Thank you. And, Mr. Mayor, that's all I have for fire. I have a few questions for police, if that's okay to chief. Thank you, Chief. Lana, I have a few questions from Councilwoman Pryce, who is not here today, but she did have very specific questions and hope that we could address it this evening. So for police, she wanted us to ask which officer position is being moved into prop age funds, thus reducing a motor officer? So that would be a reduction by the $74,000.20 $3.
Speaker 0: Item five Palo Alto. In NY 11, we had ten motor officers assigned to the prop fund due to reductions in revenue at that time. Half of an FTE was moved over to the general fund. This particular employee split his time between the Violent Impact Motor Fund and General Patrol functions on the motorcycle. Given that we do have funding sources for this upcoming year for the bridge fund, we're moving that 0.52 FTE back into Prop H to be funded.
Speaker 11: Okay. That's that's great. The second question we have is why does it state only 0.96 position is added when the description states that three positions will be added. Will this end up adding more officers on the street? That is an item that's required. It's quantified as $159,312.
Speaker 0: Vice mayor that's related to the addition of an admin intern over the hours related to adding interns that equates 2.967 FTE.
Speaker 11: Okay. We. I appreciate that clarification. And then an item for $210,000. What is the total fiscal year 14 budget for the red light camera program? And this program was eliminated several years ago. Therefore, what costs are remaining in FY 15 and beyond?
Speaker 0: Vice Mayor Currently we are in the process of removing that equipment from the traffic signals. I'm sorry, I don't have the exact amount of what that would cost us. I think we're anticipating that exact cost from the vendor.
Speaker 11: Okay. And that's fine. We can we can get that for me at another time. And then I wanted to go back to the. Motor officer conversation. And over the years there's been ups and downs in that area. And depending, depending on what specific crime needs exist in the city, throughout the city, we do have other quality of life issues that motor officers were assigned to, for instance. They're they're high profile issues. And then there are just simply quality of life issues that end up degrading one's peace of mind. And so if I could know how many motor officer positions currently exist or are proposed for FY16, if you have that.
Speaker 2: Mars. Look in that up right now, usually with our motor section, the majority of homework traffic complaints throughout the entire city on two different shifts. For example, a lot of them address issues or challenges, traffic challenges around schools. And then we have a separate unit on motors with what we call Impact Motors that specifically addresses violent crime and any hotspots in the city.
Speaker 11: You know, I appreciate that because I did not know that I thought that they were interchangeable. So you have a separate. Subsection of motor officers that address violent crime. They're not used interchangeably.
Speaker 2: Generally, that's the case. But if if we need to move people around for one reason or another or say hypothetically, they're working a special event in the city which may be on overtime, that's apart from what they normally do. So they may be shifted to that specific mission for that day.
Speaker 11: Okay. So I think therein lies the challenge is some of the things surrounding major events or noise issues along our major corridors. That ends up being an overtime assignment generally.
Speaker 2: Yes, ma'am. And we're we are very supported by the Office of Traffic Safety in getting grants to specifically address issues surrounding motorcycles. And I know that over the past several years, I have gotten many phone calls and emails from you about concerns about motorcycle issues in and around the second District. And our officers do periodically run operations and make it clear to people in this area that we don't want, for example, very loud muffler noise waking people up at all hours of the day. So we do enforce those sections.
Speaker 11: Thank you. And since you raised that, I'll ask openly. We know that there are fixed events that come to Long Beach. We have an editorial calendar through the CVB or any special events actually would be probably the best place to be. A sign for weekend support. You know, when we experience the influx of visitors, do we pointedly assign those officers for that time period?
Speaker 2: Generally, we do.
Speaker 11: Okay. I appreciate that.
Speaker 0: Vice mayor that in addition to the ten impact motors that we have budgeted in Prop eight, we have 21 traffic motors for General Traffic patrol and that includes police officers all the way to the rank of lieutenant.
Speaker 11: Okay. Thank you. That's it for me, Mr. Mayor.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Canterbury Ranga.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Mayor. And since police is up right now, just go ahead and start with police. First of all, before I begin, I want to compliment my my colleagues for asking many of the questions that I had. So I guess it shortens my level of questioning, but it also we all have interests. And, you know, my interest is obviously with with people. Obviously, we're only as good as the people we hire and the people we recruit. So and having been the former recruitment officer for the city, obviously, I'm very much interested in how we're going to go about finding these new recruits that are going to be filling these new academies coming up. I didn't see it in your budget where you had anything budgeted for recruiting. How are you going to make those assignments, if at all, if you're going to be assigning police officers or or are you going to create a a recruitment task force of of a sergeant or a lieutenant with police officers to go out to these community colleges and police academies to to find these diamonds in the rough, to join to join the Long Beach Police Department. I don't see civil service here, so I'm not sure if it's if it's through them that you're looking at, that the fund is going to come up from budgeting those kinds of events. I know it costs money. It sometimes it costs an entry fee to go to a job fair or or to just the time used to commit the time to to go to these events. Can you I appreciate you will probably don't have an extended plan at this point in terms of how that's going to what that's going to look like. But you have to have at least an idea as to what you foresee in terms of recruiting for the next year, for the next couple of academies.
Speaker 2: Recruiting a diverse workforce and one that meets the standards of that we have in this police department is one of our top priorities. Civil service is the primary department that is responsible for recruiting, and I think they do a fantastic job. I know that Deputy Chief Beckman, who's sitting in the audience, has been working very hard lately with Candace, our civil service director, and always looking at new and innovative ways of bringing people on board. As a matter of fact, one of the things that we've changed is the entry level test for police officer, where we looked at the city of San Francisco and we looked at the fact that they were they came up with a different test model. And so we're going to be testing it or we did test it this way around. So we're going to see how that helped us. Will Consistently, we do not have an internal budget to recruit. So we use moneys that we're giving. We're given to train and to hire from the academy to fulfill that mission. We have people who who have full time jobs, and then we will hire them on overtime to go out and do it. And we try to find the right personalities to fit that mold. And I think we're doing a very good job, but we can always be doing better. And and a lot of that goes back to the public trust and the community collaboration efforts that we're going to do, our community engagement efforts we're going to be conducting to make sure that we get more people who want to apply for police officer. So a lot of things going on in this profession right now where people are kind of shying away from it and we just got to do a better job of bringing them in the fold and making them realize that they can become the change they want to see if they join us.
Speaker 4: Okay. Well, are we are we going to be hearing civil service at all during these budget presentations?
Speaker 1: Mr. West. We Civil.
Speaker 8: Services ready to.
Speaker 1: Make a presentation of the.
Speaker 2: Counsel requested.
Speaker 4: The only reason I'm asking is because obviously if the commitment is for diversity and for recruiting the best and the brightest and the ones who want to get here, we have to. We have. The only way we're going to show that commitment is by budgeting for it. And I'd like to see that we have a budget for recruiting. That's that we have to put our money where our mouth is in that respect. But it's not. I don't need an answer now, but I certainly want to see something in there that shows the city's commitment. To hiring a diverse police department and getting the best and brightest. And I want to say the same for the fire department as well. I want to see that kind of commitment. I don't see it here in tonight's budget presentations, but I certainly want to see that commitment somewhere being presented to city council. That that you are committed to that.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 2: Councilmember Mayor.
Speaker 1: Both the fire department and the police.
Speaker 2: Department are definitely committed to that.
Speaker 1: And you can see that when you look at.
Speaker 8: The folks that are in the academy. But we'll talk to the civil service and.
Speaker 1: Get back to you on what the budget is.
Speaker 2: And civil service to facilitate the.
Speaker 1: Attraction of the best and the.
Speaker 4: Brightest. Not good. Another thing that last year I did not see in the civil service budget is a recruiting component either. I mean, it was the recruiting division that was there is gone. So the. I'm just curious as to how you're going to go about doing this without having a specific fund going towards recruiting. So you certainly think about like I said, I don't need an answer now, but I'd like to to have the city have a a stated commitment towards diversity, towards recruiting and and getting the best that we possibly can. I appreciate that. Thank you. The other question I have for police is that the transfer of these 65 dispatchers that's going to go from there, going from police to disaster preparedness.
Speaker 2: From police and fire to the dispatchers assigned to police. And the fire department will be transferred to the new division.
Speaker 4: And in doing that, I notice that in the in the disaster preparedness component on page 21, I guess it was talking about. Also recruiting efforts in that. In that respect, I know that the dispatching is a very difficult job, very stressful. The people who answer a911 calls are are doing God's work. When you're thinking about it because you're answering to a person, a person's call who's under distress, and that person has to demonstrate a high level of of tolerance and understanding to be able to respond to those calls. And you're talking about this cross training of of dispatchers in police and fire. Is it to understand the different protocols in regards to how you respond to a police response or how you respond to a fire as opposed to a fire type of call? I really didn't mean for you to do that. But you're there.
Speaker 10: As councilmember, I appreciate the question and in your description of the difficulties, the challenging work that these dispatches have, I often describe it as multitasking on steroids while they are listening to a resident describe what is, in most cases, the worst day of their lives, and simultaneously putting that information into a computer, a computer aided dispatch systems or into some technology. But our focus in phase one, as you described, is to eliminate the transfer of that call when that resident is in that heated moment describing the worst day of their lives, and then to have to momentarily be put on hold and transferred over to the other dispatchers there, we see this as a service improvement. We've been working at this for a couple of years now, just working on the protocols primarily and some cross training with our supervisors so that we can understand how we'll be able to accomplish this. But the major hurdle for us has been up to this point, the vacancy factors. And if council members who are part of the Public Safety Advisory Committee recall back in November when I reported out we had vacancy rates at about 30% and overtime in excess of a of $1,000,000. And so we could not begin across training program until we impacted both of those areas. And and we have our vacancy factors known as I reported earlier, are at 3% and 5% respectively. And we have reduced overtime by 30%. And over the course of the next month, we will reduce that even further as more and more of these trainees are coming out of the academy. So we're approaching this cautiously. We're being diligent in our in our in our in our approach. And we have oversight them working with us in terms of police and fire to ensure that no operational protocols are violated as we move forward.
Speaker 4: Okay. Thank you for that for that response that you said it's going to be it's so hard work in some of these consolidations. Is there any opportunities for. Well, maybe not opportunities, but any impacts on positions that would would require putting that many people into a into a different. I'm guessing there's a there's a there's a there's a transfer not only of of the positions from one department to another, but also a transfer of positions from one location to another. I think I know we used to have a dispatch center here in the in the in the basement of City Hall, which was fire with police . And then we had fire in a different, different location on the community. Is that what we're talking about as well in terms of putting them in one location?
Speaker 10: We currently the dispatchers are co-located in the emergency operations center. And that second floor level, they're they they've been co-located since that building was established about 12 years ago. Co-located, but separate on that second floor, they're separated by a wall between the two disciplines. We do not anticipate position eliminations as a result of of consolidation and cross-training. All of the skills that are currently being provided in the center will continue to be provided through the cross-training program. And as I said, it's a phased approach. So those those those staff that we have invested a considerable amount of training in will continue to be valuable assets to us on a go forward basis.
Speaker 4: Okay. Thank you. In terms of police and you still there, Chief? Yes, we have a what we have had in the past. And I see that we continue to have an agreement with Long Beach City College and providing them with the security services. Has there been any changes in that contract at all? Has there been any increase? A decrease is what what what's that looking like right now?
Speaker 2: As far as sworn officers, there has not been a change in that service that we provide to Long Beach City College. I believe if you've seen any changes. It's for the dispatching department.
Speaker 4: Have we made any changes to the contract amount? Has it gone up or down the last? Couple of years. Always remain flat.
Speaker 2: As far as I know, it's remained flat, but we'll research it. And if that's not the case, we'll get back to you on that.
Speaker 4: I mean, not that I would want to increase the fees for City College, but, you know, if it if we're making these changes in terms of staffing and and in our dispatching, that's a cost. And and there's some opportunity to recover some costs. I would certainly want to to explore that opportunity if if it exists. If not, that's fine.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And there should be. From my notes here, there should not be any changes. Changes in the last several years.
Speaker 4: My questions regarding the R&D have been, uh, have been addressed. I'm not going to ask any more on that one. The last question that I have is, uh, in the. Well, actually, I think I think I'm done. I think I know what's been asked for.
Speaker 2: And if I may clarify one of your earlier questions about recruiting. In looking at our numbers, the council mayor were generous enough to give us $1.5 million to hire the last class in this upcoming class. Part of the cost or the charges that we take from there are recruiting. That's part of it. Civil service still primarily is involved with recruiting, but that's how we pay overtime for officers, a special group of officers who are trained to go out and specifically recruit for us.
Speaker 4: I appreciate that. That's wonderful. I did find my my last item here. That was with the fire I looked at was asked already by one of my colleagues. But in terms of the implementation of the first responder fee and you're you're. Ability to try to implement it as soon as possible. There was a concern raised by the Council in regards to making it not as cost prohibitive for members of the community who may not be able to afford those fees. How well are we going with that? We look at.
Speaker 8: It. Council member. Thank you. The part of the work that we're doing with with Mr. GROSS and the financial management team and the fire department folks is working on the hardship waiver and the process by which a member of our community, should they be able to demonstrate a financial hardship, would be supported by the city through existing policies or or other other means. So that will be part of the report or the two from four.
Speaker 2: Or the.
Speaker 8: Letter that we will issue you prior to implementation.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I also asked about the possibility of a a user fee that would go into the. The building system.
Speaker 8: I'm sorry. Yes, Councilmember, the council did ask us to you did ask us to look into the possibility of a subscription fee. There are a number of agencies in the Southern California region that have implemented subscription fees to varying degrees of success. And that also that information and our research will be included in that in that communication back to council as well.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I appreciate that. Thank you. That's all I have.
Speaker 1: Councilmember Austin.
Speaker 6: Yes. I'd like to also thank our department heads, our chief fire chief police chief and our new chief of Disaster Preparedness Emergency Management. Mr. Harrison, for great presentations. This has been a very informative and I like Councilmember Urunga. I'm short on questions because many of the questions that I had, I have already been asked. So I will do my best to be brief. In the 2014 budget. Chief Luna, we we appropriated, I think, $250,000 or so somewhere around that to work toward getting guns off of the streets from those who are classified as prohibited possessors . Does this budget address that category or do we have any specific plans in there for 16 to to attack that issue? I think we had some success was just just researching and found a press release so that we we actually took a significant amount of guns off the street through that that program a couple of years ago . Um, and I will give you credit for, for giving me that suggested a few years ago to, uh, to look at that area. Well, during our first gun back buyback program, are we working to. To eliminate prohibited possessors from having guns.
Speaker 2: In and you're right in FY14, we had additional funding that the council was generous enough to provide to us where we formed a specialized unit temporarily to address some of these issues. And just a quick recap on some of those stats. We had 30 arrests, 26 felonies for misdemeanors, 55 firearms recovered, which included six assault rifles, three rifles, four shotguns, 42 handguns, ten search warrants, 86 probation searches and 42 searches with the California Department of Justice. So it was successful. We do not have immediate plans to take it to that level. We are going to try and utilize as much of the 2.2 million in in regards to doing this part time, if we can, as staffing allows.
Speaker 6: Well, I'd just like to just comment on that and say kudos to LV PD. It shows that when we as the City Council make a commitment to to public safety in a targeted fashion, that we can have success. And and I like for this Council to give strong consideration to maintaining our commitment to to getting guns off off of the streets, that that program, I think, proved successful and would merit our attention in terms of redirecting or finding new resources. And is this budget to do that? I would I would venture to say that lives were likely saved as a result of that effort and the commitment of the city council. So I know that we'll be talking about this budget over the next few weeks. Certainly, I would ask that my colleagues take note of that and as well as our police chief and city manager. So. Thank you, Chief. That was the question I wanted to ask to the fire chief. You feel? I think much attention has been given to the R&D pilot model and I guess the jury is still out. We are moving forward with budgeting. We're making decisions based on assumptions that it will be maintained and successful. But I was curious to know noticed that you said that 21 positions were eliminated. How many of those were were identified as sworn positions?
Speaker 8: Councilmember, if you're referring to the budget presentation that I gave there, there is a section in there where we talked about some of the changes we made this year. It was 24 vacant positions that were basically not filled since 2008. We've been carrying those positions in our budget, but they haven't been filled since 2008. So it doesn't actually affect any person. It's basically making our our budget reflective of how we actually deploy every day, if that makes sense.
Speaker 6: Okay. So maybe maybe it's semantics that I said 24, 24 positions eliminated, but they were they're no longer going to be there, right?
Speaker 8: That's true. That is a true statement.
Speaker 6: Yesterday emanating from your budget. How many of those positions were sworn positions? And was there any is there a correlation with the R&D program in terms of your staffing?
Speaker 8: Councilmember All of those positions would have been our would be sworn positions. They would have all been firefighter positions. So as I mentioned during my presentation in 2008 where we did the daily engine reduction, then we went to a second daily engine reduction. We basically had the positions budgeted, but because we weren't filling them, we realized the savings. And so they just kind of lingered in our budget up until this point. So because we needed to realize about a $200,000 savings, this was a way to make our our actual deployment model reflected in our budget. So it all lined up and at the same time saved $200,000, which means they didn't have to impact any of our existing operational capability this year. Had we not done this, then I would have had to realize an operational efficiency and some way to get to that $200,000.
Speaker 6: So we're talking 24 positions. And forgive me if my my math is fuzzy right now. It's getting late, but that seems like it adds up to way more than $200,000 savings.
Speaker 8: Well, so it's it's a and I'm going to let my administrative bureau chief David Honey handle this. So the way this the way this works is we back the positions out, and then we have to put the value of the overtime back into our budget and it nets out to 200,000. But David can't answer the specific budget part.
Speaker 2: That's essentially it council member US and the way chief explained it when we did keep these positions budgeted in what we would call an overstaffed model, those positions at least budgetary reduced callback over time in our constant staffing model. So as we return these or as we would delete these positions that are or have always been vacant, the callback over time would at least budgetary would increase, but it would the increase would be less than the cost of those positions that were being reduced.
Speaker 6: Okay. So I guess I'll just just comment that, you know, I have some concerns about the elimination of positions. We still have uncertainty with this this pilot program that we are involved in. I mean, I know you feel confident that that it will will be supported and ultimately be adopted by your Ms. the county of your agency . But I think we the jury is still out. And I think it's a risky call. It just that's just my, my, my comment on that. Um, Mr. Harrison, thank you. The B and again I said I'd be sure. See? The cross-training Mr. Wanga or Councilmember Baraka touched on. Actually, part of my question, and that was the the cross training between the fire and police dispatchers. And from my experience, just working with other public agencies, I know you have a high turnover rate. Right now. You said the the the vacancy rate is only 3 to 5%. Is that correct?
Speaker 10: Correct.
Speaker 6: Well, kudos to correct. And the civil service and recruiting process for for turning that around. I mean, it's been absolutely a month or so since we've done that. And so that's good news. I'm curious to know with what the retention rate is for for for those employees.
Speaker 10: So retention. Thank you very much. I know you're you were present when we made the presentation back in November to the Public Safety Advisory Commission. And we talked about the challenges that we were facing at that time. And working with police and fire, civil service and others. We in a city manager's office very supportive. We implemented some efficiencies in the recruitment in terms of bringing in new public safety dispatchers. That has paid benefits, obviously, to us. Retention is very high in this in this workforce. The the difficulties in the early years of employment where you really mastering learning this task. But once that's been overcome, we have dispatchers that have we have a number of dispatchers that have been in the center for 30 years, which gives me some concern, because some of those are going to be retiring. But but you can see you have dispatchers with five years of experience and it is a huge jump to dispatcher the 15 to 20 years of experience. So retention levels are pretty high once they get through the training.
Speaker 6: And just forgive me, the cross training, is it the ultimate goal to have a dispatcher be able to answer any call at any time from fire or police?
Speaker 10: That's correct. We'd like to have a dispatcher be able to when they pick up that phone, they're able to initially take the call from one of four from a resident requesting police, fire or emergency medical services. Currently, fire department employees provide emergency medical dispatching, and we will continue to provide that service to our residents. So we're going to phase in we're going to work at the call taker position first. We understand that and be able to implement that piece of the of the program at a much later date. We'll look at the dispatching operations.
Speaker 6: All right. Thank you very much. Great work.
Speaker 1: Councilman Hughes.
Speaker 7: Mr. Harris, you can stay right there. Don't go anywhere. You guys can tie mine any more than 30 seconds. Cut my mike off.
Speaker 10: I like that.
Speaker 7: We're going home now. Real quickly. I just have one question, Mr. Harris, and that is, how do you educate the general public on disaster preparedness?
Speaker 10: The question is how do we how do we educate that? So we take a whole community approach on educating the public. We talk often about police and fire, and of course, they have a substantial role that they play. But our entire community plays a role in disaster preparedness, including our houses of worship, nonprofits, all of our residents, the American Red Cross, they all play a role. And so opportunities like coming out to council district offices and making presentations to the community on September the 12th, we have a large resource fair, really Long Beach. We also participated recently in resource fairs and District seven and two as well. One as well recently. We provide outreach, education opportunities in a variety of ways. On the 27th, if I may plug this one, we have a an outreach or training program that is specifically targeted to those areas of the community that was impacted by the power outage recently. We really want to get into those those those communities. They help them to better understand how they can sustain themselves for five days in a cost effective manner.
Speaker 7: Thank you. And I really wanted to let everyone know that just goes to show you how you guys jumped into service and really helped an awful lot of people during that time. Next, I'd like to have our. Thank you, Mr. Harris. You can sit down now. Now, the fire department, what percentage of the fire department, you know, calls for medical. So what percentage?
Speaker 8: Councilmember Right now, we trained about 84% of our total annual call volume is for emergency medical service.
Speaker 7: Thank you. And please.
Speaker 2: Yes, sir.
Speaker 7: What is the plan? What is the police doing to replace the officers that are, you know, retiring?
Speaker 2: Our normal attrition rate. Each year between 25 and 35 officers. And this year, we expect about the same. And again, all of your support and allowing us to recruit and hire and train new police officers with the current academy. And then the one that we plan on having for this coming year will hopefully keep us up or keep up with attrition that we're losing, the officers that we're losing.
Speaker 7: Very simple. Thank you very much, Chief. And I want to thank our yes for coming up and giving us your input on the things that we need here for the city of Language. Thank you again.
Speaker 1: Councilman Gonzalez.
Speaker 0: Okay. Look, they're all staring at me like, who's next? We'll start with P.D., Chief, since you're right there. I first want to thank all three of the departments because the work has just been tremendous for many years, but just as of late, because of the power outages and so much that has happened just lately, especially in the first in certain areas with gang activity and just shootings that have happened, although we're not at the levels we'd like to be, I think the commitment to using discretionary funding for gang suppression for me is, is, is tremendous. So thank you for that. Also the community engagement. Chief, I think your yourself your staff has really remained committed to that. The events, the the community policing has just been it's been great. And I've seen the the big impacts it's made. I have a couple questions. So some retirements and people just leaving the police department, has that impacted us at all? Has that been a big contributor to our vacancies and our staffing levels?
Speaker 2: It consistently is. It's a constant challenge to keep up with attrition. But again, the support that all of you have given us financially and we have a great team that continuously is recruiting and hiring and training officers and we are now in our third straight academy, about to hire a fourth. So I'm very hopeful that we can keep up, continue to keep up with the attrition rate that we have.
Speaker 0: Okay. Great. And thank you. And I know you mentioned that. And also, let's see here, I think there are a few things are already answered. Um, I feel like there's another question, but I'll ask this question is just, I'm just curious how many police division officers do we have? How many do we have currently?
Speaker 2: I'm having Mara right to my right. Look at that. I want to say it's in the area of about 20 something. Give me a quick second and we'll we'll take a quick look. We have 34.
Speaker 0: Cores.
Speaker 2: 35.2 assigned to the port.
Speaker 0: Okay, well, we'll keep 35. How about that? Okay, wonderful. I think everything else had been answered. So. Thank you, Chief. Appreciate it. Thank you for your work.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 0: And I'm our chief of fire. Chief, my three. I also want to thank you for your work and all of your especially the efforts with CERT. I think I saw them firsthand with the power outages and just seeing what they do day to day as it was. It was just great. I have a question. As far as the first responder fee, I know that when we had talked about this the last time, the first responder fee, you had mentioned it, coming back conservatively for collection rates at 50%, which is still pretty low. What are we looking at as far as improving our. I know we're looking at that, improving our collection rates.
Speaker 8: Thank you, Councilmember. When we gave our our presentation on the first responder fee, our estimation or our numbers were predicated on a 20% rate of return, which which is a very conservative estimate, given our historical perspective in that arena with regard to collection rates, that I guess that is a question that would be better posed towards our Director of financial management as that the billing folks fall under his shop. But I can tell you that we do everything we can to work with them, to submit the necessary reports to them in a timely manner so we can have the opportunity to build.
Speaker 0: And now as part of it, also part part of my question too is some of it in-house and then outsourced? How does that work?
Speaker 2: The collection rate for ambulance billing is a bit difficult and may be misleading. A lot of the ambulance bills are.
Speaker 8: Paid by.
Speaker 2: Medicare and medical at less than 100%. And when you make that calculation, you end up with a low collection rate when in fact the collection has been made at the authorized level. So Medicare and Medicaid only pay a small percentage of the total bill. So that has an impact in determining the collection rate. And it's pretty standard across the country, I don't think. I suspect our rate is probably a little better or certainly at least the same as other people. We do not have a low collection rate. To further answer your question, that in in Long Beach, we have a lot of collections from insurance. We have a lot of collections from Medicare and Medi-Cal or as but as I said, it's at a lower percentage because that's what the law is. We also have a lot of buildings that have no address and there's no opportunity to make those collections and there is no process or procedure that we can use. And I think it might be better to say, nor should we use to try to collect that money. So overall, we use the normal set of collection procedures. We send out bills. We do go where it's appropriate to a collection agency, and after an appropriate time, we write these bills off again. Our collection rates are, at the very least, pretty normal. My guess is that they are better than normal.
Speaker 0: And we and just to clarify, so it's all through a collection and outside collection agency, not through. Our.
Speaker 2: No. I know most of our collections are done in-house and most of our bills are paid in-house. It is only at the very end of the process do we turn it over to a collection agency, and we will be in the process of reevaluating and going out an RFP with it for a new collection agency within the next year.
Speaker 0: Okay, great. And then my last question is the marine safety position. What was what is the role of this vacancy exactly? And then the amount?
Speaker 8: Councilmember it's a it's 150,000 $145,000 a year that our target there that we're trying to get back to. Historically, over the past number of years, this position has been called a vacation relief spot. This position, although it's been vacant for some time, it has allowed our Marine safety chief the flexibility of staffing the organization with a 24 hour dove capability and having this position filled either with overtime or other other personnel work on our rescue boats and peak load staff in certain areas throughout the summer. So currently, although we say it's vacant, there's not a body assigned to that position. The Marine Safety Chief has effectively utilized that position for operational needs.
Speaker 0: Okay. Great. Thank you. And then I'll have Reggie come up. Reggie, and thank you also for all of your work. Just real quickly, one question. So I see that over about 250 employees received emergency response. Preparedness, I guess training. What type of training was it or what was.
Speaker 10: So we we trained to a FEMA standard. So when you when you've seen some of the national report, I was like at Hurricane Sandy or the Boston Marathon and you've seen where they've called upon the logistics section leader who to come out to talk about what are their priorities? Are you seeing the finance section chief or planning those kinds of sections? So we we we train to those kinds of standards. First of all, they put us in the best position to be able to manage an incident because we do them to standards. We manage the incident. The other thing is that by doing it to this standard, it puts us in the best position to be reimbursed for expenditures as well. So incident command structure is very, very important to us and we certainly roll that out and fell into that role as a part of our recent power outage management team
Speaker 0: . Okay, great. Thank you very much. That's all for my questions.
Speaker 1: Counsel for Super Now.
Speaker 2: Thank you and thank you to all our presenters tonight. Great job. I just had a one question. Most of the questions have been asked and answered, but I just wanted some clarification from Chief Luna on the. A follow up on Councilman Richardson's question about the field gang enforcement unit. I guess the clarification I'd like is. I think we're talking about the difference between a unit or section that exists versus the function they perform and where you no longer have the field gang unit, someone is performing that type of function still with the police department, correct. We have a variety of specialized units in the field that have taken on that responsibility because we don't have the the field unit to do that any longer. Okay. I just want to make that. It's like the unit goes away, but the function is still being performed. So I just, you know, violent crime and gangs is still one of our priorities and we're addressing it with every man and woman we have. Okay. Thank you. And the only other comment I want to make is just my enthusiasm over the community engagement division for communications. And just an anecdote on that, how important that is. This past early Saturday morning, 1 a.m., we had a power outage in the in the fourth District. And right away, within the hour, I got it. And I'd like to name these guys because they did such a great job from the fire department, battalion chief Espino and from the PD Lieutenant Bergen Camp both contacted me within that hour and we were able to get that information out to the public through social media. So I think that's one of the real keys. So I know this is under police for the community engagement, but I'd sure like to see fire and everyone involved in that because I look like the hero when I put all the information out and all the credit goes to fire police in that case, in fact, someone comment on on social media that the fourth district councilman was faster than the SC website. I'm not sure if that's a high bar or not, but I was glad to take that credit. So in fact, if police and fire can do that directly, I happened to be up at 1:30 a.m. studying the budget, of course, and but if that could go directly out from police and fire to the community, I think that's ideally where we want to be. So thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you. And Councilwoman Mongo.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Well, so much of what we've come here to discuss has already been been answered. A couple of quick compliments to our police department since you're in the hot seat. First and foremost, I've really appreciated the embracing of the Department of Justice best practices with recruitment in regards to involving the community. And a lot of the neighbors of the fifth District have really enjoyed being a part of the team that has evaluated the two prior classes of of officers. And I think it's an eye opening experience for neighbors to sit in a room with people who would like to give their life to service and and become police officers . And it really gives you a taste of the kinds of individuals that you're bringing on. And I think you're doing an excellent job. I know that it's hard to lose members of the Academy class, but above all else, I appreciate that the number one thing that we're looking at is the standards. If someone's not cutting it, we cannot put them on the streets. Our community is just too important and our community's safety is too important. So thank you for that. I have some questions about your detectives bureau. How many members are currently in the Detectives Bureau?
Speaker 2: Is looking that up for me to give you a specific number.
Speaker 3: So anecdotally, what I'm hearing is that a lot of those individuals are very passionate about what they do and they stay in that division for a really long time, which is great because the quality of service that we're getting. My main concern, though, is as as some of our most regarded detectives and professionals are are retiring. What is our plan to bring in new talent in that area over time and. I don't know the specifics of how to say it, but almost everyone in that unit is of the same tenure, and that timeline is getting close
Speaker 2: . That is something we consistently concern ourselves with. And by the way, that number is 142 and it you do lose experience when people do retire. And our best estimates are that that we probably will have probably on the higher end maybe 35 retiring not all our all out of investigations of course it's throughout the department but at the same time, it gives younger officers an opportunity to go in and and learn a new job and eventually bring in that enthusiasm and passion that everybody before them once had. The only thing from a department perspective that we continuously focus on and are deputy chiefs and commanders do an excellent job, is that we will rotate people through some of these assignments. If somebody out there is doing an excellent job, we may rotate them into violent crimes or robbery or burglary, and they gain extra experience. We also focus a whole lot on training, both internal training of the department and external training opportunities. The city manager's office really supports us in sending people out of town to very valuable training, and we realistically are keeping an eye on the future and making sure that we're we're training our employees for for the future.
Speaker 3: Well, I appreciate that. I know that when you have a team of bad guys in a community, they can have several victims. And unless the detectives and the investigations are really going forward and we have the resources to go out and fingerprint in those areas and do the things we need to do. Catching those guys can take longer and more victims can happen. And so I really appreciate the work they're doing. I know our interactions with that team has been fantastic and so thank you for what you're doing with that. I understand this is a status quo budget, which means that should. The Council bring forward a marijuana ordinance that we would be looking to allocate significant additional resources to your department that we don't currently have available. That is an accurate statement.
Speaker 2: Yes. When it comes and I've I think I'm on the record saying this, that history has shown us that having these clinics both operating. I'm not going to say legally because I don't know if that's even the appropriate term. But operating in the city, we had a lot of citizen complaints about the activity in and around these locations which increase our workload. So obviously with these clinics coming in, based on our past experience, it would increase the workload of our men and women on the street, which is going to impact our service overall negatively.
Speaker 3: Well, that's a big concern for me. I know that we've talked a lot, specifically with my East Division commander, about the quality of life issues that we're really lean on being able to address. And I know Commander Griffin and your team have gone above and beyond to increase the safety in our parks and to look at our our traffic issues that we have from neighbors who visit through the community without regard to our are our street signs that tell very clearly posted speed limits. And so as as resources, then I would be concerned about additional funding that would result from a potential ordinance of such. And I would want to be sure that should we move in that direction as a council, that you have more than adequate resources available to ensure that the safety of our neighbors is our number one priority. Because in this district we've had several drug issues already this year that I think you and your team have done an excellent job addressing. And I also want to give credit to code enforcement, because code enforcement and PD had to work really closely on some of our more conspicuous neighbors that needed to be moved along. So thank you for your work on that. I know that some neighbors have reached out recently that one of our our neighborly criminals has recently gotten back out of jail, but that I hope that we're back on the case and working hard with the investigative team again. And so thank you for coming out to neighborhood night out and keeping the neighbors up to date on what's going on, because it's really important that we know where we stand and to protect our community. With that, we move on to fire.
Speaker 1: Chief.
Speaker 3: Chief, first and foremost, thank you for what you've done on the East Side in the last year. Our response times that I've been reviewing have been fantastic. I heard from a neighbor off of Bellflower and Wood Wardlow that had the fire department been there, any leader, any leader at all, she doesn't think that her husband would have survived. And so to the great to the great work of your community, every life is important. Could you specifically communicate the reduction in mutual aid? The fifth District borders several other cities, and we used to rely so heavily on mutual aid. And this year you've done an excellent job ensuring that the the dispatch has been able to accommodate each and every call from the Fifth District at a significant reduction. Could you get us those numbers?
Speaker 8: It comes from I don't have the the exact numbers off the top of my head, but I'll do my best to go back and summarize what we found over the past year. We used to rely on the fifth District borders, Orange County Fire Authority primarily, and a little bit of Los Angeles County Fire Department. Orange County Fire Authority a year ago, over a year ago, would typically respond into the east side of Long Beach about 17 times a month, if I recall that correctly, about 17 times a month. And starting last July with our new program, we put in place because we have more apparatus available to respond on medical calls, which is primarily what we do. We we lowered that number down to one or two times a month from Orange County Fire Authority and the L.A. County side of things in North Long Beach and the northern end of the fifth District, we saw a more dramatic reduction in our reliance on mutual aid. And I don't have that number off the top of my head. And I wouldn't I don't want to make it up, so I'm happy to provide that to you. But we did see a more dramatic reduction in mutual aid requests from L.A. County Fire.
Speaker 3: We've reviewed those reports and we think that it's fantastic having our trained Long Beach Fire Department deployed regularly. The men and women that are at the stations that serve those neighbors regularly specifically, we have a few of our senior neighbors who call on the fire department often. And it's so important that our officers respond because they know those neighbors and the concerns more intimately. So the fifth District has really benefited from that. And we really appreciate it. Thank you. That's all I have.
Speaker 8: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Councilmember Ranga.
Speaker 4: I would be remiss if I did not thank the police and fire departments for their fire. 101 police went on that you gave what you put us through the training, put it put us in the in the heat of the fire and in went with the fire department and got the feel of the the equipment and the heat that that our firefighters go through. And, of course, the the orientation that we got from the police department and and how difficult the job it can be and how easily a simple police stop of a traffic stop can escalate into something horrible. And I really want to thank you for giving us that orientation and exposure to see that it helps us in terms of orienting us in terms of what the what an important job you do. And I really and I really want to thank you for that.
Speaker 1: Thank you. And in chief, as you as you closed, I just want to reconfirm something. I know there's been some some questions in the community. While I know that we've been taking the five year average for for violent crime, and we're monitoring that. It's my understanding that on the on the very important number of of murders, which right know we track very closely citywide as of today, from what I understand, there has not been an increase in murders. It's about the same as last year. I mean, maybe give or take one or two. I mean, everyone obviously is is is an issue and we should take seriously. But I believe it's about the same as last year. Is that correct?
Speaker 2: Yes. Currently, we stand at the same level of murders that we did at this time last year.
Speaker 1: Which at which as last year was a historic low.
Speaker 2: It was.
Speaker 1: So we're still at that same from a murder point of view. We're still kind of facing a historic low number. And obviously, we're very hopeful that the fact that that trend continues clearly.
Speaker 2: Yes. And just as I stated earlier, if you look across the country, at most of the big, big cities across the country, they're experiencing significant increases. So we're we struggled a little bit this year, but our men and women are doing an extraordinary job. And and we'll keep on working and chipping away at it.
Speaker 1: And from from my understanding of listening to what's happening in some of the other urban cities, the increase in the murder rate has not just jumped, but dramatically jumped in many cases in a lot of urban centers.
Speaker 2: That's correct. I think the average was about 19% across the country, especially on the East Coast.
Speaker 1: So I think as far as for for Long Beach is concerned, to to see that level of consistency, while certainly, you know, murders, we know we want we don't want any to happen, obviously, in our community. But to have that historic low, I think stay stay the same is not just a testament to the work that the men and women of your department do, but also to the really continuum of public safety practices that we have. I think the work that's happening in the parks, in our schools, through our health department, through our non-profits, it just goes to show, even with all the additional pressures, that you guys are just doing an incredible job. So thank you for that.
Speaker 2: You're very welcome. And if I could just make another comment, there is is community support, because when we get these crimes, we need people to call us if they see something, they need to say something. And when we do get a shooting or a homicide, for people to come forward and be witnesses is a tremendous help and helps prevent further crimes in the city. And we've been getting that and we're very fortunate as a city.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you, Chief. We'll obviously keep watching all these numbers with interest. So thank you. There's a motion and a second on the floor. Any public comment on the budget hearing? Please come forward.
Speaker 2: Good evening. I'll try and be brief though. I don't know if I'll match. Kelsey, my brother Andrews. My name's Erin Fletcher on the president of the Long Beach Lifeguard Association. Thank you very much. Honorable mayor and council member for the time and leading da. Thank you, Councilwoman, for bringing up a larger than my point. The $150,000 that we're talking about coming from the Marine safety budget isn't money that's just sitting there not used. Our chiefs been able to use it to enhance the dove response for the 24 hour capabilities. So if we do can't cut that vacant position, we do lose service. It impacts the service model that we're providing to the community right now. The good news. And what I saw tonight is that the two vacant Marine safety officer positions that we have are should be slated to be filled. And so I'm hopeful that Chief Medina will be contacted very soon by civil service to be allowed to fill those requisitions that he said he's put in for as well. For that. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Speaker, please. Thank you.
Speaker 12: Hello. Good evening, City Council. I know it's really late. I feel like we're all watching the countdown. Right? What time will we get out of here? So I'll make this as fast as I can. My name is Jen. Victor Anderson. I am with ECI Communities for Environmental Justice, and also I work with the Long Beach Language Access Coalition. In light of this budget hearing, you know, we're talking about the Long Beach Police, Fire Department and even the emergency preparedness with all the different the the blackouts that have happened, the issues have been going on in the city. And so we're here as a Language Access Coalition to talk about the importance and the need to continue to advocate for language access here in Long Beach. We want to recognize the progress that the the city has done with language access on translating documents, recognition across various departments as well as the continued funding that's been approved. I know we mentioned it in the Budget Oversight Committee to the I believe it's 80,000. It's approved for next year. Still, we do grow concerned that from the previous fiscal year out of the $250,000 that was allocated for language access, $70,000 was unspent. And it's important to note, because the community is waiting for through language access to be implemented here in the city. And while we're waiting, we wonder why was the money not spent? What were the parts of the language access policy for fiscal year 15? Where was the money spent and how are we making sure the residents from all across the city are getting access to various resources and various aspects of city? We asked the City Council to continue to fund language access, but also to prioritize public display and signage, phone lines and voicemails, front stop or alley languages. And also we wanted to note that the with the mere suggestion for a single phone line for next year's budget, we hope that this phone line also includes Latin language accessibility for people that don't necessarily speak English. We want to ensure that language access is incorporated in budgeting and planning. We ask the language access in future years is be integrated and itemized in every department. The budget has on an ongoing priority. For instance, the mayor has directed parks, synagogues and other departments to integrate funding for future years of the B.C. Youth Program. We believe the same can be done for language access. And finally, we asked the city to schedule development services in one of the upcoming budget hearings that the issue of language access can be further discussed. Thank you for your time.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Seeing no other public comment, there's a that was a hearing the motion on the floor to receive and file the hearing. Please cast your votes.
Speaker 3: Well, she carries eight zero.
Speaker 1: And we're going to go to 28 who actually was not aware that there's actually a group here for 28. So now I am so we're here 28 now and. | Agenda Item | Recommendation to conduct a Budget Hearing to receive and discuss an Overview of the Proposed Fiscal Year 2016 Budget for the following: Harbor Department; Water Department. | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_08182015_15-0815 | Speaker 3: Item number 28 report from Health and Human Services Recommendation to Adopt Resolution Amending and restating the City of Long Beach. Healthy snack food, beverage and vending policy citywide.
Speaker 1: Case staff. Do you want to give a staff report?
Speaker 8: We have Kelli Collopy, our Health and Human Services director.
Speaker 5: Good evening, Honorable Mayor and members of the Council. The March 10th, 2015 meeting, the Council passed a motion to amend the current healthy snack food and beverage policy and the Healthy Beverage Policy. The motion expanded the existing snack policy that was previously focused only on youth to include all snacks served at city sponsored community meetings, ground breaking and ribbon cuttings. It also added to the vending policy that at least 50% of snacks sold in vending machines on city property will meet the nutritional standards. And 50% of beverages sold in vending machines on city property they're not accessible to public will meet nutritional standards. The policy for beverages and vending machines that are accessible to the public will remain at the same at 100% of healthy options. The policy before you combines the two previous healthy snack food and beverage policies and simplifies them. The nutrition standards for this policy are outlined in Exhibit A on page three and reflect the Federal Food, Nutrition and sustainability guidelines for concessions and vending operations and are consistent with the 2010 USDA Dietary Guidelines for Americans. The resolution allows for updating the policy to reflect revisions in the USDA and vending guidelines as they become available. It also requires a specific language to compliance to these standards be included in vending contracts and that by by 1201 2016, all vending machines meet Section 40 zero five of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which requires that total calorie content is displayed for each item. There are some exceptions to the nutritional standards, which include fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds, including nut butters and peanut butter plant based spreads such as hummus, guacamole and pesto and low fat cheeses. It also focuses only on snacks and beverages, not food served as meals. It does not include city events that require special permit or city celebrations. It does not include donated food or food purchased by individuals. And it does not include during times of emergency is declared by the authorized city safety personnel. As you can see on pages four through nine of the Exhibit A, the list of snacks that fit the criteria is long, provides many appealing options. It's not exhaustive, but it provides a sample of snacks that meet the nutrition guidelines as outlined in the policy. We believe this policy is an important next step supporting health within our community, ensuring that all people visiting city property have access to healthy and nutritious options. Thank you. That concludes my report and I'm open for questions.
Speaker 1: Okay. There's a motion in a second. Councilman Austin.
Speaker 6: Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And thank you. Ms.. Culpepper, for your report and for bringing this back to the council. I also want to thank Council Member Richardson for his efforts on this. This this item as well. I have been working in close contact and with some members of the community on on this issue for some time , along with the community partners like the American Heart Association. And I am pleased to see this motion before us to this item before us. You know, Long Beach has long been a leader in promoting healthy choices in a number of settings. Since 2011, the City of Long Beach has required strongly nutritional standards for public spaces, vending machines and youth settings. Earlier this year, the Health Department gave a presentation on the origins of the City Health Healthy Snack Food, Beverage Vending Policy. The policy has been a success. The community members are satisfied by the selection of the healthy options. However, today we have an opportunity to really strengthen the nutritional standards to cover all see vending machines and food served at city public events. And for this reason, I like to introduce the motion for and support this motion. But I'd like to to amend it to actually include 100% sodium and 100% trans fat nutritional standards recommended by the USDA Dietary Guidelines for Americans and the Health and Sustainability Guidelines for the Federal Concessions and Bidding Machines. I think it's very important that we do this to have a real policy that that that really addresses the health of our employees and those in the public, that that will come in contact with any machines and and events sponsored by the city of Long Beach. I would love to get a second on that amendment.
Speaker 1: Because that well Constable Richardson had seconded the original motion.
Speaker 2: And that.
Speaker 1: Is. It does so. So Councilman. So yeah. Well actually then you need to not second that's the motion that councilman is making.
Speaker 2: So a second the staff recommendation. It is a different.
Speaker 1: It's a different it's a different motion. So you should remove that motion. Councilman Okay.
Speaker 6: So I will. I'll go with the staff recommendation. We don't go forward with that, but I think we should definitely talk about enhancing the staff recommendation as well. I don't I don't know see any good reason why my colleague would would not support a stronger policy. But I'll leave it to him to explain that.
Speaker 1: Okay. So then so Councilman Austin, that you're just to be clear, so you're back to just making a motion on the staff recommendation, is that correct for right now? Okay. So can someone second that. Okay. The second on that. Councilman Richardson, you're cued up. Do you want to one offs or are you done or you want to do anything else?
Speaker 6: Well, I have a new seconder on a motion.
Speaker 1: Councilman Tharanga.
Speaker 6: And so I'm asking council member your angle would you second the motion to add the the include 100% sodium and 100% trans fat nutritional standards recommended by the USDA and the American Heart Association. Yeah. Okay.
Speaker 1: There's a motion on the floor. Second category, Ranka, do you have any additional comments? I want to go on to the speakers list.
Speaker 6: I'll let my colleague speak.
Speaker 1: Summary Ranga, you're you're. You're the second on this motion. Did you want to make an additional comment?
Speaker 4: I mean, I agree that the amendment is an important one. We should also look at salt intake and and.
Speaker 1: Okay. Councilmember Richardson.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So. So I'm a little disappointed just at the tone that this is taking. So first I'd like to ask Miss Colby, who led on this item, bringing this the City Council for Adoption, which council members signed on to that item?
Speaker 5: In the original Councilman Richardson.
Speaker 2: Was Councilmember Austin a member of that item?
Speaker 5: In this pattern in March or when it came to item.
Speaker 2: This item that prompted you to make this report.
Speaker 5: Councilman Richardson, you brought this to the table. I'm sorry. Councilman Richardson brought this to the table. The councilman out into office, worked very close, was working also very closely with the American Heart Association.
Speaker 2: And when this item came to city council in 2011. In 2011, which members of the City Council are still on the City Council today? I would I would think is probably Councilmember Lowenthal and Andrews are the only ones that were on the city council at that time. So traditionally when a concept comes to city council, we like to see those things from start to finish. And that means do the work in our community to include folks like the Coalition for Healthy North Long Beach, who's been really at the forefront of really determining and developing health policy in North Long Beach, but also citywide. I think it's not only is it disrespectful, but it's bad tact and not very politically astute to to step in on a motion like this, that should be a relatively positive thing. That should get relatively unanimous support at the city council. I would love to make our health policy stronger. We began in 2011 and it was significantly watered down. We took steps to make it stronger. We took additional steps last year to make it even stronger since then. And tonight I had a motion here to make it even further, even more strong, that I worked with the Coalition for Healthy North Long Beach and a number of people here. But I was I wasn't given that opportunity. So tonight I'm going to offer a substitute motion and to to go back to the original policy and to come back with some recommendations on how to make it stronger by taking a look at trans fat and some of the other recommendations from the American Heart Association. And that's my motion.
Speaker 1: Is there a second to the substitute? So I think, councilwoman. Councilman I think Councilwoman Gonzalez or Councilman Mongo Lowenthal OC Vice Mayor Lowenthal is the one that's in there. So that is there's a substitute motion by Councilmember Richardson to go with staff's recommendation and then to return with additional measures to make the to make it stronger. So that's the motion currently on the floor.
Speaker 4: Of a point of order, I guess, in terms of this is already an audience. Is that what it is?
Speaker 1: Yes. This is an this is this would be an update to the policy.
Speaker 4: Okay. So if the original motion is not adopted and we accept the the substitute motion that's proposed by Councilman Austin, it basically changes what we can't do.
Speaker 1: Councilman Councilor Richardson. It would it would update the policy and then it would return with additional amendments to that policy. At some point in the future, it would still update the policy.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 1: Is that correct? I think that's that's correct. Okay. Vice Mayor Lowenthal, you want to speak to your second?
Speaker 11: I concur with Councilmember Richardson. This is something that started some time ago. I believe that it was Councilmember Neal and I either were the original sponsors of this, which does not mean, of course, that there is no opportunity for others to weigh in. So hopefully in the time that staff will take to come back with the item, the issues that Councilmember Austin has raised will be addressed and also the issues of working with the community. I do think every time something comes before the council, we do have an opportunity to make something better and hopefully that's what supporting this motion will do. Councilmember Richardson's motions make it better.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Councilman Andrews?
Speaker 7: Yes, Mayor. I'm sure that I was one of the original, you know, of this you know of this policy back in that time. Because I because I can say without a doubt, the policies has been great for our city. But I also tell my staff and kids that, you know, I teach that your your health is all you have. You know, and once it's gone, it's gone. And so if you have to do it what you can while you can still keep your body healthy. And this is definitely I'm in favor of this because the fact that this is what we're seeing every day is no doubt about it in our schools and even in our walk of life, you know, diabetes, high blood pressure, overweight. These are things that we really going to have to get ourselves more in line with because we don't you know, we're just running the risk of just losing a generation here. So I'm actually in favor of anything we can do to help, you know, make this even better. Thank you.
Speaker 1: First question, I want to back on the coolest that you have know. Okay. Councilman Austin.
Speaker 6: Yes. Yeah. I thought this would should be a pretty pretty much a no brainer in terms of the getting support from the council. The the substitute motion on the floor, I think, essentially seeks to do what the original motion will do. But as time and you know, in terms of I won't address the the comments made earlier about political correctness, I think this council is here and I think all every body up here is is committed to promoting promoting health and safety in our community. That is or should be our number one charge as it is a city council. I wasn't here in 2011, but I was here in 2012 before most of the members of this council. And no, I wasn't a part of the original motion and I wasn't on staff for anyone who brought this original motion forward. But it doesn't any way, in any way diminish my commitment to the health of our residents, the health of our employees, the health of our community as a whole. And so I'm committed to that. Diabetes is real. Hypertension is real. These are real factors that that that impact the our communities, particularly in the lower income areas where people have less access to quality food. And to the extent we as a city council can make a good decision tonight to improve this policy, but include the the amendment that put forth in the original motion. I encourage us to do that because it's the right thing to do. I don't think we should get into ego trips up here in terms of who brought what first and and protocol because protocol has been. Broken on many occasions in my my three plus years on this council. For the most part, we try to get it right. We try to work together to do the right thing. So the original motion put forth by myself and seconded by Councilmember Urunga, I think is the right motion. It addresses a healthy building policy and we move forward with including trans fats and sodium. Based on the standards recommended by our our national or our health, federal government and the American Heart Association. I love to hear public comment on this.
Speaker 1: Okay. That concludes Council on the cued up right now. So we're going to get a public comment so we can hear of members of the public. Please come forward.
Speaker 7: Come on.
Speaker 0: Good evening, Mayor. Council members and staff. I'm really excited to be taking a look at amending the snack food and beverage policy. And I hope that we can come to a strong conclusion to make sure that the standards are as strong as it can be. My name is Violet Ruiz, and I'm the government relations director for the American Heart Association in Los Angeles County. And first, I would like to begin by thanking the leadership and the council members that we've been working with on this issue. I would like to thank Council Member Rex Richardson and Council Member Al Austin for your leadership in leading efforts to improve nutritional standards for snack beverage vending machines and food served at city and public events. The American Heart Association has worked with several community partners on improving nutritional standards for the past year, which include Long Beach Fresh Long Beach Alliance for Food and Fitness, Cambodian Association of America Building, Healthy Communities Center for Latino Community Health and Long Beach. Latinos in Action to name a Few. The American Heart Association is in strong support of the proposed changes to the city of Long Beach healthy snack, food, beverage and vending policy. While this is a step in the right direction, the American Heart Association is requesting to amend the policy so that all food served in Long Beach vending machines meet 100% of the sodium and trans fat nutritional standards recommended by the USDA Dietary Guidelines for Americans and the Health and Sustainability Guidelines for Federal Concessions and Vending Machines. Diets high in sodium and trans fat are the leading contributing factors of heart disease and stroke. And to illustrate this issue, 77 million Americans have high blood pressure, which is the leading risk factor for death in American women, resulting in 200,000 deaths per year. Long Beach has the opportunity to continue being a leader in the region, state and nation by providing solutions in healthy food access as a means of public health prevention and health equity. Other cities have established strong vending standards, which include El Monte, Baldwin Park, Santa Clara and Pasadena, which are similar to Long Beach as it has a city run Department of Public Health, which is one of three in the entire state of California. And furthermore, Long Beach has the opportunity to really level the playing field for nutrition standards so that they are the same for youth, employees, residents and visitors. The American Heart Association respectfully request your support in amending the city of Long Beach food, beverage and vending policy to not only include the amendments from the Department of Health and Human Services, but also to include 100% sodium and trans fats standards to really make access to healthier options available to everyone in the city of Long Beach . Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 2: Good evening, Mr. Mayor.
Speaker 12: And members of.
Speaker 2: Staff and members of Council. Huge.
Speaker 12: Thank you to Kelly Collopy and the Department of Health for continuing to be leading pioneers in health policies. And to council members Austin and Richardson for their leadership as well. My name is Tony D'Amico and I represent.
Speaker 2: Long Beach Fresh, and I'm also on the executive committee of the Long Beach Alliance for Food and Fitness and a member.
Speaker 12: Of the Building Healthy Communities.
Speaker 2: Neighborhoods Work Group. I stand.
Speaker 12: Here to support restating the city's healthy vending policy with the proposed change that the recommended guidelines for sodium and trans fats.
Speaker 2: Would be applied to all vending machines, not just 50%.
Speaker 12: So it's 100% of the standards applied to all.
Speaker 2: Of the machines. As a local food systems collaborative and an active member of the California Food Policy Council, Long Beach Fresh believes that our local government plays a critical.
Speaker 12: Role in tipping the scale toward healthy living, especially with nine in ten Americans eating too much sodium and 75% of that sodium coming from.
Speaker 2: Package and processed food. So I urge council to show a deeper commitment to preventing deadly illness by making the healthy choice the standard in Long Beach. And again, commend you for.
Speaker 12: Your efforts and stand today with the American Heart Association Building Healthy Communities, Long Beach, Long Beach Alliance for Food and Fitness and.
Speaker 2: Respectfully requesting.
Speaker 12: That you are vote for the.
Speaker 2: Proposed amendment by Al.
Speaker 12: Austin.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you. And Speaker, please.
Speaker 0: Good evening. Mayor. City Council and staff. My name is Erica Bonia. I work at the Center for Latino Community Health at Cal State Long Beach, and I am also a resident of District seven. Thank you for the opportunity to just be able to share with you tonight. I am in strong support of amending and restating the city of Long Beach, healthy snack food, beverage and vending machine policy. As we know, there are many chronic conditions that affect our communities. Diabetes being one of them. And it's as we've seen, it's one of the leading causes of death here in Long Beach. So I respectfully request the amendment so that all food offered in Long Beach snack vending machines meets 100% of the sodium and 100% of the trans fat nutritional standards. And, of course, any amendments to further strengthen the policy. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Speaker.
Speaker 5: Good evening, Mayor. And the city council members and our staff. My name is Jan to you. I'm working with Cambodian Association America. I'm a program specialist and I live in the eighth District. And I would like to thank you, the council member, Al Austin and Council and Richard Richardson, for your leadership and your support in the strong support of the amendment of the city of Long Beach for healthy snack food, beverages and vending machine policy. I respectfully requested an amendment so that all the food offered in our Long Beach snack vending machines meet 100% of the sodium. 100% of the meat of the. The transfer nutritional standards to meet the federal guidelines. Thank you very much. And good night, Don.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you for being so patient tonight. We're going to go and go back to the council and to a vote. I just want to restate the motion on the floor, which is to recommend to adopt the resolution amending and restating the Long Beach healthy food sack policy and to work with the community and come back for additional amendments to the council. This is a motion by Councilmember Richardson. And secondly, Vice Mayor Lowenthal, Councilmember Austin.
Speaker 6: Yes. And can you state the original motion? I would just ask that the the the council reject this this amendment or the substitute motion it seeks to actually accomplish what the original motion does. The original motion will accomplish that tonight and without delay. And so I think we send a strong message that we are serious about promoting healthy vending here in the city of Long Beach for and our vending machines and our in our our public events tonight. So let's let's let's reject the substitute motion and and support the original motion on the floor.
Speaker 1: So okay, so that was a restatement of the wisdom of the original motion. So we're right now we're on the substitute motion. And good. Gordon Cashman wants a counteroffer. And you restated the original version, correct? Okay. So I want to make sure that. So I take it please vote now on the subsidy motion by Richardson and Lowenthal.
Speaker 3: Motion carries five three motion carries.
Speaker 1: So the motion passes and the Health Department will work back with the community and come back for additional amendments. So, Madam Clerk, let's go ahead and go back to. Believe it will be now. Item 25.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 3: Item number 25, report from Financial Management Recommendation to adopt specifications and execute a contract with Worthington Ford for the purchase of 11 compressed natural gas field service trucks in an amount not to exceed 660,000 citywide. | Resolution | Recommendation to adopt resolution amending and restating the City of Long Beach Healthy Snack Food, Beverage and Vending Policy. (Citywide) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_08182015_15-0812 | Speaker 3: Item number 25, report from Financial Management Recommendation to adopt specifications and execute a contract with Worthington Ford for the purchase of 11 compressed natural gas field service trucks in an amount not to exceed 660,000 citywide.
Speaker 11: Is there a staff report?
Speaker 1: Fleet manager Dan Bernbach.
Speaker 2: Good evening, mayor Garcia and members of Council City departments use work trucks such as this three quarter ton utility body trucks to transport tools and materials to job sites throughout the city. These 11 trucks have come due for replacement as they have aged considerably, causing a rise in maintenance and operational costs as well as increased downtime that affects operations. These trucks come equipped with compressed natural gas engines, enabling significant fuel savings compared to petroleum based fuels. Additionally, use of compressed natural gas supports air quality improvement to reduce their emissions. The additional cost of the CNG equipment is covered by grant funding. This purchase was competitively bid with extensive outreach to ensure best pricing for the city. And that concludes this brief presentation. I'm available to answer questions.
Speaker 11: Okay. There's been a motion and a second councilwoman manga. Would you like to speak to your motion?
Speaker 3: I just want to thank Fleet Services for doing an excellent job for outreach to the community. I know that Long Beach vendors can't always win, but it's great when a Long Beach vendor can win and that sales tax stays right here to fix our streets and sidewalks and things like that. So thank you so much for the additional outreach you guys have done over the last year. It's been really impressive.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 4: Councilmember Urunga just want to congratulate the city in continuing its efforts to going green.
Speaker 11: Thank you. Is there any member of the public that wish to address council on this item? Item 25? Seeing none. Members, cast your vote.
Speaker 3: Motion carries eight zero.
Speaker 11: Item 26. | Contract | Recommendation to adopt Specifications No. ITB FS15-125 and authorize City Manager to execute a contract with Worthington Ford, of Long Beach, CA, for the purchase of 11 compressed natural gas-fueled, Ford F-250 service trucks, in a total amount not to exceed $660,235 inclusive of taxes and fees. (Citywide) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_08182015_15-0822 | Speaker 3: Item number 35. I can get their report from Technology and Innovation recommendation to allocate peg fee revenue equally among the three categories of cable access providers and increase appropriations in the Department of Technology and Innovation by $1 million citywide.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 11: It's an emotion by Councilwoman Gonzales and a second by Councilman Austin. Councilwoman Gonzalez.
Speaker 0: I guess I just wanted to thank our Technology and Innovation Department and as well as our I know patent is here and they do tremendous work. So this, I'm sure, will be a great benefit. That's all I have. Thank you.
Speaker 11: Councilman Austin, did you want to comment?
Speaker 6: I'll get this. I support this as well, Pat. That community television is a very important to community education and engage in our community and what's going on throughout the city. And so we should support this.
Speaker 11: Great. Thank you. Is there any member of the public that wish to address this item? Oh, Councilmember Monga.
Speaker 3: I, too, wanted to thank all the great work that Patina has done. They've really done a lot of outreach in the community and been a staple that all of our neighborhood organizations can really rely upon along with. Now some of your business partners that you've really worked with. We appreciate the hard work that you've done. Thank you for the outreach outside of your your geographic area and going citywide. We appreciate that.
Speaker 1: Okay. With the motion on the floor, is there any public comment on this item going forward?
Speaker 10: Good evening, Mr. Mayor, and members of the Council. Derek Simpson, executive director of Long Beach Action Partnership and Patent TV Eastern Match. Mr. Mico We also operate our public access television program and make sure that it does provide the great service that you have all acknowledged this evening. I just want to say that long acting partnership continues to make a great investment of our resources to ensure that it continues to be a stellar operation. In fact, we remain the only public access operation to come back since the difficult legislation was passed. And we're doing that now only through the original grant that was written to the Knight Foundation, which this council supported and bringing back net back and public access back. But we're also doing it to the tune of $200,000 of our own agency funds to offset the capital investment of the funds that we look forward to improving tonight to ensure that the operational side of the House is taken care of. And that's just 200,000 of the total of 300,000 that it takes to actually operate pad net. So you can be assured that you can be very proud of that. In fact, tomorrow we interview Congressman Lowenthal for one show. We look forward we on on the council. We've had everyone there except our vice mayor. We look forward to having you sometime soon. And our new councilperson, Mr. Super Now. And we also interview John and Michelle Molina on one show tomorrow. It's a big day for us tomorrow. So we continue to do good work and we appreciate your support. Lisa is going to give you just an idea of some of the numbers that we've been able to generate with pay net recently.
Speaker 0: Thank you, dear. Yeah. Not only do.
Speaker 11: We produce content.
Speaker 0: And it produces content, but of course, our our goal is to serve the community.
Speaker 13: And give them the tools and resources.
Speaker 0: So we currently have 178 members, which includes 38.
Speaker 3: Groups, which are nonprofits and businesses, 142 individuals, which includes seniors, students and youth. Since 2013, when NET came back, when our public access station, after four years of absence, came back on the air, we've trained 331 people in basic production.
Speaker 0: 317 and full production, 202 and final cut pro editing 332 in.
Speaker 13: Studio production.
Speaker 0: And since 2013, our field cameras have been checked out. 1172 times members have spent 928 hours editing and members have spent 1700 hours producing in the studio. The content they've produced is about 826 shows, which includes about.
Speaker 3: 756 hours of content. So that's amazing after having been dark for four years.
Speaker 10: So Mr. Mayor, we currently have four interns and we would love to have a lot more if they're interested in video production. We're the place to be and we support your internship program citywide. Thank you.
Speaker 1: You guys are doing great work over there, obviously, and the facility looks great and keep up the good work. Very nice. Thank you. So there's. There was that was a any more public comment on this item saying non there's a motion and a second to it please cast your votes.
Speaker 3: Motion carries, etc..
Speaker 1: Next item, please. | Agenda Item | Recommendation to authorize City Manager to allocate Public, Education, and Government (PEG) fee revenue equally among the three categories of cable access providers, each receiving one-third of the total available; and increase appropriations in the General Services Fund (IS 385) and the Department of Technology and Innovation (TI) by $1,026,288. (Citywide) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_08182015_15-0826 | Speaker 3: New business item number 38, communications from Councilwoman Leena Gonzalez, Mayor Robert Garcia, Vice Mayor Susan Lowenthal and Council member Roberto Ringer. Recommendation to request City Manager to provide a public briefing on how the major power outage was managed, along with the types of communications received from SC.
Speaker 1: Councilwoman Gonzalez.
Speaker 0: Yes, I wanted to thank my council colleagues for joining me, Vice Mayor Sujatha Lowenthal and Councilmember Ranga and Councilmember Andrews as well for being a part of this. This, as many of you know in the city, was a significant event that we encountered. And although we will have a town hall this Saturday with some of our legislative representatives, I thought it was also important to bring something forward here at the city council level to understand the magnitude of what happened and also understand our current plans as it stands. So again, this is to review our natural hazard mitigation plan, an overview of our department roles as city council people, as staff members. You know, many of us have badges that say that we if a natural disaster, something happens, you know, we are the first ones that would be able to respond. So like some clarity on that and also exploration of, you know, some some of our amazing training opportunities that we already have and available. So cert, search and rescue and perhaps other training opportunities that our city staff could partake in, as well as technology and outreach. I think we did a great job on our end of getting out the information, but it'd be great to know what that is, you know, streamlined and all in one place, whether it's Twitter or our Long Beach city of Long Beach Facebook account. Nicole, how are our residents getting this information and how can we make it a little bit easier for people that may even not have technology so far through hotlines or anything else? So that's my information. I look forward for it to be coming back with with great information on how we can better serve our residents in this process. And I just want to thank our city staff again for everything that they've done. I received many phone calls through the extent the first district was hit the hardest, I think the worst in downtown. And so I just want to thank them for their diligence and their commitment to keeping us connected. So thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilman, your anger. You second that motion.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I want to thank Councilmember Gonzalez for bringing this forward and look forward to the report.
Speaker 1: Vice Mayor Lowenthal.
Speaker 11: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I want to thank Councilmember Gonzales, Councilwoman Gonzales, for. Bringing this item forward and raising the topic. I think she said it best. The recent outages were extreme, extremely difficult for our residents and our businesses. And it I, I know none of us have seen anything like this before. What I can say is that it offered us a glimpse into the necessity for our city team and community partners to review our protocols against what really happens in a time of crisis. I am oddly, it's rather awkward to say how proud I am of our city staff because these are not circumstances that we want to ever experience. But having had that glimpse and having seen what what takes place, I know that I know what our team state is capable of. And I think we all recognize and acknowledge that we're fortunate that this was not a crisis brought about by a natural disaster. So is this one of those opportunities where we don't squander a crisis, where we look at this and figure out a way to do better? We know there's room for improvement, and from our conversations with Edison management, this experience has affected their own set of protocols and communications. And I think they've learned that our community expects different things and expects more and certainly expects communication. And that's not to say I'm less than proud of our overall effort. Our residents were tremendous. I think Councilwoman Gonzalez and I and others can attest how our residents have changed have come forward. The city team, the residents, your collaboration, persistence and use of social media to communicate with a broader community. I don't think I've ever seen us operate like this, and thankfully I didn't have to because of a crisis. But I'm I'm glad that we were able to demonstrate that level of organization. But having gone through this experience with constituents and the city staff alike, I'm really interested in hearing not only from staff, but also a city manager charged with disaster and emergency preparedness about what we did right and how we can improve on things that didn't go so well. I know we had daily conversations throughout the time of the outages and now that that is behind us, hopefully behind us, we can take this opportunity to review those and improve where we can. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Councilman Mongo.
Speaker 3: I, too, want to thank Councilwoman Gonzales for bringing forward this important item as a designated disaster service worker for ten years. And we take those responsibilities very seriously, and and we get a lot of online training for those opportunities should they arise. But to be able to also look at what which of those online trainings that are given to staff members throughout the region are available for the community to take free of charge. Or I know that through some of our library card opportunities and the new mobile app with Overdrive Media, there's been a lot of connectivity in those trainings being able to be given online through our library card holders. And so I think that those are some opportunities that technology has recently brought us that I hope that will come forth in this study. So thank you for bringing this forward and I look forward to the report.
Speaker 1: And thank you, Councilman Andrews.
Speaker 7: Yes. Thank you, Mayor. I also would like to thank Councilwoman Mina for bringing this forward and the other colleagues who signed on with it. I think this is just to give a chance to show our city how well we are equipped when things really kind of go a little bad and that was going bad. So thank all those individuals who jumped in and made Long Beach Finest what they're supposed to be doing. Thank you guys again. And thank you again, Lena, for bringing this forward.
Speaker 1: Thank you. And just to be clear, I'm very supportive of this. This is great. This will a report will come back from staff on the response that we a public report to the council. Per the item on September the first. And then it's also my understanding and I just want to make sure this is clear that the staff the council retreat that we're going to have in a few a month or so, a large chunk of that is going to be about disaster preparedness and emergency response citywide. And so I'm assuming there are things we discuss, a large chunk of that would be included in the retreat, but we would also have an update on the steps to the council. Is that is that correct?
Speaker 0: Yes. From what I understand, there will be some information at the retreat. I know myself I cannot attend. So that might be a little bit of a problem for me. But I mean, nonetheless, of course, the council can.
Speaker 4: Okay. Well, we'll get information.
Speaker 1: All right. We'll coordinate that then. Okay, great. Any public comment on the item? Please cast your votes.
Speaker 3: Motion carries, etc..
Speaker 1: Next item, please. | Agenda Item | Recommendation to request City Manager to provide a public briefing to Council on how the July 15th (and subsequent July 30th smaller event) major power outage was managed along with the types of communications received from SCE and also to provide updates to be discussed at the September 1st Council meeting.
The briefing should include the following:
• The City's current plan - Natural Hazard Mitigation Plan - 2014;
• Overview of Council and City department roles and
responsibilities in a crisis, emergency or disaster;
• Exploration of City and legislative staff emergency
response training (ex. CERT, Search and Rescue, etc.)
other than what is written in the City Manager's Emergency
Contact Booklet and the City employee online emergency
training; and
• Technology and outreach - current protocols and possibilities
for future improvements. | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_08182015_15-0829 | Speaker 1: Next item, please.
Speaker 3: Item number 39 Communications from Councilwoman Staci Mango, Councilwoman Lena Gonzalez, Council Member Darryl Supernova and Council Member Roberto Ringa. Recommendation to request city manager to direct the Long Beach Health and Human Services Department in partnership with the Police Department and other applicable excuse me departments to create a citywide prescription drug stewardship program. Yes. They had the great fortune of working closely with some of our neighboring public safety organizations that are volunteers. And there are a number of places throughout L.A. County where you can donate your prescription drugs that are expired or not expired, but not used. And with the research related to drug addiction and drug usage of individuals whose it's not their prescription and the success of previous drug drug donation drives where people can clean out their medicine cabinets here in Long Beach. I mean, it would be great if we had a more permanent location and to have those throughout the county, at sheriff stations and a few other locations, we we are starved for those locations here in Long Beach. And so I look forward to seeing the report back from the Health and Human Services Department with our police department to ensure that our neighbors have a constant place where they won't have to wait for the next annual cleanout, your medicine cabinet drug drop. Because as we all know, drug addiction is a major issue in the United States. And we need to do what we can to ensure that young people and those who are not intended to have prescription meds don't have access to them. So thank you very much for this and thank you for the colleagues who signed on. I'm really passionate about this issue, and I think it's it's a cornerstone of our our youth and their safety.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Is there any public comment on this item? Seen on the second day with Councilman Gonzales. Any comments or.
Speaker 0: Just wanted to say thank you, Councilman Mongo, for bringing this forward. This is really important for our seniors as well. So thank you.
Speaker 1: Please cast your votes.
Speaker 3: Councilman Austin. Motion carries seven zero.
Speaker 1: Okay. Now we're going to be going up for announcements. Is there any let me do the second public comment period here. Anyone that had a public comment for the second period. Please come forward. Go ahead. | Agenda Item | Recommendation to request City Manager to direct the Long Beach Health and Human Services Department, in partnership with the Police Department and other applicable departments, to create a citywide prescription drug stewardship program. | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_08112015_15-0768 | Speaker 0: Thank you. With that, we're going to go ahead and begin with the first item we're going to be taking up tonight, which is the appointment of our new city clerk. If I can have the clerk, please read item. I believe it's 23 items. Item 3131 I'm sorry about that. Yes. 31.
Speaker 1: Please report from Human Resources recommendation to adopt a resolution approving the appointment and terms of compensation for the city clerk said.
Speaker 0: Okay. There's been a a motion. Can I get a second? Okay, there's a motion, a second. And we'll have an opportunity for, ah, the City Hall Department to come and say a few words after the vote. But is there any public comment on the motion in front of us? Casey. Nonmembers, please go and cast your votes.
Speaker 1: Motion carries nine zero.
Speaker 0: Great. Well, first of all, everyone just give a round of applause and welcome. I want to welcome our new city clerk, Maria de la Luce Garcia. No relation, by the way. Please come forward and I'm going to say a few opening comments and then turn this over to a few of the council members. And then finally we'll end with with our new clerk. Begin by saying that, as most people know, we've had an incredible city clerk in the city of Long Beach. For many, many years, those that new Leroy Herrera Cabrera have been impressed with his leadership. But most importantly, he also left behind an incredible staff of skilled that love Long Beach. And we're very proud and honored to have that entire team as part of our city family in conducting our search. I think the council was looking for a lot of qualities in our new clerk and in Maria Garcia, we certainly found those . And so our new clerk comes to us with a lot of experience from the city of Los Angeles working in the elections office there. And before that did a lot of work with voter engagement for a national elected official organization, as well as was very involved in election reform, engagement in the city of Los Angeles, as well as she is a masters master's degree student currently at USC. So right on and did her undergrad at Vassar, I believe, and came with a lot of really great recommendations. And so we want to welcome you to the Long Beach family. In many ways, she is part of the family cause she's a Long Beach resident and has been, I know, for some time. And so we want to we want to thank you for your new commitment to Long Beach. We'll be seeing you here week after week and day after day in the interactions that you have with our office and and the offices of the council members. And it's not often that you get to select a new city clerk for your city. It's a rare occasion. Usually they they're around for a while because they love the job and we love having them. But it is a special moment, I know, for you and for your family and certainly is for the city of Long Beach. And so, Clark Garcia, we want to we want to welcome you officially to the city of Long Beach and elect like to have the council say a few words and then if you wouldn't mind saying a few words as well. Thank you, Councilwoman Mongo.
Speaker 4: Thank you. I am particularly proud that we at the Council came to the decision to hire you. There are very few positions in the city that the council has direct control over and we took this process very seriously, and you and your family should be very proud of what you've accomplished to date. And we expect many, many more things from you. I know that I'm first at reading your resume. I was very impressed. And as we got to meet you along the way and throughout the process, you just continued to dazzle us. And I know that what was most important to me is how, through getting to know you and your resume and your cover letter and all the interviews you went through, I believe that you believe in transparency and fairness and encouraging every single person to exercise their right to vote. And I know that through the engagement processes that you've already been a part of across the country, bringing that to Long Beach, we have a very bright future ahead. So from the very active voters of the fifth District, we welcome you.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilwoman Price.
Speaker 2: I, too, want to welcome you. The the pool of applicants that we reviewed and those we interviewed were all extremely qualified. Every single one of them would have made an amazing clerk. And we believe that of you. We believe that you're going to do a great job and that you fit with our city. And you're a resident of our city, I believe. Are you in the third?
Speaker 4: I'm in the seventh.
Speaker 5: Okay.
Speaker 2: By the seventh, yeah. Councilman Super. And I just asked me if I want to change my vote. Well, we welcome you, and I look forward to working with you for many years. So thank you. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Councilwoman.
Speaker 2: Congratulations, Madam Clerk. It's very exciting. I know just speaking with you during your interview was very impressed. And I look forward to working with you as the chair of the Elections Oversight Committee. It's exciting to be able to talk about how to engage our voters and our residents a little bit more. So thank you very much and congratulations.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 0: Councilman Turanga.
Speaker 6: I knew you were in a sense when I read your address. I just. One simple word. Bienvenido. Looking forward to working with you.
Speaker 5: Good.
Speaker 0: Councilmember Richardson.
Speaker 7: I think the council all said it best. Welcome to the Long Beach family. I think voter engagement is certainly an art as much as it is a science, and I think you have a knack for it. And so we're really excited to see that see you of our our team in helping us lead and lead our effort to engage more engage more people in government. So thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Vice Mayor Lowenthal.
Speaker 8: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I, too, want to extend my congratulations and welcome to our city family. Your joining this family at a time when the entire council is interested in innovation. You are coming to a city that's put a new innovation team together. And every effort you make to engage voters in as. Interesting away as possible, unsuspecting way as possible is something that we're all looking forward to. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. And I have Council Member Andrews.
Speaker 9: Yes, thank you. First of all, I'd like to congratulate you. And I hope you can work for your colleagues, like, you know, our former, you know, city character. But the biggest part about you will be seeing me more often. You will see the other individuals, because I like to come down and just surprise people and see what they know, who I am. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Council embarrassed them.
Speaker 10: Thank you very much and welcome to this. Garcia, you want a very competitive process. There were a lot of very good candidates and you stood out among the crowd and it was unanimous on this council that you were the obvious choice to be our next city clerk. And so I wanted to take this opportunity to welcome you, congratulate you, and just say how great it is to have a Long Beach resident, somebody who who has a real stake in the game as our next city clerk. I look forward to working with you.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much.
Speaker 0: Councilmember Super.
Speaker 11: Thank you. Well, I've already congratulated you privately before the meeting, so I just like to say welcome, welcome aboard. And just give you a lot of assurance that you have a great staff here. And if you ever need my help, I'm the newest guy up here, but I'll be glad to assist. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. And now I'll turn this over to our new city clerk, Maria Garcia.
Speaker 5: Well, first of all, I'd like to thank all of you, council mayor, for entrusting.
Speaker 4: Me with this great responsibility. It's a responsibility that I don't take lightly, and I will do my best to represent this city and my department in the best way possible.
Speaker 5: More importantly, I am going to work really hard to make voter engagement a top priority for our department.
Speaker 4: Making sure that all of our residents, especially those that are hardest.
Speaker 5: To reach.
Speaker 4: Because of language, access or access, physical accessibility.
Speaker 5: I will be paying attention to the to those issues.
Speaker 2: As well as bringing more innovation to our department.
Speaker 4: And making sure that.
Speaker 5: We are walking hand-in-hand into the digital age with the rest of America. Moving forward, it will be all about the residents of Long Beach and.
Speaker 4: Providing them with municipal services that are inclusive.
Speaker 5: Transparent, accessible and.
Speaker 2: Reflective of the diversity of this great.
Speaker 4: City.
Speaker 5: Earlier today, I had a chance to meet my new city family. The staff of the city clerk department. And I got to say, I'm really excited. I'm excited to be working among such a hard working, talented staff.
Speaker 4: And I can't wait for August.
Speaker 5: 31st to come. It can't come fast enough. So thank you.
Speaker 4: I want to acknowledge some special people in the audience here today to accompany me on this special occasion. Family. My mom. If I could ask her to please stand. Christina. My father. Javier.
Speaker 5: My uncle Filiberto. My brother Ramon. And his wife, Nancy. I don't know if my sister's here as.
Speaker 2: Well, but.
Speaker 4: She didn't tend to come. Assemblymember Garcia and I, I know that she would have loved to be here if she's not in the audience right now. So I want to also acknowledge her. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. And thank you all very much again. And congratulations. And with that, the your boss, I'm sure, to celebrate with your family and friends. And we'll continue the meeting. Thank you. Okay. Next, we're going move on to our commission appointments. And we have items 24 and 25. We're going to do item 24/1. | Resolution | Recommendation to adopt resolution approving the appointment and terms of compensation for the City Clerk. (Citywide) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_08112015_15-0762 | Speaker 0: And we have items 24 and 25. We're going to do item 24/1.
Speaker 1: Communication from Mayor Robert Garcia. Recommendation to confirmed charter commission appointments.
Speaker 0: Thank you. I'm going to turn this over actually to Councilmember Austin. Okay.
Speaker 10: So thank you, Mr. Mayor. As a chair of the Personnel and Civil Service Committee, we met a little earlier today and we unanimously voted to accept the recommendations for charter commission appointments. There were a number of eight members either appointed or reappointed to the Citizen Police Complaints Commission. And to give them honor, I'd like to at least acknowledge them. To see PCC Josie Josephine Castellanos is the eighth District resident. She's appointed to a second term, if I can ask you to please stand. Alvaro Castillo, a fifth District resident appointed to a first term. David Clement, a third district resident, reappointed to a second term. Jose Flores, a sixth District resident appointed to a partial term. Richard Lindemann, a fourth District resident appointed to a first term. Miles Nevin, a second District resident appointed to his first term. Jeff Pryce, the seventh District resident, is reappointed to a second term and Tooley Sorrell is At-Large and a seventh District resident is appointed to a partial term. Let's give all of the new PCC commissioners a.
Speaker 6: Round of applause.
Speaker 10: We're not done yet. On the Civil Service Commission, which is also a charter commission. We have Ms.. Phyllis areas. She's an eighth District resident, and she's been appointed being appointed to her first term on a term on the Civil Service Commission. And she has more than 30 years of experience in higher education in Long Beach City College, including work on personnel policies and procedures, budget management, governance structures, planning processes and curriculum development. And she served on the college's academic Senate Synod Executive Committee, Academic Council and College Planning and was elected President of the Academic Senate. Congratulations, Ms.. Areas. You are also on the civil service commission. We have Mr. Rick middleton, mclemore. He currently serves on the service. Civil Service Commission is being reappointed to a third district to a second term to his first full term. And he's a third resident. Excuse me. Rick has 25 years of federal government experience serving as an equal opportunity specialist with the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Customs Service. And Mr. Middleton McLemore was also appointed to the Civil Service Commission by Mayor Foster in 2014 to fill the final year of an open term. Congratulations, Mr. McLemore. And we also have one. Parks and Recreation Commission appointee. And that is Ms.. Stella Ursula. She's filling in At-Large seat. She is a second district resident and she's been appointed to a partial term. She's the president of the Green Education Inc. and principal at Stellar Sustainable Consulting. She has served as a commissioner with the Long Beach Sustainable Cities Commission, with the Long Beach Community College District Citizens Oversight Committee, and a steering committee member with Building Healthy Communities. Ms.. SEWA is a founder of Local Earth Day Events and Green Praise Festival and launched the Southern California Green Art Council. Very impressive. Congratulations to your appointment to the Parks and Recreation Commission and. And lastly, we have four new members or appointed or reappoint members to the Planning Commission. I would like to recognize Mr. Ronald Cruz to win that large seat. He's a fourth District resident and it's appoint an appointment to a partial term. He graduated from Cal State University, Long Beach, with a degree in geography and took his first job as a city planner here in Long Beach. He spent five years at City Hall before moving into a private development firm and has no nine years of planning experience. He lives in the fourth District and has a master's degree from Cal State University, Long Beach. Andy Perez is being appointed to a At-Large seat. He's a second seventh District resident. He's been reappointed to his first full term, and he currently is a public affairs bureau manager with Union Pacific Railroad as a director of port affairs for Long Beach, Los Angeles, Oakland and San Francisco. He's a graduate of Cal State University, Dominguez Hills. Mr. Perez served long has served long on the board of directors with the Long Beach Boys and Girls Club and the Regional Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. Congratulations, Mr. Perez. And I'd also like to recognize the re-appointed Mr. Anita van Warwick to an at large seat. He is an eighth District resident and is a Long Beach City College scholarship recipient and graduate of Columbia City. She has also attended Cal Poly Pomona with a B.S. cum lady in business management. She has had many years of leadership and volunteer experience in many organizations, including the Long Beach Nonprofit Partnership. She's volunteered with the Long Beach Day Nursery, Long Beach League for John Tate, John Tracy Clinic, the Long Beach City College Foundation, Board of Governors and the Long Beach Museum of Art. Thank you, Mr. Van Horn, for your service and congratulations. And our final appointment to the Planning Commission and we're asking for a component of this full city council is Mr. Eric Verdugo Vega, Brazil's produce. Go figure. I'm sorry. He's being appointed to an at large seat. He's a sixth district resident. He's been reappointed to his first full term. He's the president and CEO of the South Bay Latino Chamber of Commerce and a South Bay Latino Community Development Corporation. He also manages real estate and restaurant investments and has served on the Los Angeles County Workforce Investment Board as his vice chair. Congratulations, Mr. Reduce Gall Vega. And so with that Council, it is the recommendation of the personnel of the Civil Service Committee that we accept the mayor's nominations for all these charter commissions. I want to just add my personal comments that all of them are very well qualified and a very impressive group of commissioners who definitely have the city's best interests at heart, and they all are true public servants. And so with that, I would recommend full support.
Speaker 0: If you want to put the motion in council member short for. It's done. Okay. It will get some. Someone sick in there. Okay, great. We have a couple folks I want to do public comment. Councilman Gringa.
Speaker 6: As a member of the Personal Civil Service Commission, I want to welcome all the new appointees. As I looked into the crowd, I got to see some old faces and new friends. Let me change that. Some old friends and new faces that that are that are coming and joining the city family and their service on these commissions . So I welcome you and look forward to working with you. And I always know that my office is available to you at any time. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Councilwoman Price.
Speaker 2: I want to welcome all of you as well. Just Alvaro Castillo and I have been friends for 20 something years, and I'm very proud to see that he's getting he's always been very involved in his community. But to have him be involved in the city is it's an honor. And I'm very proud of you. So thank you. And of course, Ricky Rick is as a resident of the third district. And I fully support your work and all the things that you do for this city and your service on multiple commissions. This isn't your first one and not your first term, so thank you for your service. I'm grateful to have you in my district, and I'm grateful that you're a resident of Long Beach. So thanks, everyone else.
Speaker 0: Thank you. And Councilwoman Gonzalez, I.
Speaker 2: Wanted to thank each and every one of you for your commitment to Long Beach and your service. I know many of you have full time jobs for doing this. In addition to is just commendable. But I've talked to a few of you as personal friends and you're so very excited to serve and that is what makes this position most amazing. So thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Okay. And I want to also thank you all for your service before we take the vote. And, you know, it's interesting, one of the interesting things that Councilman Price oh, actually have one more Councilman Mongo and then I'll see my comments.
Speaker 4: I, too, want to take a moment to thank each and every one of you. The the citizen engagement process is one of the most important processes that we have next to our right to vote. And so thank you for each and every one of you for first going online and applying to serve. And I encourage anyone watching at home to take a moment and see the new revamped online website where you can apply to serve your constituents, your neighbors, and the city of Long Beach as a whole. Because without the citizen participation model, we're up here representing all 500,000 people. And so we really appreciate the ability to work through each and every one of you each and every week. So thank you very much for your service.
Speaker 0: Thank you all. And before we take the verdict, I want to say I love seeing so many folks that I kind of knew through college when I was in school, including Councilman Price and Alvaro and Ron and Eric and all guys and gals that we all knew each other through our Cal State Long Beach days in some way or another. And so it's it's it's nice to be here at this point and to see everyone working, working together 20 years later. So with that, we can go ahead and take a vote. It'd be great. Great. Congratulations to all of you. And now we have our second set of commissioners, which is 825. | Appointment | Recommendation to, subject to review and consideration by the Personnel and Civil Service Committee in accordance with Long Beach Municipal Code Section 2.03.065, confirm Charter Commission appointments pursuant to Section 509 of the City Charter and Section 2.03.065 of the Long Beach Municipal Code; or in the alternative, if for some reason the Personnel and Civil Service Committee does not meet prior to or on August 11, 2015, waive the requirement for consideration and recommendation by the Personnel and Civil Service Committee in accordance with Section 2.03.0650, and confirm Charter Commission appointments pursuant to Section 509 of the City Charter and Section 2.03.065 of the Long Beach Municipal Code. | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_08112015_15-0742 | Speaker 0: Some turn this over to the clerk to read item hearing.
Speaker 1: One report from city manager recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record. Conclude the hearing to consider the establishment of the Midtown Business Improvement District. Direct the City Clerk to tabulate the ballots and report the results of the tabulation to the Mayor and City Council during tonight's meeting. And if a majority of ballots received are in favor of the establishment of the bid, adopt a resolution to establish the bid for an initial term of five years. District four and six. The city clerk is still accepting ballots. If there's any member of the public that has a ballot, they'd like to surrender. Please come down to the counter.
Speaker 0: Okay. I'm going to start off with a staff report from the city manager.
Speaker 13: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Members of the city council. The staff report will be conducted by Mike Conway, our director of Economic and Property Development.
Speaker 0: Mayor Garcia. Members of the City Council. Property owners of record along East Anaheim Street between Raymond Avenue and Alamitos Avenue. Who will pay more than 50% of the proposed assessment, have submitted petitions to the city for the establishment of a business improvement district to be identified as the Midtown Business Improvement District. The new business district will be compromised or comprised of property owners within the proposed boundaries, and the district plan details the boundaries of the bid and the improvements and activities for which the assessment funds will be used. And the bids engineer's report details the amount and method of assessment for each parcel. If established, the bids shall commence on January 1st, 2016, for the initial five year period of January 1st, 2016 through December 31st, 2020, and City Council will annually review and consider approving the renewal of the levy budgets and reports submitted by by the bid. As approved by the City Council on June 16th, 2015, and to comply with California Constitution, a notice of assessment and an assessment ballot were mailed to property owners who are proposed to be assessed. At the conclusion of this public hearing, an independent third party will tabulate the votes and will return to City Council later during this meeting to announce the results. If a majority of ballots received with a weighted assessment amounts are in favor of the establishment of the bid, the City Council may proceed with the adoption of the resolution establishing the bid. If a majority of the ballots received do not support the establishment of the bid, then the bid cannot be established. Ballots may be accepted up to the time that the public hearing is closed, at which time no more ballots will be accepted. And any member of the public may observe the tabulation process according to the guidelines that no cell phones shall be used. No questions shall be directed to supervisory staff. Observers shall not interrupt or speak to the ballot processing staff, and observers shall not approach the ballot the ballot processing staff. So with that staff requests that counsel will receive the reporting documentation into the record, conclude the hearing to consider the establishment of the bid director, city clerk to a tablet to tabulate the ballots and report the results of the tabulation to the Mayor and City Council during this meeting. And if a majority of the ballots received are in favor of establishing the bid, adopt a resolution to establish the bid for the initial term of five years effective January 1st, 2016, through December 31st, 2020. And that concludes my report. Okay. Thank you. With that, I'm going to turn this over to those that made the motion. And then remember, this is a two part process. So we're going to have the motion. We're going to take a vote. Mr. City Attorney, is that correct? On the on the hearing motion? Is that right? Mr. City Attorney.
Speaker 14: Yes. We would come back.
Speaker 0: We would conclude we take the vote first and then we come back on the second.
Speaker 14: No, we take the vote after the tabulation of the ballot.
Speaker 0: Okay. So and we would also do can we do public comment now?
Speaker 14: We do public comment and any protest now they want to come forward and discuss it for the council and then we adjourn to candidates.
Speaker 0: Excellent. So let me take let me begin by saying if there's any protests on the hearing from the public. Any comment on it? Saying None. I'm going to allow both Councilmember Andrews and Councilman Superhot to make a few comments. Oh, sir, please. Yes. Come forward. Or if you'd like to go up there, you can do your comment from the top as well either either way. Okay?
Speaker 9: Yes.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 0: No worries, sir. Just please give us your name for the record and please begin.
Speaker 13: Mayor Garcia, this is Bruce Palmer Koch Cash Register Company, 1900.
Speaker 6: East Anaheim Street. I am against the Business Improvement District because I.
Speaker 0: Don't know how you could.
Speaker 6: Possibly improve my business. I talked to many people on the last two days. The businessman did not even get a say so in it along Anaheim Street.
Speaker 0: There are many small Cambodian.
Speaker 6: Businesses that are just barely.
Speaker 0: Making it and can't afford to have their rent increased.
Speaker 6: By this.
Speaker 0: Operation. It won't help their businesses, but yet we're getting it thrown at us. And the city owns 40% of the property. We need 51% say no.
Speaker 6: I don't see how we can possibly do that. I feel that the engineering.
Speaker 0: Of the project where they cut the lines. Was instrumental.
Speaker 6: In the.
Speaker 0: Fact that we would not be possible to obtain enough of a vote. The people that I talked to yesterday and today. Do not want this extra taxation type issue that is being thrown upon us. Myself. I'm 73. You want to charge me $5,000 over the next five years? And then I doubt that you would.
Speaker 6: Discontinue this operation.
Speaker 0: I imagine you would continue it on for as long as I would live, which may not be that long.
Speaker 6: Luckily for us.
Speaker 0: But I would like to have.
Speaker 6: Some relief in my old age, and I'd like to see everybody here. Think about all the people that came here from Cambodia. And the small businesses they have started. I don't think any one of you has walked this a district and talked to them.
Speaker 0: And asked them, do you want to pay extra money on your rent? For us to make the city.
Speaker 6: Clean, safe and beautiful. How are you going to do that? How are you going to guarantee me that you are going to improve my business? $980 a year. Is there any guarantee on that? That's a question for you, Mr. Mayor. Can you answer.
Speaker 0: That? This is not an opportunity to ask questions, but when you're concluded, I'll make some comments.
Speaker 6: All right. Well, like I say, after talking to so many of the people. I have noticed that all the blank. Places on this, which is over 60, were not even notified.
Speaker 0: I have a Filipino friend that.
Speaker 6: Is in the.
Speaker 0: A and cherry liquor store.
Speaker 6: He owns that property. He did not even.
Speaker 0: Get a ballot. Whoever did this job. Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. So I'm going to turn this over to Mr. Andrews to make a few comments. I just want to just before he goes, you want to make sure that we're clear what the what the item is. This is a hearing to count the votes of those business owners in the proposed assessed property improvement district. And so this is obviously this is a democratic process that those that are in the assessed area have votes and they're weighted by size of property and so forth. And so we have, as you all know, a handful of these throughout the city, including in Bixby Knolls, the newest one being in North Long Beach, Belmont Shore downtown, and as well as Fourth Street. And I believe one of our newer ones is also on Anaheim, on east east Anaheim. So let me turn this over to Councilmember Andrews and then we'll begin the process of counting the votes.
Speaker 9: Thank you, Mayor. You know, first of all, I'd like to say I'm very happy to see that we have come to the point of counting ballots for the midtown bid. For many years, I worked with the Cambodian Town Inc business owners, the community in establishing this bid. As a result, a recent extensive work by stakeholders, city staff, consultants and state required stakeholders have been met and that if this final vote tabulated, conducted this evening indicate a majority support, the Council will ask to vote in favor. But established in Midtown Business Improvement District, I sincerely hope that my colleagues will support this item so that we can move forward with the beautification on nine corridor. The District will provide new improvement and activities, including a clean, safe and beautiful corridor that will encourage new business and development and attract additional business and they service. And I think the most important part about all of this is that people will get a chance to vote and that will make final decision about all of it. Thank you very much.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilwoman Mongo.
Speaker 4: Yes. With staff be able to provide us information on whether or not there are any opportunities for businesses that are having financial challenges to be able to apply for support on their bid fees.
Speaker 0: Council member Mungo That is not an opportunity. These are assessed through the property tax, through the county and they will be.
Speaker 6: Collected along with.
Speaker 0: Property taxes. And there really isn't an opportunity for abatement.
Speaker 4: So the bid, once it has a board in place, would not be able to refund those or give credits towards the business in any way.
Speaker 0: That's correct.
Speaker 4: Okay. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Vice Mayor Alonso.
Speaker 8: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I wanted to just show my appreciation to staff and everyone that's been involved in the bid to date when we worked with community members to create Cambodia Town in 2007. It was my hope that a business improvement district would in fact be formed to support the goals and aspirations of business and property owners along the corridor. So I wanted to share with everyone that I am extremely supportive, continue to be extremely supportive of this bid, and look forward to seeing this corridor evolve into a destination beyond its current success. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. I'm going to close the hearing now. We've done public comment. So what happens now is the clerk's staff will begin the process of tabulating the votes over the course of the meeting. Once the votes come back, if there is an affirmative vote, then the council then records that into the record by having the vote at that time. Is that correct?
Speaker 14: That's correct. At that time, the council will then consider the resolution establishing.
Speaker 0: Okay, great. And so we'll then go ahead and do that. So the clerk will go begin counting the ballots. And I know we're going to be transitioning to minimum wage in just a minute, but I want to get two things out of the way quickly. Consent calendar. Can you get a motion to approve? There's some staff here that we can clear a couple of seats probably. Can I get a motion in a second for consent calendar, please? Madam Quirk. It's a good thing they're putting it up. | Resolution | Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record, conclude the hearing to consider the establishment of the Midtown Business Improvement District (MBID); direct the City Clerk to tabulate the ballots and report the results of the tabulation to the Mayor and City Council during the August 11, 2015 meeting; and, if a majority of ballots received are in favor of the establishment of the MBID, adopt resolution to establish the MBID for an initial term of five (5) years, effective January 1, 2016 through December 31, 2020. (Districts 4,6) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_08112015_15-0778 | Speaker 0: All right, so great. Congratulations. All appreciate that for being out here. So we're going to move on to the next item, which is item 27. Madam Clerk.
Speaker 1: Communication from Vice Mayor Lowenthal, Councilwoman Gonzalez, Councilman Andrews and Councilmember Richardson recommendation to request a report from the L.A. County Economic Development Corporation regarding the feasibility of any potential benefits and risks of implementing a citywide minimum wage. And proposals for incentives to assist businesses and nonprofit organizations in complying with a higher wage. Higher minimum wage.
Speaker 0: I'm going to turn this over to Vice Mayor Lowenthal.
Speaker 8: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'd like to make the motion to move this item. And I want to thank my co coauthors as well on this item. We have. Sorry, I have to adjust my seat. We have numerous reports from cities regarding the growing gap between the rich and the poor. I don't think that's a surprise to anyone while the economy is certainly improved. For many of us, it hasn't improved. For all of us and various investors and companies in certain lucrative sectors continue to accumulate wealth. Cities and counties. What ends up happening is we are left to deal with the impacts of a growing class of residents living in poverty. Throughout the years that many of us have been on this council, we have noted that our city tends to be a tale of two cities, and I think that continues to be palpable here in our city , even when many of us have. Experienced an increase in our economic benefits, increase in our household income. We don't see that across the board. What ends up happening when cities and counties are left with the burdens of this disparity that exist among those living in poverty? It affects our health. It affects our housing. It affects emergency services, which ends up costing more tax dollars to be used in a reactive manner rather than proactively through people's wages and in the local economy. As a result, the subject of minimum wage is being discussed and decided upon in numerous state and local council chambers throughout the nation, including the county and the city of Los Angeles. So Long Beach, as a city, doesn't have the luxury nor the reputation for shying away from this conversation. It's at our doorstep and it's here. Whether all of us like it or not, it is at our doorstep. I believe that the mayor, as well as my co-sponsors and I wish to approach this issue in a methodical and logical manner. We welcome any conversation that may improve the health and well-being of our residents. But we also believe there's another element to be considered here, and that's the impact on small businesses and nonprofits. That's why this study has another component to determine whether incentives or fee reductions could help local businesses. In as much as we have economic engines such as the port and downtown. We also know that small businesses, residents and our local economy are connected to one another. And so we'd like the study to look at the different perspectives and provide us with feedback and before any decisions made whether to move forward or not. And I encourage everyone to engage in this conversation and to engage in it in a way where our city can improve. And the quality of life of our residents and workers who don't live here can improve. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
Speaker 0: Thank you. I'm going to turn this over to Councilwoman Gonzales. And if there is any objection, what I'd do is after the maker of the motion in the second or I'm going to open up the public comment and then I'll come back to the rest of those cued up. Councilwoman Gonzales.
Speaker 2: I, too, want to thank my colleagues, Vice Mayor Lowenthal, Councilman Richardson, Councilman Andrews, for bringing this forward. I know it's been said before she said it so very eloquently is that we still do have a problem with poverty and people trying to make a living for not only themselves, but their families, but also businesses that are trying to do the same thing as well. And while this is a current theme in adjacent cities and counties, I think we certainly still need to look at this and we need to take a really comprehensive look at this, a very mindful approach, as the vice mayor had mentioned. And for that, you know, I will be supportive of, of course, of this study as I'm a coauthor. But I hope that my colleagues can be supportive of this as well, because this is certainly not going away. The people that you see here work very hard. I know that as well. My father worked very hard and he still continues to work very hard to this day. And sometimes it's just not enough. And so I commend every single one of you for taking a stand and to to advocate for your for your what you believe is right and also for our business owners as well. And so I hope that this study will look at this comprehensively and so that we can so we can create something that means what is most for Long Beach? I know with other plans that we've done before, similar to like our project labor agreement, we wanted to make sure it was something that was that made sense for Long Beach. And so I look forward to seeing what the study will bring and I look forward to working with my colleagues on this. So thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. And as we begin public comment here in just a sec, I want to just say a few words that hopefully will set the stage for for the conversation. And so that we're clear about what is actually happening tonight with what the council is being asked to do tonight is to support a study that will be conducted by the L.A. EDC, which is the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation. That's this is an organization that's widely respected, not just within the in the business community, but in the workforce development sector as well. They did considerable work with the county's proposal. And so they will also be and already have a lot of the information on the issue that will be incorporated into Long Beach. So the idea, of course, is for them to take a look not just on what's going on with wages across the region and state, but also on how we can do things here that could support small businesses and our nonprofit community. I just want also everyone to know that it's very important. I know to the vice mayor and to the council members that have signed on to this, that the process be inclusive, that it includes obviously workers, but also small business owners and our nonprofit community, and that we collect, most importantly , data. This is about collecting data and information in a way that's open and transparent. In the end, the final thing I'll say on this is one thing I pride myself in is that we do things in our community in the Long Beach way and we are going to do this our way. And I include and welcome everyone to be part of that process. L.A. did there, there, there process. The county did theirs. And the county was a little different than LA's. There were differences. We'll go through our process. And our process may also be different than the others. And I think that's important to note. But we will do we will complete this data and we will be open and transparent. And so I want to thank you all for being here tonight. This is a very important conversation. There is no question that there's a need and there's no question that wages and the growth of the economy have grown at a very different level. And so thank you all for being here. And with that, I'm going to open it up for public comment. Please come forward. Yeah. Feel free to line up. And when I say begin, I'll let you guys go ahead and and start. So please go ahead.
Speaker 15: Um, good afternoon, city council. My name's Alyssa Salazar. I'm the student body president for Cal State. Long Beach. Um, we are here today excited about the prospect that the Long Beach City Council will be tasking the Economic Development Commission with assessing the feasibility of increasing the minimum wage here at this great city. With recent alarming statistics about unemployment rate of college students and recent graduates aged 18 to 24, we believe it is necessary for students to be part of this process. Reasons that statistics state that unemployment rate among recent graduates is nearly 20%, nearly 40% among the Latinos and nearly 50% among the African-American community. Clearly, this is unacceptable for our country. We are passionate about this subject, and we would like to encourage the city to require student representation as part of this study. Thank you for your time, city council. Have a great day.
Speaker 0: Thank you. You know, you've got two former senator presidents up here, so congrats. Next speaker.
Speaker 5: Mayor. City Council representatives. My name is Susan Blair. I was born in Long Beach, and I've lived here my entire life. And I'm here to speak against the raising of the minimum wage and the study. Only one third of the workers of Long Beach live in Long Beach. So why in the world would our city council want to spend tens of thousands of dollars of my dollars and the city's citizens of this city, $2 for the two thirds that live outside of the city? Why are we worried about them? They're not going to spend the money here because our business owners are going to have to raise their their rates. To be competitive or to be able to afford to weigh the the increase in the wage. So one third of the city workers in Long Beach live in Long Beach. So they're going to take that raise back to wherever they live and they're going to spend it there. Why should an individual's pay be put on the back of business owners? If you don't like what, you make better yourself and go find another job. So what I did. I'm sure that's what most of you did. Raising the minimum wage will put teenagers out of work. Caused problems for seniors having to pay for home health care needs. Nonprofits in every other industry in our small business community. Raising the minimum wage also has huge rippling effects. What about the social programs that you provide and that government provides us with a minimum wage? All the taxpayers are going to have to pay more to compensate for the rise in the minimum wage. Long Beach will never be able to overcome their image of not being business friendly. If they pass this language as a small business community, it has been my entire life and it still is. You can count on both hands the number of large, large corporations that are in Long Beach. This is a small business community. This is not Los Angeles. This is not Seattle. This is Long Beach, California. Small Business Community. And that's as if that's not enough. The labor unions did everything they could to get the minimum raised to the minimum wage, raised to $15 in Los Angeles. And from what I understand, they're going back this week and asking the L.A. City Council to exempt them from the $15 minimum wage. Now, what's sad about. Are we supposed to believe that's fair? Raising the minimum wage is a serious issue. In a small business community like Long Beach. And I ask you, mayor and city council representatives, to not simply take this on because it's trending politically. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker, please. Mary Garcia.
Speaker 6: Councilmembers. My name is Bill. I did not plan on speaking on this topic. I came here for other reasons, which will be later on in during council members. But on this particular topic, I just want.
Speaker 0: To encourage extreme.
Speaker 6: Study on this and foresight. Our neighbor to the north, Seattle, had put the $15 minimum.
Speaker 0: Wage into place. Some hours got cut for some employees.
Speaker 6: Our new employees, their hours are like limited to 30 hours or 30 and a half hours or trying.
Speaker 0: To stay below 40 hours a.
Speaker 6: Week for employees. The other thing is the current issue of Fortune magazine has a very good.
Speaker 0: Article on the future of the workforce in our country as our workforce moves towards a more technologically.
Speaker 6: Advanced economy. Robotics will take away some of these jobs.
Speaker 0: So we need to find out how we're going to replace those workers. So the article here in Fortune magazine, which.
Speaker 6: I will scan and send to Clark to distribute to all of you folks, emphasizes that human.
Speaker 0: Values and collaboration are really.
Speaker 6: The human commodity of.
Speaker 0: The future.
Speaker 6: As we move towards technology. So I.
Speaker 0: Kind of want to discourage the $15 minimum wage because some employees that are already making higher wages.
Speaker 6: Within a business, they may and this is already happened across the country are leave the business because it's like, well, this.
Speaker 0: Person is not doing as much job as I am. Their job is not worth that value. I'm giving more value.
Speaker 6: To the company. So it's a really human study here.
Speaker 0: Aside from the actual wage itself. So thank you very much for let me say my $0.02. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, Mayor. Council members. My name is Mike Murchison. And a while back, several months ago, we formed the Long Beach Business Alliance, Gary DeLong and I did. We hosted a forum at the Long Beach Airport, Marriott. There were 50 business owners and executive directors from nonprofits to a person that left that. They were, number one, shocked and surprised by the developments are moving forward and city of Los Angeles at the time and now with what's going on this evening, they recognize that a study is needed. However, they want to make sure that it's a comprehensive study. Mayor, as you alluded to and as the vice mayor alluded to, but some of the things that you will read in the L.A. EDC report and I've shared that with about 100 different business owners already because we've met with the Belmont Shore Business Association and other various groups, is that teenagers are going to be impacted. It was mentioned.
Speaker 6: Earlier, a couple of minutes ago. Social service workers will.
Speaker 0: Be, in fact, impacted. In-Home health care workers will be impacted. So we all focus on restaurants and the owners. And to a great degree, they're going to be impacted. You're going to hear about it from them as they form their groups and they come together and tell you their stories individually, how they're going to.
Speaker 6: Be increased in disability insurance, unemployment.
Speaker 0: Insurance, payroll taxes, workers comp. But some of these other areas, I don't think everybody takes into account teenagers. What are they going to do when they can't compete against experienced.
Speaker 6: Workers for.
Speaker 0: That same hourly wage? How is that going to work? How are you going to address the Boys and Girls Club and the Boy Scouts here in Long Beach when they have to cut workers and they have.
Speaker 6: To cut programs.
Speaker 0: Because they can't afford to keep that kind of budget moving forward. Ultimately, I think you need to see what's going to happen with Senate bill. I think it's Senate Bill three up at the state of California. Maybe your city attorney can chime in. What's going to happen when the state passes that bill and its impact on the city of Long Beach? Last but not least, the city of Long Beach has hourly workers. What's going to happen with your own budget here in the city? How does that impact the general fund? You have hourly workers just like restaurants do. I ask you to include that in your studies. I encourage you to reach out to business owners, to nonprofits.
Speaker 6: Into the in-home health care workers. They need to be heard.
Speaker 0: Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Richardson. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 5: Hello and good evening, Mayor. Members of council and city staff. I'm Christy Allen, chairman of the Long Beach Area Chamber of Commerce and vice president of hotel operations for Ensemble Real Estate on behalf of the Chamber and our leadership. We welcome the opportunity to give comments tonight. First and foremost, as we move this process forward, the chamber remains committed to protecting its members and businesses from any type of ordinance that puts them at a competitive disadvantage. But given the momentum for increasing the minimum wage around the region and in some parts of the country, we know this conversation needs to take place in Long Beach. Also we are extremely appreciative that is that it is currently a conversation and discussion of process rather than an outright ordinance per the agenda item. We agree that empirical data needs to be collected and in a way that is relevant to Long Beach, not to any other city or region. The hiring of L.A. EDC is a favorable approach and we appreciate the direction of including the potential benefits and risks of implementing a citywide minimum wage in Long Beach. Even more important is the fact that the study will include proposals for incentives, tax breaks, fee reductions and or process improvements to assist businesses and nonprofit organizations in complying with a potential higher minimum wage. The Chamber is proud to be part of this process and offers its assistance in coordinating, outreach and public input as the EDC study calls for it and sees fit. In fact, we would like to start the process by partnering with the business improvement districts such as LBJ, Bixby Knolls, Belmont Shores , East, Anaheim, Uptown, the new Embiid Midtown and other business areas not represented by a specific bid. Included in this process as well. We would like to reach out to you, the mayor and the city council members, to work to keep the study moving in a direction that would benefit all. As you know, a majority of businesses operate on a relatively small profit margin, especially restaurants when wages increase. Many forget the employer has to account for payroll taxes and increases to employer contributions such as Social Security, Medicare, unemployment and disability insurance. As wages go up, so do these additional contributions by the employer who has to take into consideration the overall payroll cost. This impact on employers and this aspect of raising the minimum wage is rarely talked about and is something we would like to discuss when the time is right during the study. Thank you for the opportunity to address you tonight and for allowing our comments on this item.
Speaker 0: Thank you very much. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 5: Good evening, Mayor, and members of the city council. My name is Hilda Sanchez, and I'm honored to be the chair of the downtown Long Beach Associates. I'm also a small business owner here in downtown Long Beach. I appreciate the opportunity to speak tonight on this agenda item. The need to address the issue objectively is paramount. Without empirical information that shows valid possibilities rather than pure speculations about the impact of any wage adjustment. We demonstrate that we're only engaging in the emotional side of the issue, that this can be harmful to both workers and employers. It is for these and the following reasons that the debate supports this proposed study, as presented by the Vice Mayor and its coauthors. And then we look forward to the results to determine what we can support in the future. The passionate side of the issue cannot be entirely ignored. While the majority of citizens may feel strongly about this matter one way or another, the issue deserves the respect of having accurate information that is authoritative and verified. The proposed study isn't just for workers or just for business owners. It's for everyone in Long Beach. The implications of a recent wage adjustments in the city of Los Angeles and in the unincorporated parts of L.A. County have yet to be realized. It is because of that uncertainty that we must approach this matter with utmost caution in regard to Long Beach, whose economics are different from other areas. The proposed study enables us to conduct our proper due diligence and find the most benefit both for both the worker and employer. It is identifying the advantages focused on the worker, as well as recognizing any and all business initiatives that will best further and create a healthy public policy. In the spirit of collaboration, it is encouraging to take these important and necessary steps to engage in an open, inclusive and balanced process that will make Long Beach stronger and just as importantly, help create a public policy that reflects the needs and interests of everyone. Our workers, small business owners and nonprofits. We place trust in the mayor and our elected officials to pursue this process and encourage you to also consider convening to the same table the leadership representing business, nonprofits and workers to discuss any potential wage adjustments and business initiative that the study reveals. This practice could be could produce a template for all future discussions between these parties. Recognizing that it would be difficult to ensure that all involved will receive 100% of what it wants or seeks from pending deliberations. Dolby appreciates the opportunity to work with all sectors of our city and its civic partners and remains committed to stay engaged with this issue while participating in an open discussion that embodies a constructive discourse to ensure a positive and equitable outcome. Thank you for your opportunity and we encourage your support on this study.
Speaker 0: Thank you very much. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 5: A la Jeanne's Long Beach already has a reputation for not being business friendly. Raising wages that would double would kill many businesses, especially the small mom and pop ones. Have you even considered what would happen with the seniors who are on unlimited incomes? I'm one of those. I have five grandchildren. I have five great grandchildren. I'm not a spring chicken and I'm on a limited income. In seven years, we have only had approximately a 1.5% raise per year. Yet looking at 100% raise plus on a worker raise, the prices would have to rise. Money doesn't grow on trees. How will those on limited fixed incomes survive? I guarantee if this kind of a wage is put through all at once or even, you know, in a small period of time, I guarantee there's going to be layoffs. Closed businesses, higher youth employment, unemployment, and a very strong downward quality of life, especially those who have worked all their lives to put into Social Security and to contribute to society. You have to think about the entirety of the picture. Thank you very much.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 15: Hello. My name is Tori Baker. I'm a resident of Long Beach.
Speaker 5: California.
Speaker 6: Have been a resident for.
Speaker 0: The mike. Right next to you there. Thank you. Perfect.
Speaker 5: I've been a resident over 50 years. I am a home care provider for the city of long before my consumer that lives in Long Beach. I feel that the minimum wage should be raised because we work hard at the jobs that we do. It is a very stressful job. I love the job that I do. That's why I'm not looking.
Speaker 15: For other.
Speaker 6: Employment.
Speaker 5: I love. I have compassion and.
Speaker 4: A loving heart for those that are not able to take care of.
Speaker 5: Themselves. And I feel that if we have a better wage.
Speaker 15: That the cost of living would be much greater in the city of Long Beach, because we will be able to contribute more to our city to.
Speaker 6: Help it thrive and grow. That's all I have to say.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Right to the point. I appreciate that. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 13: Mr. Mayor and council members. My name is Jerry Stinson. I live on Los Altos Avenue in the third district. I'm the senior minister emeritus at the First Congregational Church of Long Beach, about a block from here. I'm here tonight on behalf of Clue Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice, which is an interfaith network of clergy and faith leaders here in Long Beach. We meet regularly here and throughout Los Angeles County. We are committed to good jobs for everyone. And a number of our clergy and lay leaders are here tonight from CLU. If you're part of CLU, if you'd stand up. I know several of them have had to leave, but we do have folks all around the room. We're here tonight to let you know that we strongly favor a $15 minimum wage that will include sick leave. And that in addition, we hope in your study you find ways to enact strict measures for ending wage theft in our community. I was part of the Proposition N campaign, and I saw the Chamber of Commerce and others try to frighten people into opposing a living wage for hotel workers, saying that Long Beach hotels would close if we passed Prop eight and the people in Long Beach would lose their jobs, even that there would be fewer police on the streets. None of that happened, and it won't happen with a decent minimum wage. Almost two thirds of the voters in Long Beach saw through those arguments and voted to support a living wage for our hotel workers. But mostly I'm here to say that those of us in faith communities see the issue of a living wage as a moral and a spiritual issue. Our traditions and sacred texts, whether it's the Koran or the Torah or the Christian Scriptures or others, call for justice and making sure that workers are not locked into poverty. So I hope as you continue this process, you will listen to those who bring you lots of facts and figures. You've heard that already tonight. But don't lose sight of the moral imperative of a just minimum wage, of adequate sick leave, and for making sure that employers don't steal the wages and the tips and the break times of their workers. Doing what is morally right will make this a stronger, a better and a more just city. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker, please get in.
Speaker 2: My name is William Ferris. I am the co-director of the Warehouse Worker Resource Center. We are part of the Long Beach Wage Theft Coalition, and we are here supporting a raise to the minimum wage, paid sick leave and also an effective, strong local wage theft enforcement mechanism. We work with warehouse workers, which is over 300,000 warehouse workers in this region and growing and particular. We've been working with warehouse workers from California Cartage, which is at the port who's most of the workers. Temp and Durex are residents of Long Beach and the headquarters of California Cartage is here in Long Beach. And the owner, Bob Curry, has close ties to Long Beach as well as Los Angeles. This warehouse, which is located at the port, the Los Angeles Living Wage Ordinance, does apply, which says that they have to be paid higher than the Los Angeles the California minimum wage and have paid leave for vacation and sick. That hasn't been the case since it started there. So that has been millions of dollars have been stolen from over 400 families that are struggling to make ends meet. And because of this, in December last year, workers had to file. They saw no other recourse but filing a lawsuit against the company. And this shows clearly that them fighting to have good jobs for our community, the need and example they need to have a strong wage theft mechanism. And sadly, this example at the warehouse, it's not unique to warehouse workers. We stand in solidarity with home care workers as well as restaurant workers, hotel workers and port truck drivers that are having their wages stalled daily. And with this, it clearly shows the need that Long Beach we cannot allow and should not allow employers to see this as a safe haven to still wages from workers that they've earned and that the moment is now to take a stand against this and raise the minimum wage. And we ask you to do so. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hello, everyone.
Speaker 15: My name is Carlos Rodriguez. I'm a father of four kids and I have a live in LA mitchell for many years. I'm also a warehouse worker and a California college. Oh. I earn minimum wage and I don't receive any benefits like like publications or sick days or health benefits. It's a place where every every day you have to show up through the warehouse to see you will you will want to work, but you will not be allowed to work. If you call sick, you are punished by not being allowed to work two or three days. This means that. When you have the being a really sick. Oh. For example, the fever. And it went to work because. And I knew I didn't, you know, go to work was I was going to lose days of peace, which will hurt my family. And that will mean not having having enough to pay food or bills. I will be working hard every day. But the company shows that they don't care or they don't respect you. Because that makes it does that make it easy enough to provide or basic needs or wages that are stolen? And I can't afford to even be sick. Our community, my family deserve better. And we want an end to stolen wages and to have paid paid sick days in my family, my coworkers and I as far as support to make this happen. Thank you very.
Speaker 0: Much. Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 6: When I know J.M. Barrie is Alberta somewhat. I think I'll sink when you talk my your mom.
Speaker 2: Good evening. My name is Adalberto Small. My name is said live at the Sonora Inn. I have a work five years, approximately year.
Speaker 6: Through a handle in Calgary, California, Puerto Beneficio Medical. In the nearby case, your name not political or not. I hope that they do not you want retired or optional?
Speaker 2: I have work for the company of Cal Cartage for approximately five years and we don't have any benefits there.
Speaker 6: You can see reparation talaga on the left person not great doesn't talk girlfriend and also prostitute around month. And so for me like on salary or minimum I know what I poor pervert forgot got those.
Speaker 2: I would like to ask everybody sitting here in front of me if you will be able to pay your bills in all your expenses with a minimum wage of $9 an hour.
Speaker 6: We've got awesome at the mall now. Amanda, a control companero control contract accompanies the California Kakadu in the hands of temporal porro and beyond that the Salado. I look at the Metro 100th parliamentary.
Speaker 2: Back in December 2014, we filed a wage and hour complaint for stolen wages that the company has been stealing from us.
Speaker 6: Chopper collector Melissa Harris Well, those. KAGAN I'm going to throw out the mantra, Genesis, it's almost only a monsoon system. I think the way your DeNardo.
Speaker 2: Our fight is to is to make a living wage ordinance a better pay and to have a better system.
Speaker 6: But completely is the role of the salary source in caso de novo.
Speaker 2: So the company has to comply with with the law and not to steal wages from us.
Speaker 0: Bless you. Thank you. Thank you very much. And next speaker, what I'm going to do also is so I have the gentleman in the back who's the last speaker, because I'm going to cut off the speaker's list. I think we're we have a long list here. So that gentleman, our last speaker, they're waiving and no one is taking their full 3 minutes, which we appreciate because we want to get to deliberation. We have another very long item after this as well. So if you want to continue that process, that that thoughtfulness, we would appreciate it. But you obviously, you're entitled to your 3 minutes, but please continue.
Speaker 6: When I. You know Rodriguez.
Speaker 2: Good evening. My name is Rosa Rodrigues.
Speaker 6: And I think one of the real.
Speaker 2: I am 65 years old.
Speaker 6: People bought into those. I knew how they got to Calgary and Alberta.
Speaker 2: And I have worked for 22 years in Coal Courage at the Port.
Speaker 6: I got to go with this korando content. A lot of them are considered a manual. But when? But alas, the various Diferentes companions came out of theaters Lowe's, Amazon.
Speaker 2: Loading and unloading containers by hand for different companies such as Lowe's, Kmart, Amazon and some the other ones.
Speaker 6: LDS in whether they marched or they may not seem to know and they trace implicit trabalhando. And if the company ganondorf was already Laura.
Speaker 2: The 19 of March of 1993, I started to work in this company, and I was making $9 an hour.
Speaker 0: I'm puzzled almost.
Speaker 6: Having people signs here, civil, incremental, those dollars go out into centavos.
Speaker 2: It's been more than 20 years in. I have got a raise of only $2.40 in all this time.
Speaker 6: Mr. Duval is the owner of all our warranties and order.
Speaker 2: I actually make $11.40 per hour.
Speaker 6: ES Una Volta rispetto para mi. He promised companeros. CASTANEDA Meanwhile, sitwasyon the authorities companies get un Rwandan monitors.
Speaker 2: That's lack of respect from the company for me and my other coworkers that they're stealing our wages.
Speaker 6: Mr. Skill as company alpha and rigorous in color. The mass nosotros trabajadores sugimoto viviendo in la materia.
Speaker 2: While these companies make themselves richer, we are living on their misery.
Speaker 6: And there is the pencil, then there is a composite it a longer parable by that narrator.
Speaker 2: It's very sad and it's embarrassing to have to share a space. They have to have to be able to pay for it for a rent.
Speaker 6: Bell Country. There's a. The whole country states a. Okay. Look, I know they wouldn't miss complete withdrawal. Normal cancer.
Speaker 2: But I sadly see that even with my salary of a whole month, it's not I'm not able to to afford the dentist.
Speaker 6: A number at all of our calories list below can offer you within a configured will not allow you use these channels.
Speaker 2: On behalf of my coworkers, I'm asking you to help us to. To get better, better salaries, better pay.
Speaker 6: You system are effective against you. The I guess a complaint alleges control contract with salary.
Speaker 2: And an effective system that help us to punish the companies that steal the wages from the workers.
Speaker 6: You'll see people there that are monstrous chameleons. When was they're either.
Speaker 2: And our way be able to give our families a better quality life.
Speaker 6: Gracias.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Thank you. Russia's crisis on your watch. Yes, sir. Hi. My name is Rick Linder. I live in the seventh district.
Speaker 6: It has been estimated that.
Speaker 0: 40% of Long Beach residents.
Speaker 6: Earn less than.
Speaker 0: $15 an hour. I urge you to conduct this study to verify this. But by raising the minimum wage in Long Beach to 15 an hour, you would have more disposable income among the residents in your community. This would assist.
Speaker 6: Local businesses and the economic business.
Speaker 0: Corridor by having more disposable income spent there, and that would improve the quality of life and standard of living of most of the residents in the city of Long Beach. Some employers don't want to pay 15 an hour, but if they cannot afford to pay above poverty level wages to their employees.
Speaker 6: And.
Speaker 0: Can't turn a profit.
Speaker 6: Maybe they don't deserve to be in business.
Speaker 0: They're not competent as businesspeople. And as for younger workers, possibly tax.
Speaker 6: Incentives and other devices.
Speaker 0: Would. Encourage employers to hire younger workers to gain some work experience. But anyway, this is a great opportunity for you to improve the quality of life, standard of living of the residents in your community, enhance your business and commercial corridors. So I urge you very much to approve.
Speaker 6: This study.
Speaker 0: And approve a $15 an hour minimum wage. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 6: Good afternoon, esteemed mayor and council members. My name is Carlos Quintero and I am a port truck driver. I've been a port truck driver for the past five years and currently working for Pacific nine transportation, moving cargo from the from both ports, L.A. and Long Beach. On behalf of my coworkers and their families, honestly, thank you. Thank you for introducing the idea of raising the wage in the city of Long Beach. I know from personal experience just how transformative this could be for workers in the city and their families and just. As we support raising the wage, we are also here to support wage enforcement. Many of you have heard the stories of wage theft at the trucking companies that do businesses in your ports. Just two weeks ago, we came here to tell you our stories to the Harbor Commission about our low paychecks, horrible safety conditions and extreme workloads . Many of us have gone on strike up to seven times to demand justice for all moms and dads who are being stolen their wages through illegal misclassification. I have been a misclassified driver for the entire time. I've worked for Pack nine. I have filed a claim against him for over 170,000. But the problem is, how do we make sure we enforce those claims? You know, we talk about the money, but we never talk about what's behind the money. In my case, I am fighting for my four children and my wife. My oldest son is 13 now. He's officially a teenager, which we all know how scary that can be. He loves playing soccer, playing music. He's been practicing the violin for the past two years in the school orchestra. He's respectful. He's helpful around the house, helps his brothers with their homework, irons, their clothes, talk to them about the dangers that they will find out on their life. All that time away from my family has pushed my son to take a fatherly figure. He should enjoy his childhood, explore and invent. I have not spent enough time with him. My boy is growing up too fast. I've been pushed to work over 70 hours per week. I have slept in a truck a day camp for days at a time to make enough trips to cover our expenses. This is just not fair. Raising and forcing the wage can be life changing for thousands of families in Long Beach. We're not fighting for dollars, but for opportunities to send our kids to college, spend more time with them, taking them to the parks, and be sure as they grow they will remember the experiences they had with their mom and dad. Thank you for your time. Let's collect, protect and enforce the wage. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 6: I will be translating for hospital. When I started snorkel the innumerable Consiglio me no cause Portillo is soy joe fair del Puerto de Lomas is some plus era etc. kicking status e competition nuestras stress condition this. Hello and good evening major members of the council. My name is also party owner, more port truck driver, more than 13 years working for several companies and it is a pleasure to be here with you and share our current working conditions. I mean, there's some places that I would stress. So it is possible to get La Ciudad a Long Beach. I went there in salary or minimum, but first it gives me a great pleasure to know that Long Beach will be the next city that will increase the minimum wage. E. Key personnel maintain. On the walls. It puts on possibly poor care. Say you that I would show him to the British Parliament. They are less familiar among many more men than Liberal areas. I personally support this proposition because I know it will help thousands of people. We are hardworking people and we deserve a fair wage and that compensates all of our sacrifices. The only person that saw you. So you know, that person, that middle class, if he got in a rowboat, is you. I am a misclassified. I have been misclassified as an independent contractor.
Speaker 0: Somebody.
Speaker 6: He is close to Fido for multiples company as they purchase their the Long Beach Los Angeles is unpalatable. This means that the last couple of years have been cheated by multiple trucking companies that abuse our community here in Long Beach. Our nosotros estamos pro. Leonardo Nuestra. Mr. Company. Intermodal Breeze Transport. On that campaign. Yeah. But as they would argue see almost correct them into classify Carlos Como Empleados. Now in our company Intermodal Transport Bridge, we are in a campaign to ensure that we are properly classified as employees. Most voters see one man the most. And that's what's going on here. Well, think in terms companero the pug naim or Cee Lo Afectados por el mismo sistema. The company get $10 mil, as in Emile, as they do all areas in Caracas, the ville de la de la. The talk is calm, money harmless. We, like our colleagues in Pag nine, have been affected by the same broken system. The company has stolen thousands and thousands of dollars in deductions and usage of their trucks. Is the system a crook or ruthless combo of you who likens the whole law with hell? Low, low, low quintile. Una semana. Si said Serbian reporter, contrary to this corrupt system, was well explained by Councilwoman Lowenthal a few weeks ago. Servants by contract. Estamos trabalhando. The internship for. Cinquanta says Santa Rosa tend orders La Semana but up or their mountain there unless they're familiar. We are working days and nights putting 50, 60, 70 hours a week in order to provide for our families. Tanto trabajo. Tanto sacrificial. No sol, no. Solo. May affect our mission more than being an mi familia. All of this hard work and sacrifices not only affects me, but my family as well. So it's still there. The commercial is still the huddle. Army is boss. Anyhow, though, I must pause. I'm sequencing Siguro Mariko. As a answer investor in Mr. Medecine. I am a witness of how this has left my wife and children without health insurance or access to our medicines. Joy while Kim's companeros Carlos. But people thought those lost these, but that our pirate trial is a total loss and still is. Lord Necesario but up in the air. Una Vida Como. I like my colleague Carlos fight every day to bring you what is required for you to live a comfortable life. But inside Kenya is the ample thumb being gay nuestro maestro that is a ballgame for nosotros get them being no menace nomadism resembles. It seems to me that it's time that our leaders to advocate for us. We deserve it. A remarkably long mental this allowed you know a Allah Malakal efficacy on suicide. Pretty good access to your call. And we stand with a wage increase. Let's end domestic, miscast, misclassification. Apartheid. Yes, we can.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good afternoon. Uh, Major Garcia, City Council members, workers and community. Community members. My name is Daniel Injuries. I'm a father and proud port truck driver. I have been working in your port for the last 15 years. I have much history here and how much things have changed. Not much has changed for the positive. I have seen how the trucking companies have grown and how much more poverty exceeds exists with my coworkers of Pacific, Knight Transportation and other companies. Many people think that truck.
Speaker 6: Drivers make a lot of money, but that is a lie, a myth. I'm here to give you.
Speaker 0: Just one example. I have been working for Pacific Night Transportation.
Speaker 6: For the last eight years.
Speaker 0: During the whole time I have been misclassified as independent contractor. I have worked day cheap, sometimes working 14.
Speaker 6: Hours per day so that I can afford all the expenses that they forced on me. Many times these charges are more than what I make during the trips, which means that I take.
Speaker 15: Home.
Speaker 6: A.
Speaker 0: Negative paycheck. What that means is that I owe the company for working for them. I have fought for years to change this, but I can not.
Speaker 6: Do it alone. Me and my coworkers are Pacific and.
Speaker 0: I have filed claims with the Department of Labor. We estimate that my claim is worth over one for $200,000. The company has.
Speaker 6: Retaliated against.
Speaker 0: Us by not giving.
Speaker 6: Us work. Fortune is more and more into debt, more and more into poverty. Two weeks ago, I gave testimony to the Department of Labor.
Speaker 0: To defend my claim and force the company.
Speaker 6: To pay.
Speaker 0: What they owe.
Speaker 6: Me. This is where you can play your role. We need senior leaders to help protect us against.
Speaker 9: Companies like.
Speaker 0: Pacific now. They are not just.
Speaker 6: Stealing from us, but also from the city.
Speaker 0: State and federal governments. In unemployment.
Speaker 6: Insurance. Workers compensation. And taxes. Are are. There's a bunch of drivers that they bought the truck up from.
Speaker 9: Pacific and air transportation.
Speaker 0: Under their.
Speaker 6: Companies.
Speaker 0: Promise that they will.
Speaker 6: Make a lot of money.
Speaker 0: But so far, these drivers are jumping from.
Speaker 6: Company to company, still looking for that money.
Speaker 0: So there's a big lie from the companies that, you know, under being a independent contractor.
Speaker 6: They will make more money, be more happy. But that's a big lie. Yes.
Speaker 0: Thank you, sir. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 5: Hello. My name's Laura Simon. I'm a local business owner. Thank you for having me tonight. Regarding the issue of minimum wage, $15. We've been in business in Long Beach for 11 years now, and most of our employees are not at minimum wage. They're significantly above that. If we raise minimum wage, all of those employees are going to expect a raise to justify the imbalance, which as a business owner increases our worker's comp, it increases our payroll taxes, it increases all sorts of things that we need to take into consideration from the small business perspective. I was talking with one of our employees about this and she said, Well, what's going to affect me is now this my landlord is going to think that I'm making more money, therefore they're going to raise my rent. So in reality, I make no more money as a business owner, if our wages go up, our prices have to go up because we cannot. Totally directly take all of that increase and all of those prices. So although we think that raising the minimum wage will increase. The living standard of people in reality are our economy goes up. To help balance out those increase in wages. So thank you for having me tonight. I appreciate it.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 6: Good evening, Mayor. City Council Members My name is Gary Hetrick. I'm a sociologist and a professor of sociology at Cal State University, Long Beach, and I'm also a member of the steering committee of the Long Beach Coalition for Good Jobs and Healthy Community. And I'm here tonight to speak in favor of the citywide minimum wage study. I believe this is a reasonable and our coalition believes this is a reasonable first step towards developing a policy that can address the persistent high level of poverty in Long Beach, a level of poverty that has continued despite a decline in the unemployment rate and driven in large part by the growth in low wage service sector jobs. Yet raising the wages for the lowest paid will do little if those workers do not see that money. And herein lies an issue that's come up a couple of times already tonight. The idea of wage theft or the deliberate nonpayment of money or underpayment of wages owed to employees. Some of the most common occurrences include include working off the clock, not receiving rest or meal breaks, not receiving overtime, not receiving tips. Illegal deductions are simply just not paying minimum wage. And so the question is how pervasive is wage theft? In a 2010 study of 4387 workers in low wage industries in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York, the study broken laws, unprotected workers, found that 26% were paid less than the legally required minimum wage in the previous workweek, 60% by more than a dollar an hour. And 43% of those who complained experienced one or more forms of illegal retaliation from their employer or supervisor. For example, workers were fired, suspended, threatened by by their supervisor that he would call immigration services or threatened to cut workers hours or pay. A more recent study in 2014, UCLA found that Los Angeles was the wage theft capital of the nation. Estimates place the amount of lost wages to low income workers in Los Angeles at over $26 million per week. Not surprising, wage theft drives workers deeper into poverty. And with lower incomes, workers find it difficult to afford adequate housing, healthy food and other resources that Vice Mayor Lowenthal mentioned earlier. And these conditions put workers at risk for chronic illnesses such as diabetes, hypertension, mental health issues. It also means that they often can't afford medication for serious health conditions. As an educator, I've seen how wage theft often forces my students to work more hours to support their families. While these students that we're often told, we know that students get financial aid, their families do not. And this, in turn, creates greater stress on these students as they try to maintain good GPAs and stay on track to graduate. Some even postpone their studies. As a city, we cannot afford to ignore wage theft in the impact of poverty wages on families. As we move forward with this discussion, we need to be sure that any policy recommendations include mechanisms for workers to recover their wages and retaliation protections for them when they speak up about wage theft. Such a comprehensive policy will improve family well-being of low wage workers, and this will positively affect all who. Thank you to be.
Speaker 0: Long Beach teams all up. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 6: Yeah. Thank you. I'll be real brief. Good afternoon, Council. Good afternoon, Council members. My name is Donald Blackwood. I work at the Hilton Hotel and I've been working there since 2000. Five of embezzlement. And B, I just wanted to talk about the impact of the measure. M Before measure. M I was I was paying child support. At the same time. I was taking care of my mother who was on it, Social Security. So she did. She had a disability during that time. When I was putting in child support, I was getting paid $9 an hour at the Hilton. And I was told, because I'm a living wage. I mean, I'm I was a tip employee. I would never get a raise. So from day 25 to the living wage, I made whatever the minimum wage was. During that time some checks because I got child's face, child support, which I volunteered for. I wasn't forced to volunteer. I was sometimes take home $237. Sometimes I'd have to rely on my tips. If I didn't make tips that day, I couldn't buy food or I would just get a bag of potatoes. I get, you know, some butter or whatever I could do to do to handle that. What I was really grateful for was the living wage and being able to participate in that because it actually changed my life for the better I can now because of the living, the measure M and the minimum living wage, I'm actually can give my mother an allowance. She can buy clothes, she can we can have, we can buy furniture, you know, just basic stuff. I couldn't even for basic stuff I really didn't have. I couldn't afford a medical. So I had to go to free clinics before, you know, when I was only making them when I was paying child support, I paid all my child support, the living wage pass and now making just $13 an hour. I feel much better. I mean, it just makes me feel more like I'm a regular person, you know, like, I'm not poor, I'm not living. Check the check. I'm not scraping change, I'm not counting pennies, even though and I just want that for everybody else in the city because. Because I mean, really, if, if you were working in a restaurant, in a hotel and you're getting a living wage and in a look in a restaurant right across the street and you get them a minimum wage. It doesn't seem fair to me. It seems like everybody should get a basically a living wage. That's what it is. It allows you to live even though it's a minimum wage. And it shouldn't be just a minimum wage. It should just be a living wage. So we can basically buy the necessities you need to live and work for your company. And that's all I want to say. Thank you. Thank you at the time.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 2: Good evening. My name is Joanna Conception. I am a voting resident of the First District and also the executive director of the Filipino Migrants Center, a nonprofit organization here in Long Beach, serving low income Filipino families in the city. And I'm also here representing the Long Beach Coalition to End Wage Theft. We want to thank Mayor Robert Garcia, as well as the council members who are supporting this study. We think that it is an important step today for the advancement of the economic well-being of thousands of struggling Long Beach families. We want to ensure that the diverse, low income communities we serve will have a voice in this process because because it is they who will be the most impacted and often are the ones who disproportionately suffer during times of economic turmoil and changes. Our communities deserve a minimum wage that meets the basic needs of our families. It is not only about an increase in the number, but about seriously considering the average cost to live in this city and the rising costs of basic expenses. We also urge you to give priority to combating the widespread practice of wage theft because as it currently stands, many employers continue to violate existing minimum wage and other wage and hour laws, placing law abiding businesses business owners at a disadvantage. According to the Department of Labor Standards Employment in the Long Beach Office. From 2008 to 2011, they have found that over $31 million worth in wages were stolen from workers who have filed cases. And that does not count the number of workers and residents here in the city who do not have the resources or information to be able to file in the Department of Labor. And out of that stolen wages, only 8% were collected from employers. It can take an average of one year or more to resolve a case, but once a judgment has been determined, there is no guarantee workers will be able to get a single cent. We need to create easy, simple and efficient tools for hard working employees to collect the wages they have earned. We need to protect courageous workers who speak up when they face wage theft so they do not go to work in fear. We need the city to create the authority to take charge, to enforce wage and hour laws correctly and efficiently. It is time to level the playing field so that responsible business owners can compete. And we want to work closely with you to make this happen. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 13: Good evening, Honorable Mayor Garcia and city council members. My name is Chandler Kemp. I am a ninth district resident in Long Beach and president of the Long Beach City College Political Science Student Association. This is my first time addressing you as our city leaders, and today I feel motivated to share with you why I care about this campaign to raise the wage and protect workers against which stuff. Waste us. Death is very common and it has happened to many of our community members, especially the immigrants and youth population. I'm one of five children in my family. I immigrated to Long Beach from Cambodia in 2001 at the age of seven to live with my sister. In Cambodia. My dad worked as an insurance claim adjuster for 15 years. My dad left Cambodia and emigrated to Long Beach in 2009 to find better opportunities. My dad worked for a local Chinese food restaurant. He worked for 12 hours a day. Six days a week. It was paid $3 an hour. He has received numerous, no lunchbreak, no overtime. When my dad was working for the Chinese food restaurant, we barely saw each other. I was either at school or I'll be studying and he would be working. I know working at that restaurant took a toll on him and he was always tired and his day off it would catch up on his sleep. He was not living. He was just going through the motions. His help support us. I'm also I used to be a restaurant worker. I work at La Lune Palace by the Long Beach Airport, a local Cambodian restaurant. We were always short staffed servers at different special events, and we worked from 6 p.m. to 3 a.m. in the morning with no uninterrupted breaks, lunch or overtime. Wage wage stuff. It's not only affect my family financially, but it affects many aspects of our lives. I am a full time student at Long Beach City College and I also work part time. My days are spent attending classes, working and studying for classes. My time and money are very precious to me. The money I earn from working is just not to paying for groceries and bills. When I work until 3 a.m. at La Lune Palace on Saturday nights, I usually be exhausted on Sunday. My day to study. Then I am usually. Then I usually have to play catch up on my schoolwork when I'm exhausted from working at Loveline. It is a perpetual downward cycle. When I finally realized that La Luna was committing waste towards me, I was shocked. That was a crime. I was raised on the idea of working hard without complaining. Working without break was normal for me and I realized it shouldn't be that way. The solution to weight stuff is accountability. I want employers to be more accountable and stop committing waste stuff while we should adopt rules to make sure waitstaff does not happen. We need the city to enforce wage and hour laws.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Thank you. Hey, good luck on your studies at Long Beach City, by the way. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 6: Good evening, Mayor Garcia. City council.
Speaker 0: Members. My name is.
Speaker 6: Tanya O'Malley Nelson IAU and I am the founder of Project Alpha, which is a Long Beach nonprofit focused on.
Speaker 0: Supporting formerly incarcerated Pacific Islanders and Asians that reintegrate back into our community. I'm here tonight because I was invited by our friends at the Filipino Migrant Center to speak on why raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour and enforcing it matters to all of us. Never would I have thought wage.
Speaker 6: Theft would have occurred with me. I speak on behalf of my community members whose policy and cultural humility is often mistaken as a weakness and taken advantage of. This is an important issue to me.
Speaker 0: Personally, because I understand what it means to live paycheck to paycheck. Counting on every dollar.
Speaker 6: Earned while an employer decides not to pay all wages. A multitude of feelings begin to.
Speaker 0: Manifest and they're not nice. I grew up with both my parents working two jobs, watching them come home tired and go without. Just so we could have food and the basic necessities growing up, as you've heard with so many others.
Speaker 6: I started to help out when I was 11 years old by delivering newspapers and pulling my weight. I knew I had to contribute to my family. Eventually, I worked hard enough to become a food and beverage director.
Speaker 0: At a hotel in a room. Revenue ROOM's Revenue Manager. But unfortunately, I made the mistake and I made the choice, and I made a few bad.
Speaker 6: Decisions that placed me in the custody of the law and under the governance of.
Speaker 0: The law.
Speaker 6: Still today.
Speaker 0: After my first incarceration, I found myself in the struggle of finding a job that would hire me with a criminal background.
Speaker 6: It was very discouraging. And at times the anxiety and angst took a toll on me. I did become homeless, but I eventually found a job that acknowledged at least some of my qualifications. I was hired as the night auditor. I climbed the management ladder, but within a month I found myself taking on upper management duties and all that. The humbling hour of $10 an hour working 60 plus hours a week. I asked our ownership Would I be getting.
Speaker 0: Overtime with an answer?
Speaker 6: Pathetic. No straight time. I'm here to tell you that wage theft needs attention. I speak for Kuia.
Speaker 0: And the other brothers that I work with at the.
Speaker 6: Hotels who don't have this voice who won't speak up. Their choice of.
Speaker 0: Voice is to be that past a person. I'd like to be that choice of voice today to support this. Raising the minimum wage would.
Speaker 6: Incentivize those of us in the API and formerly incarcerated community to attain employment and become healthy, productive assets to our families and not be seen as liabilities while we have statewide labor laws in place. We need stronger local enforcement mechanisms.
Speaker 0: That protect workers.
Speaker 6: Like myself and increase increasing penalties against employers. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 2: Good evening. My name is Bianca Sauvage. I own a business in Long Beach. I've been in business for 18 years, so I've contributed to this community that I love so much. I came from Orange County 31 years ago and fell in love with the city. And I'm never leaving. And I know a lot of you guys like Susie and Stacy and Darrell and. I love that you guys are all here and can listen to us. And so I came as a business person and I've heard.
Speaker 5: Some really heartbreaking.
Speaker 2: Stories here tonight about wage stealing and theft and stuff.
Speaker 5: Like that. I've never heard of such a thing. It's horrible. People need to have a compassion.
Speaker 2: Everybody needs to have be able to put.
Speaker 5: Food on their table and clothes on their back and on their children's back. But I just my I'm just here to tell you that there are you know, there's the other.
Speaker 2: Side of that equation. And then there's people like me who put out my personal money. I mean, I'm going to have to retire a little later than I wanted to because I used a lot of my money to pay all my rent and.
Speaker 5: And all the insurance that I had to carry.
Speaker 2: And my business license and all that stuff that goes with being a business owner. And I chose that because I wanted to be I wanted to be a business in Long Beach. So it wasn't what I had planned to do. I. Had a.
Speaker 5: Completely different.
Speaker 2: Dream but anyways ended up being.
Speaker 5: A business. So I think that may be perhaps a consideration regarding public.
Speaker 2: Policy on this issue might be done by industry or something like that. I mean, it sounds.
Speaker 5: Like the port has a whole different moral issue.
Speaker 2: Going on over there that has nothing to do with people like me.
Speaker 5: Or, you know, friends like my Mario who owns La Traviata. He's going to have he's going to be impacted by this.
Speaker 2: And so a lot of other people who are business owners. So this there's a lot to consider here. And I know what we're talking tonight is about the feasibility study.
Speaker 5: My only concern is that this organization.
Speaker 2: Did they do the study for Los Angeles and for Los Angeles County? Because if they did go ahead.
Speaker 0: They did the study for Los Angeles County.
Speaker 2: They did okay.
Speaker 0: For Los Angeles.
Speaker 5: So I'm concerned that they might be predisposed to think this. I mean, if they advocated for it or if they did a study and the result was to go ahead and do an increase.
Speaker 2: Then I just hope that they're fair. And like you said, I loved your opening statement when you said that this is going to be balanced and all the consideration is going to be is going to be given to everybody and that everybody is welcome to come to the table. And so I just want you to know that as a business owner, there's another side of the equation and some hopefully something will come out of this that can benefit everybody thinks.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 6: Good evening, council people. Mayor Garcia My name is Peter Savage. And if you didn't catch the last name, I'm married to the last speaker who was just up my wife, Bianca. And like any good husband, I'm going to agree with about 95% of what she said. But no, I got a couple of more points.
Speaker 0: I'm not leaving just yet.
Speaker 6: Anyway, on a serious note, I guess my big question is, after hearing all this, it sounds like a big can of.
Speaker 0: Worms has been opened.
Speaker 6: This wage theft issue sounds like a really huge issue. I'm not sure it's directly related to the minimum wage, so I'm not sure whether you guys, including that in this study, are going to have your hands full and that maybe be a whole separate thing, I don't know.
Speaker 0: But it sounds like a real administrative.
Speaker 6: Legal quagmire for the city to develop a system and a way to stop this wage theft, which it sounds like they should or somebody should. But I don't know how that happens without the city maybe spending millions of dollars out of its budget in order to study that and.
Speaker 0: Remedy it sounds like an easy remedy.
Speaker 6: And I don't know how you do that. I really don't. The other thing is, I'm not sure what the hurry is. Yeah, we had a couple people talk about. Well, other cities are doing it. Seattle, san jose, new york, l.a. Well, okay, you got five cities, six cities, a dozen cities. How many other cities are there in the country that are not doing this because they realize it's not that.
Speaker 0: Good for business?
Speaker 6: So before you jump into this whole hog like you're doing, you got the wage theft issue to think about. I'm not sure what the hurry is because you need to get the facts. This study here. Is is a month old. And how long is the wage increase started or been in effect in L.A. County? L.A. City, less than a year.
Speaker 0: New York, less than a year. There's no hard facts.
Speaker 6: And how can you guys make a decision until we have hard statistics and facts to go on? Right now, everything's anecdotal and emotional. We need to wait some time. I don't think you guys need to act on this right away. Maybe wait a year or two. I don't know until you get some facts and statistics to back the emotions that are present in this room tonight. So that's the last thing I want to say. Haste makes waste. And just be careful. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next week, police.
Speaker 5: I am going to be.
Speaker 4: Translating for Mr. Bartholomew Pérez.
Speaker 6: When I notice Senor Garcia Miembro de la la la la la la la.
Speaker 5: Good evening. Mayor Garcia and members of the council.
Speaker 6: In Paris think of it resigning as Carla Hondo para la comida rapida and principalmente de magdalena.
Speaker 4: My name is Bartholomew Perez and I have been working for 23 years in the fast.
Speaker 5: Food industry, specifically of McDonald's.
Speaker 6: Oh, is that the employer, Ms.. Alario? Meaning whether the assistant I think.
Speaker 5: My current salary is 1075.
Speaker 6: Throwaway. You also realize a monopoly represent like a s corporation DNS over some organism.
Speaker 5: I only work for a total of 22 hours for that company as they are observing our hours as a big corporation.
Speaker 6: Organizers is that the simple tell me more press you'll get the NL combo numero uno on the lot in the morning or cycle unless you are Long Beach, Pasadena, California, either. Those who need more here.
Speaker 5: At this moment. The combo number one is cost the same at Long Beach, Pasadena. And in California.
Speaker 6: Seniors throw caramel carton the way it was only through the late. Tell me more presciently loud on the way.
Speaker 5: Wherever you go, you can also get eggs and milk at the same price.
Speaker 6: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. We rounded up our restaurants. You are as well. Now, the laboratory principles that all Californians. We know the total price.
Speaker 5: Today is a big day for Long Beach as well as California, if not the entire country.
Speaker 6: Oh, yes, a little like a cake like Lassie movie and also a World War poverty.
Speaker 5: Today is a day where we can make sure that the middle class does not become the lower class.
Speaker 6: Logo. We are no longer called capitalism because you are like an object and I look forward.
Speaker 5: For a long time, government has helped inject benefits to the rich, and now we hope that this is an opportunity to inject rights to the poor.
Speaker 6: Oh, yes. The implication is there is a pointless repetition and are companies are not so keen to let us in not annoy Roberts a lot you get get permitting meeting when the owner then throw lostrillionhoc but will not be the Worcester.
Speaker 5: Today is the day that we hope that you can help us get a better salary and then to wage theft, as well as allowing workers to organize should they choose to.
Speaker 6: Always meet the actual guarantee that they will. Captiva Cargo Studios. Sorry. Look, a significant salary or minimal yanking or proving salaries, Larry. But we are beloved remote bahauddin developer Reza.
Speaker 5: We encourage I encourage any educational facility or to make a study and to prove that $15 is needed. But even 15 is not enough. We'll probably still be in poverty.
Speaker 6: Menstrual cycle, says Rwanda alone. The serious calamities will be the end of those yellow futuro poverty surrounding the youth.
Speaker 5: Our youth and children are graduating from college in that, and they are the future of the next line of poverty. Generation of poverty.
Speaker 6: But I'm over like on loan me on this thumb up in the air. All power and loopholes are parakey even for comedy. Also awesomeness.
Speaker 5: If we're going to improve the lives of workers, we have to give them an increase so that they can take better food to their tables.
Speaker 6: Or you sultanpur senor del Gobierno, you are the killer. Boondoggle pueblo is pointless. A law around which aggressive.
Speaker 5: This is a time for the governmental bodies to please inject money back into the workers, into the community. And the community will respond back with a big thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 6: Good evening. I'm, uh, I'm with the five for 15 campaign. I'm also speaking on behalf of a factory workers here in Long Beach. And I know that there's a lot of.
Speaker 0: Can you give us your name, please?
Speaker 6: Oh, my name is Samuel Homer Williams.
Speaker 0: Thank you, sir.
Speaker 6: And I know that there's a lot of workers who are needing of this. This, you know, 515, this money that they need. And there's a lot of workers who've been going through wage theft. And with this wage that I mean, you have to think about, there's taxes that have been taken out. You take away taxes. You take away, you know, their expenses and need for the necessities. And then you take away or their money has been stolen from them. And it's not just money that is not stolen from the missile. It's also these workers futures and their children's futures that have been taken away from them. And I know I'm only 21 years old, but I've seen these workers go through so many hardships and struggles and. It's really hard for me to watch my coworkers work so hard and yet have nothing to take home. And these moms that have children, they take care of, but they can't because they don't have enough money. And they have to think, do I take my child to the doctor or do I pay my rent? It's a lot of things that go on and people don't see that. And having these voices come up and speak, I hope that each and every one of you have heard these stories and it's coming from another young person. But it is these stories are true. And it's also true for myself, because I'm a student that had a drop out because my tuition was too much and I couldn't afford schooling. So I ended up in a job like this. And there's a lot of students that end up in the same way. These jobs, you know, they're there to help. But I still can't afford schooling because, you know, because I don't make enough to pay my tuition. And there's a lot of students who are stuck and they can't move forward on their financial ladder. And I am one of those students standing here before you, and there's many other students like that. I just want to speak upon also that there's a lot of, you know, businesses, small business that we're talking about that are, you know, they're going to have to like cut back, just throwing out hypotheticals. But these people can't wait for, you know, for for that, you know, they need this now. It's very urgent for them because the more we talk about this, you know, bills go up, rent goes up, and we're still stuck in the same place and we can't move further. So something has to be done because if it's not done, then we can't just stay here and be still and be quiet. We have to move forward and we have to bring it forward to you to help fix the problem, because that's why you are here, to fix the problem that we're bringing before you . So the problem is to fixed, which is that you hear our problems and that you do something to actually fix it. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 6: Good evening, mayor people. My name is Alex Bass. I'm a port truck driver for over nine years. Right now, I'm currently working for a company called Equal Fraud that properly classify their drivers as employees. And I once was misclassified driver. And I know firsthand what it is to be a misclassified driver. When you're taking negative paychecks home.
Speaker 0: You can put you can't provide for your family.
Speaker 6: Can't take them to the clinic, to the hospital, or even when it comes to Christmas season, you can't really blame the gives because y you're your employer takes all your check and illegal deductions for fuel expenses, truck repairs for a truck that's not even yours. And I'm also here to support the workers out here, the city of Long Beach workers. It's time to raise the minimum wage. I mean, this is Long Beach, not a third world country. Now, you know, people need they're over here trying to support their families, okay? They're here to support their families.
Speaker 15: And, you know, provide the proper.
Speaker 6: Education with the young man said is true. He's a young man and they're getting better with with their tuitions. We all know this. What's going on? It's time to change everything. Reach the way is stop wage theft, raise the minimum wage and paid sick days. That's all. That's all.
Speaker 0: We want. Thank you. Thank you. And our our final speaker, Mr. Mayor and Council, I commend you that we're having this conversation. There are a lot of cities in America that should be doing this. But if swept it under the rug. I want you to know the ten of you you represent. 50,000 people, a lot of whom are voters.
Speaker 6: But before they were voters.
Speaker 0: Their souls were gods. He said, All souls are mine. He also said Mazel, not the ox that traded out to coal. The world will see us as the.
Speaker 6: Grand Prix City with lights.
Speaker 0: They see us as the largest port combine.
Speaker 6: Los Angeles, Long Beach. God see a lot of these people here. Where our night out.
Speaker 0: Is a Costco hotdog and soda for a dollar at $0.64. That's not a good balance. I believe if you take it into your heart, you can help bring that together somewhat. You may not be able to fix it all. But most of all, not the arcs that shredded out the corn. Every business that makes a profit.
Speaker 6: Somebody is working.
Speaker 0: In that business. Those people should not be muzzled. They should get a fair day's pay.
Speaker 6: For a fair.
Speaker 0: Day's work. I spoke to the Los Angeles City Council on this subject to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. And I ended with these words. For God's sake, do the right thing. Thank you, sir. Thank you. And I want to thank all the all the speakers that came out. Obviously, the workers and the clergy and the business owners and obviously the organization leaders. We really appreciate the the input. I'm going to go now to go back down to some of the council members. I also wanted to note, and I may have missed this the first time, the proposal before us is is a two part proposal . One, of course, is moving forward with the L.A. County Economic Development Corporation feasibility study that looks at both the benefits risks of implementing a minimum wage. And then the second piece of that is, which I think is also as important, is we're also asking our own city's economic development commission to also take public input and review the study's findings and make possible recommendations to the council. And so I want to make sure that that is said as well. That's an additional opportunity for public dialog and input. There's some great folks on that commission. And with that, I'll turn it back to the council.
Speaker 6: Councilmember Reynaga Thank you, Mayor Birmingham, and take care of the gracias those days giving it and keep it to the actual test eagle story is the demo. First of all, I want to thank all of you who came here tonight to provide testimony on this subject. Very important that that you're here. And I want to not only thank you, but welcome you here and for sharing. You know, I have a favorite quote from Benjamin Disraeli, and it says, Change is inevitable. And in a progressive society, change is constant. And every time that we talk about change, I always hear the same the same other refrain as well. And that's the refrain from Chicken Little, saying that the sky is falling and it's not falling. It's change, it's progression. It's a movement that takes us forward into the future. And I think that when we talk about minimum wage, we talk about minimum wage, we talk about wage theft or we talk about horrible working conditions. Those are all part of what we need to look at and what we need to study and what we're proposing to do tonight. And what this motion is, is to study what's what's going on, to study what's feasible to study if we need change. We all know we need change because change is progressive and we are a progressive society. And I'm very proud to be part of a progressive city council that has brought this forward because we need to look at what's going on with our wages. I have my own story about when I started working at the age of 12 and I was a as I always say, I was a petroleum transfer engineer. I push gas, I check the oil. I clean windshields in a checked tires. And I was doing that for $1 a day. Of course, there's about child laws and all that type of business. But the person that I was working for didn't care about that. All he cared was that I was pumping gas, cleaning windows, checking tires. Not not aware that I was working there for a reason. I wanted to buy a bike, but I had the but I had the the gumption to go out there and say, you know, can you use some help? And I said, sure, but you have to do it for a dollar a day. And I did for a whole summer. And I bought my bike but eventually got stolen. But that's that's that's another story. But I think what's important is that we look at this rationally, that we not think like Chicken Little, that the sky is not going to fall. A lot of the testimony I heard tonight is compelling. There was some history given. We know a couple of years ago we we worked for Measure and we heard that the sky was falling and in fact, tourism went up. The businesses are doing. The hotels are doing very well. Hotel workers are spending their money in Long Beach. But we talk about what's gone up. What has gone up? Prices of gasoline has gone up. Prices of groceries have gone up. Medical costs has gone up. What has not gone up? Minimum wage. So we need to look at that in regards to how it fits within our economy. And I think that this study, with the help of our own Economic Development Commission, will work at that. And I encourage you to participate in those hearings, give your voice so that we can provide what we come back with. This comes back back to us as the city council that we have basically all the information we need to make it well informed and and the right thing decision for everybody in Long Beach. One final thing I want to say. Is that when we talk about the minimum wage. We're not talking about changing the minimum wage from night into morning. It's an incremental change. Everybody talks about the minimum wage is going to affect businesses and that and that people are that the business owners are going to fire people. There's gonna be more unemployment. There's going to be more kids out in the street without jobs, that the business owners are going to raise their prices. And it's going to be the sky is falling. It's not. Let's be real when we're talking about a minimum wage. And when we looked at L.A. and we look at L.A. County, when they're talking about a $15 minimum wage, you're talking about 2020, folks. They're not talking about tomorrow. They're talking about 2020. They have five years to implement that change. And when we look at it realistically, $15 an hour in 2020 is going to be 13 or $12 an hour in today's prices. So let's be realistic. Let's look at this from a objective point of view and look at it from a perspective that if we raise the minimum wage, we're raising families, we're raising kids, we're raising businesses, and we're raising our economy. That's what it's all about. All right. So finally and just one last point. I encourage my colleagues to support the study.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilmember. Next up is Council Councilwoman Price.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm going to be voting in favor of the study tonight. Anyone who has followed me in the way that I think in regard to these issues is I think that data is good. And I think it's important for us to get information before we move forward on policies like this. I absolutely reject the argument or the suggestion that because we're concerned about what the outcome of the study reveals, we shouldn't study the issue at all. I think that that is a mistake. It's a flawed form of thinking. And I think about many issues that become that come before the city of Long Beach. And some of those issues are issues that some of us may have expertize in. Some of those issues may be issues that we have constituencies who feel passionately about. But unless we do studies, objective, comprehensive studies to find out what the true impacts will be, it's I think it's irresponsible for us to make decisions. So I doubt that there would ever be a situation that I would vote against studying an issue and getting more information, because I think that's, generally speaking, a very good idea and a good practice. To those to those who say that this item is politically driven. I have a few comments for those because I did receive a few emails today. First of all, the city of Long Beach is not the first to initiate this discussion. And anyone who's been watching the news or reading the paper knows that this is a nationwide discussion. And in fact, in our very own state, SB three is now pending before the Assembly's Appropriations Committee. So this is not this novel concept that's coming before the city of Long Beach out of the blue. It's certainly something that is a nationwide discussion. And as the seventh largest city in the state of California, it's reasonable and foreseeable that we would engage in this discussion, if not now, within the near future. So I think it's important for everyone to to have a little bit of a reality check in terms of where we are as a nation, where we are as a city, and where we're headed moving forward. I think the key to any study that we do has to be that the study needs to be objective. And I think Bianca Soviet, she made some some good points regarding that. You know, we don't want a study that's preaches predisposed to certain conclusions or recommendations. And I don't I've reviewed the LA ATC reports and studies, and I believe that this is an objective study that we're going to be engaging in. And I and I hope that proves to be true. And I personally intend to reach out and be present for any discussions on this topic with workers and with businesses. I happen to represent a district that has many successful business corridors. And we can speculate all day long about what a raise and minimum wage would do to the businesses in those communities. But what's important to me is not to have that discussion where we're speculating about what might happen, but that the business community and the people that operate these businesses for their livelihood and to help raise their families, that they not have angst and anxiety about what this might do to their business, that we try to weave in some mitigation measures that would incorporate some of their concerns into any policy that might eventually be considered by the Council. I hope that. When the study commences that the following recommendations are considered and looked at in terms of the study, because I agree with Mayor Garcia, who said it best, which was, you know, we want to do this the Long Beach way. We want to do the study and recommend policy changes that are unique and specific to the city of Long Beach. We don't want to do what everyone else has done. And what I've heard over and over again. There's no new issues with this minimum wage debate that affect Long Beach differently than any other cities. I disagree. I disagree. I think that there are some unique opportunities for us as a city to fashion some remedies that would mitigate some of the concerns that our business community has. So I'd be looking for a study that considers the impacts of proposed minimum wage on our businesses and specifically our small businesses and our nonprofit organizations . And some of those options that I'm hoping we get feedback are on are, as Councilman Durango mentioned, whether or not any proposed increase would be incremental in nature so that it would allow for a smooth transition. That's something that's easier for our business community to absorb. I'd want to know what the risks are of the dialog that we're hearing about the possibility of losing businesses to nearby cities. That's a very real thing that we have to look at as a community. When businesses say to me, Well, you know, if you do this, our businesses are going to move to another city. What I say is, well, you know, possibly that's something we need to study. But we also know that the City of Long Beach offers certain opportunities to businesses, especially certain types of businesses, and given their proximity to the beach and different areas that other cities don't give. We are in a place where a lot of businesses like to do business as as much as I often hear that we're not as business friendly as we could be, and we're definitely working on that. But it's certainly a city that offers a lot of opportunity to businesses. It really is. It's proximity to the beach, the diversity of the population, the income potential and the sales tax revenue potential in certain parts of our city provides a lot of opportunity to businesses. It is a great place to do business. So I want to know, you know, what is the risk of losing businesses to nearby cities and what cities would those be? I'd want to know also whether or not there are any exemptions and delayed implementation opportunities for small businesses and nonprofit organizations that we might want to consider. And also whether or not applying any of our state exemptions that are currently exist for minimum wage, such as an exemption for a parent, child or spouse to the employer, exemptions for employees who have no previous similar or related experience below the minimum wage during a training period. Exemptions that might apply to our local businesses the size of the business and whether or not an exemption might apply. Those are real things that I think we need to take a look at in the study. And I know that the study will look at those, and I hope that we work together collaboratively to come up with legislation that really addresses some of the fears and the risks that businesses feel that they're taking with this kind of legislation. I think anyone who is following council and can count would be able to conclude right now that the policy would probably pass today if it was presented as a sort of a legislative change for the city of Long Beach. I think that the mayor is trying to get us all together so that we can communicate and have a conversation that allows for a balanced approach, so that when the legislation impacts the city of Long Beach, it impacts the city of Long Beach in a very balanced and fair way, the best to the best extent possible. So with that, I will be supporting the study tonight.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Counts Counsel Councilmember Richardson.
Speaker 7: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I want to just first thank Vice Mayor Lowenthal and Councilmembers Gonzalez and Andrews for allowing me to sign on to this this recommendation tonight. I want to thank all of the public who came out and testified on From All Perspectives. And I'm really proud of Long Beach in this moment. And I'm particularly proud of the tone and the tenor that this discussion is taking so far. I know that there are a number of stories that we heard tonight, a lot of misconceptions about this population called low wage workers or the working poor. I heard a man say that he received a $2 raise over 20 years tonight. To me, that means that the system is broken. The minimum wage is in place to ensure that people aren't taken advantage of in the system. And I also understand that our small businesses and our nonprofits might be afraid of this conversation. And that's why I think I'm very proud of the tone that our city has taken, our mayors taken, our fellow council members have taken, and ensuring that small business and nonprofits are at the table as we have this conversation. I think that that's a step that. That's the reason I'm proud tonight, is that Long Beach is taking this step and doing it the right way and doing it in ways in a collaborative manner that other communities might not have done it. Tonight is about facts and not rhetoric. Who are the people who actually make up this group of low wage workers and the working poor? I think that the study is important for a number of reasons, but there are particular a few, particularly a few misconceptions that I'd like to talk about tonight. So first, I heard one of the first speakers say that this is something for teens or young people. But the fact is, 27% of breadwinners residing in Long Beach make less than $15 an hour. That's 39% of our Latino breadwinners in this community. 28% of our African-American breadwinners in this community. And 29% of our women women breadwinners in this community. These are people who are heads of household. 85% of our low wage workers are not teenagers. Well, I guess if you count a 19 year old, but 85% are between the age of 1955. They're adults. They're held accountable by our laws. They're adults. Secondly, I think that so we have to acknowledge where we fit in in terms of the national conversation. 22,600 of our workers residing in Long Beach who actually work and live and work in Long Beach have incomes below the federal poverty level. Third, the the I heard a concept about use this as a stepping stone to get to another job. And I understand that concept of pulling yourself up by the bootstraps. But I think that that conversation is a bit unfair considering that the middle class jobs that maybe our parents might have known that you might not have needed a high school, that you might not have needed a college education, those manufacturing jobs, those are those are gone. And a significant amount of our jobs that we have now are service based jobs. Our industry is particularly changed. In fact, 36% of workers living in Long Beach. So a over a third of all of our workers make less than 15 an hour. And so in that, 69% of all bar and restaurant workers, 60% of all home care workers, that's 60% of all childcare workers, 55% of retail trade workers. So a significant part of our population is considered low wage workers. Fourth, we can't really look at minimum wage in a silo. I think we have to look at everything that's happening. Councilmember your Ranka mentioned this. Families who make minimum wage still have to pay rent. The affordability gap between housing affordability and wages continues to grow. And the reality is, we can't just say that we raise the wage, and that's the way that you fix the problem. We have to get serious about affordable housing in this city. We need to get serious about thinking about ways to connect our disconnected population in this city. So I think there's a larger part to this. Another another point misconception. Folks say that raising the wage is a handout. I would say that folks who make a certain wage work oftentimes harder than than in management level or higher level level people. They work really hard to make that living. And the fact is, statistics and data will show you that a minimum on a minimum wage, every dollar that you raise the minimum wage, these folks aren't investing them into IRAs. And for one case, these people are spending in their local community on daily needs. That's a local economic boost to our local economy, to Long Beach. So so finally, I was moved by particularly a lot of the stories today about wage theft and enforcement. And I do understand this in a in a deep and personal way, how what it means to live paycheck to paycheck. Many folks might not know, but my mother was an in-home care provider and an a nurse's aide. And and my my stepdad was a a contract truck driver. And the reality is, they were able to make ends meet, make it work, and get to be two kids through college. But what we need to remember is that raising the wage, enforcing this wage is just as important as raising the wage, because we can raise a wage as much as we want to raise it. But if we become someone said, I don't remember the words someone said, but if we'd be a safe haven for wage theft, then I guarantee you we're going to have significant legal issues to look at. So. So here's what I know and here's what I'd like to do tonight. I know that that raising the wage so the Fed and feds have a responsibility at enforcing federal minimum wage. State has a responsibility to enforce state minimum wage. And my understanding is that local it's incumbent upon the local community to rate to enforce any elevated level of of wages. And I know that a number of cities that did go through the process of raising their wage, they didn't have the comprehensive conversation about what it means to actually enforce. I know that this conversation won't fix all the issues of wage theft that we heard with truck drivers and so on and so forth. But we could make sure that we're not opening ourselves up to be more susceptible to wage theft. So so I want to ask I want to ask our vice mayor if she'd be open to asking our city staff, which would be city manager, city attorney, city, whoever that might be, to really make sure that while L.A. EDC is evaluating their study, we can also internally do the work to make sure that we're prepared to enforce the wage that we we raise here. And in general terms, what I think is really there's certain elements I'm looking for to hear back on. I think we know what our. I'd like to better understand what our legal authority is today. And if we were to raise the wage, what would be our legal authority in our city? What are the tools that we can count on from other agencies, perhaps the state, maybe adjacent cities who are tackling this way? The county is developing its enforcement measures. What tools can we utilize in partnership with others as well as internally? What tools can we utilize through our department's financial management, so on and so forth, to ensure that we are not opening ourselves up and we have a robust enforcement system? And I'd like to understand the costs, the cost, the fiscal impact of that as well. I'd like to I think that's the general gist of it. I want to see what we can do internally with our systems, what we can do across agency boundaries and and what our legal abilities are today and what they will be moving forward. So that's something you'd be amenable to in your motion.
Speaker 0: Before we go to the vice mayor, I just want to just just add to that because I think I think what you're talking about is actually some of that's happening already. And I want to just just mention that over the over the last few weeks, as we as staff is know this is coming, there have been actually multiple conversations between staff and the city attorney already, because if obviously where we are right now is at the study phase, but if this were to go anything beyond the study phase, the city is responsible for the enforcement piece. I mean, that's just that just law. And so I think what what you're asked what you're requesting is something that the staff is already is committed to doing. And so I think vice mayor, I think I certainly make sense to begin looking at enforcement. It would be our responsibility regardless.
Speaker 8: I agree. I think it's important to raise that issue tonight. And I'm very glad that Councilmember Richardson did. Tying excuse me, tying those two issues together tonight may not be the best approach, but we heard from several speakers who also attended the Harbor Tidelands Committee meeting on that issue. So it is a critical issue for our local economy, and I believe staff will do that.
Speaker 7: So what I'd like to do is make sure that we divorce the larger issues that we've heard maybe at the Harbor Titans Committee, but really focus in on those things I mentioned in relation to this minimum wage. I think it makes sense that as ladies study, we do our diligence as well. So tonight is really about fact finding. I would feel more comfortable if I just heard that. Yes, this is a part of our intentionally a part of our effort as a friendly amendment or just hear from staff that they hear me.
Speaker 0: Mr. West, we hear you.
Speaker 7: Thank you.
Speaker 8: That's all I need.
Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you, Councilmember Austin.
Speaker 10: Thank you. And I want to thank the full chamber here. Obviously, this is a momentous occasion for the city of Long Beach. It's a historic day that we are actually talking about raising wages. I just want to lament, I've been involved in the labor force as labor for many years, for over two decades, well over two decades . We've witnessed the economy change drastically in Long Beach over the past 20 years. Thousands of manufacturing jobs in aerospace and the shipyards were lost. And when I say thousands, I mean tens of thousands of jobs. And I can remember, as a young labor organizer fighting the North American Free Trade Agreement and such trade agreements in the nineties . Today, our economy and our workforce is really a result of those agreements. And, you know, I want to speak to some of the comments earlier. Teenagers are truly competing for similar jobs as their parents today. We need to change that. I'd like to leave my support to this item because I think it merits our attention. We are a progressive city that values both business, but we value our workers as well. Our neighborhoods and our neighbors in L.A. and L.A. County have already adopted a minimum wage increase that would, over the next five years, will increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour. I. I. I want to speak to the. The famous aphorism mentioned by President John F Kennedy. Kennedy. A rising tide lifts all boats. I would like to believe that every time we wait, raise the minimum wage, we advance the vanguard on the war on poverty and all wage earners benefit. Our economy will adjust and have done right. Small businesses, retailers, restaurants will benefit by creating more disposable income for consumers. Low income workers will have more disposable income to pay tuition at our community colleges and our classrooms to advance their education and advance their situations. And and and to a point raised earlier regarding potentially losing business by raising the minimum wage, the risk of not taking action on this conversation about wages and moving forward with this study, we may lose workers to nearby cities as well. It was mentioned that SB three is before the legislature, which would address minimum wage and there is work on a statewide level to do that. There's also signature gathering going on for potential ballot initiative in 2016. And and so the work that we're doing here as a city council tonight, the the the study that we, I would hope are moving forward with is timely and necessary. We it's it's our responsibility to have this conversation. I want to speak to the process because I'm encouraged by this process for the proposed study as well. It includes labor and includes big business and legitimate stakeholders throughout our city. I think the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation is a credible and biased partner that can provide us with facts on the feasibility and impacts of the minimum wage increase on our local workforce. Small businesses in Long Beach and surely using local data, right? Long Beach data. I'm also pleased that the minimum wage increase will be vetted through our Economic Development Commission. This is a citizen participation process as well. It doesn't, but I still do have a few questions. I think Councilmember Richardson addressed one of them because I was really concerned about the the the enforcement of measures. Are we considering that? And is that being studied in this measure? You know, we heard from the city manager that that he'd heard that also from many of the speakers here. I know that there is a sick leave component that is being requested. And I was curious to know, was that included in the L.A. City and L.A. County measures and will certainly be studied in this study as well. Can anybody from staff answer that question?
Speaker 0: Actually, vice mayor or the. I think there was a I think there was a question about about sick leave.
Speaker 8: So I think in terms of this item, it should be separate. It is something that's of concern. When we did the living wage for hotel workers, sick leave was included in that. Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez had passed legislation statewide regarding sick leave as well. So. On this issue or on this particular item. If we can hold that separately, I think it would be best it would be a best approach.
Speaker 10: Okay. And is there a speaking of a measure in. I'm curious to know how the minimum wage increase will affect the measure in measure that was approved by the voters in 2012. Would that include them or would we have to go back to the voters to to address their wages in any way?
Speaker 0: I think the city attorney is probably going to be looking into that, from what I understand.
Speaker 14: Yes, mayor or members of the council. I think that if the council were to pass a citywide minimum wage ordinance, that's higher than the than the living wage, the minimum wage ordinance would be the floor. And if that the living wage for the hotel workers, based on how it was written, whatever increase above that, it would apply to them.
Speaker 10: Okay. We don't want to leave anybody behind. And is there an expected timeline for the study? I didn't see any any timeline associated with this.
Speaker 0: I don't know that there's a timeline per se. We actually do have someone from the L.A. EDC that's here in the audience. Please, if you want to come forward. I know that. If you can answer that question, I know there isn't a timeline asked, but I know you've done a lot of the work prior. What it's for is how much time do you need to present something to to the council?
Speaker 5: So thank you. I don't think we've had any discussions yet on starting work, but I would anticipate it would be around 60 days because we have done a lot of the foundational work for it on behalf of the county.
Speaker 0: And that would be a minimum of 60 days maximum.
Speaker 5: And 92. It would be hopefully within 60 days. From a contract.
Speaker 0: From a contract point of view. Okay, Councilman.
Speaker 10: And lastly, I just would maybe offer some consideration for possibly a friendly amendment. Because my point regarding youth employment, I think, is extremely important. We want to make sure that we are preparing the workforce for the future as well. And and I would love to to know that we are giving some consideration to our youngest population, our youth workers, as well as we are studying this this minimum wage. And so in that study, I would love to at least have some figures, some information about how if in any way raising the minimum wage impacts youth employment , because I think that that's merited for discussion as well. And lastly, I would just offer my support and ask that the entire council support this this measure as well.
Speaker 0: Thank you. I think that youth employment piece is going to be looked at as part of the study. Vice Mayor So I think it's a part of your motion, yes. Okay. Thank you, Councilman Andrus.
Speaker 9: Yes, thank you, Mayor. You know, I know it's getting late and everybody's kind of sitting around wondering what the outcome is going to be. That's going to take some time. But I think a lot of this is very well put. I've heard a lot of, you know, conversation here tonight. And I think a lot of us really are very compassionate about, you know, the minimum wage. And, you know, what we're trying to do here is really let individuals know that our compassion, our concern not only for you as an individual, but for your families, for your kids , because this is something that we all need and we know we need it. It's just think about time. How long is this going to take? This is what you weren't about it. We're talking about, you know, year after year after year, people are still in school and everything is still going up. So where do we get to the point that we're going to have to hurry up and make a decision to let these individuals know that we're here for you and we're going to try to come up with some type of solution to be able to help individuals here in the city of Long Beach. I don't think we're trying to follow a trail any other city. This is for Long Beach. And I know the business people are looking at it also. But I think the more they make, the more they're going to put back in. And I'm totally in support of this. And I want to thank my colleagues for allowing me to ride in on this. And thank you very much.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Councilmember Superdome.
Speaker 11: Thank you. And I'd like to thank all those who attended tonight and especially those who spoke. And I'd also like to thank Mayor Garcia for his comments that this should be a Long Beach focused study. And I believe he's in alignment with Georgia Economy and he's of the Language Business Journal and thinking that Long Beach is unique . We're not L.A. and the study should reflect that. I believe that all the speakers here tonight spoke in favor of the study, and that's been the commentary I've gotten from the business community in recent weeks that everyone would like to go forward with the study. So I will be supporting that tonight, and I thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilmember. Councilwoman Mongo.
Speaker 4: Yes. I am so thankful that we have been able to have such an equitable discussion today. It really means a lot to be able to talk with both business leaders and our employees alike to discuss the opportunities and risks with raising the minimum wage. I think that it's important that our businesses have a voice in the process and generally speaking, when wages increase, what does that do to the prices of the things that you're purchasing? And does that mean that people purchase their goods and services outside the city of Long Beach? And what does that mean to our businesses and potentially lost clients? So when we talk through I really appreciated the comments from so many of our neighbors that discussed that raising the minimum wage does not necessarily increase your discretionary income. When you talk about the business owner, they cannot change their lease agreements very quickly. They cannot change the requirements for inventory. They cannot change a couple of the other things. But what they can change is the number of hours that they allocate and how much goes out in payroll. And a lot of our business owners have told me stories of the times when they chose not to take a paycheck so that they could meet payroll for their employees and how important that is. But that, in turn, some of those employees, whether they're making $13 an hour or $15 an hour or $20 an hour, depending on where you work. The costs of working there are so much higher in Los Angeles to park in downtown L.A., a monthly permit is $120 a month. And so to no one understand that if we increase the wage, that does not necessarily mean that there's additional money for these individuals to spend in our local businesses, and we have to be mindful of that. And so I appreciate the so many that came out on both sides of the matter. I, like my colleagues, have said before that I am always in favor of a study, even if I do not feel that I would be in favor of the end result. Because I think data and a fair and balanced approach that I know the L.A. EDC will bring to the table is is what we need before we make any big and crucial decision. So thank you to ladies EDC for being a partner on this and so many other matters of bringing business to L.A. County. Your work on so many of the initiatives of bringing major businesses to the region has been phenomenal. I think that your organization is really plugged into the industry specifics that many of our neighbors talked about here today. There are certain limitations within the state law that are really limiting for our restaurant owners. For instance, there are waitresses that make minimum wage, but still with tips at some of our high end restaurants. Clear six figures a year. And yet state law doesn't allow them to tip out the back of the house. And what that means is your cooks, they can tap out the servers and they can tap out the bartenders. But there are certain state laws that are that are really restrictive in allowing that balance. And so finding a way to take into account those tips and service charges and other things like that, I think are really appropriate in finding that balance. And then specifically in looking for the small business programs that we have already started to initiate and other tax credits and incentives that we can provide to open businesses here in Long Beach are really part of the exciting things that will keep it attract businesses here, regardless of what we decide on the minimum wage. And so and with that, I hope that we can have a fair and balanced discussion and be really involved in the process of understanding the impacts to our neighbors because our neighbors come first.
Speaker 0: Thank you. And Vice Mayor Lowenthal, finally.
Speaker 8: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I just wanted to close our discussion by thanking everyone that came forward today with the diverse perspectives on the issue. And I think we are headed toward a great path to study this issue. And similar to what Councilmember Price indicated, I think all of us are very interested in studying issues regardless of where we are personally on the issue or where we may believe we may land. I can attest that. This council is honestly looking at this issue not just to follow suit with what other cities are doing, but really to look at this issue and see what's good for Long Beach. We don't believe. I don't believe and I think it's fair to speak on behalf of our entire council and mayor. We don't believe that what's good for workers is mutually exclusive from what's good for business. I think we we see the shared commonalities in in both groups being able to prosper. And so I'm hoping that as we continue this dialog, we don't bifurcate the two qualities of life between business and workers and business and families. They can't be mutually exclusive. They have to be shared. And so I, too, am concerned about any potential impacts to small businesses. It is not one that I would intended, is not one that this council wants to see. We also, as it was said earlier today, we also do not want to be a labor market that is unattractive because we are not competitive. And so there is that concern. So I trust that the EDC will look at all of those components and all of us know that when the state and federal minimum wage was established and all of the increases it has gone through, the value of the minimum wage itself has fallen dramatically. But everything else and you've heard this from real, real life testimony tonight from workers who struggle and whose families struggle, the cost of everything else has far too far surpassed the value of minimum wage. And I think it is fair to do a study and to determine where we are and how we are benchmarked against those items and those and really the cost of living. And so with that, I am hopeful that we can continue that dialog as we've had today. I'm hopeful that we all consider and empathize with families that are not one able to live in our city or not able to live in our city independently and are living in situations where we see bedroom splitting and all of the negative impacts of poverty that spreads society wide and certainly citywide. And so I'm hoping that we are all positive in how we go through this study of this conversation and regard that everyone's while being really is our own well-being. With that, I thank you, Mr. Mayor.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Vice Mayor. And that concludes the deliberation. We have a motion on the floor and a second. I want to thank everyone who came and spoke tonight. I think it means a lot to have valuable public input. And I just want to remind everyone that the tonight is the beginning of a discussion and will go in over the next few months and go out to the community and begin a a dialog that will be inclusive and open and transparent. So thank you. Thank you all for being here for that issue. Please cast your votes.
Speaker 1: Motion carries nine zero.
Speaker 0: Thank you. We're going to take a two minute recess and then we're going to the item on coyotes next.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 8: Really, that's next.
Speaker 3: I really got I got. Really?
Speaker 0: All right, um, let me see what I can do.
Speaker 9: We'll get back to you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 0: That's where they go.
Speaker 3: It's gonna be, you know that. You know, you go in there.
Speaker 9: George and George.
Speaker 0: Jimmy.
Speaker 3: The other one is the.
Speaker 9: Other one I was getting mixed up with week. Well he doesn't work his his brother at the door. He's the one that goes that didn't want to do that.
Speaker 6: He didn't remember.
Speaker 0: Me. Well, who cares?
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 9: He gets everybody. He's got good.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yes, I know how you got to work.
Speaker 5: Working.
Speaker 0: Okay. We're going to call the the city council meeting to order. If I can have everyone, please take their seats.
Speaker 3: Oh, there's no cake.
Speaker 5: Then it's cupcakes.
Speaker 0: Madam Clerk, if we can just have the roll call.
Speaker 1: Councilwoman Gonzalez. Vice Mayor Lowenthal. Councilwoman Price, Councilmember. Super. Now here. Councilwoman Mango. Councilman Andrews. Council member. Yarrawonga Councilman Austin. Council Member Richardson. Mayor Garcia.
Speaker 0: Thank you. We are now moving on to item 26. | Agenda Item | Recommendation to direct City Manager to request a report from the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation (LAEDC) regarding 1) the feasibility of and potential benefits and risks of implementing a citywide minimum wage in Long Beach;
2) proposals for incentives, tax breaks, fee reductions and/or process improvements to assist businesses and non-profit organizations in complying with a higher minimum wage; and to work with the City's Economic Development Commission to take public input and review the study's findings and make recommendations to the City Council. | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_08112015_15-0743 | Speaker 0: I'm here. Thank you. We're going to do we're going to do the budget next. But right before the budget, we got to do hearing item number one, which should be fairly quickly. So, Madam Clerk, hearing one.
Speaker 5: Man. Oh, man.
Speaker 1: Report from Financial Management Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record. Conclude the hearing and grant an entertainment permit with conditions on the application of Tailgate Bar located at 2503 Santa Fe Avenue for Entertainment Without Dancing District seven.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Is there a quick report from from staff?
Speaker 13: Yes, Mr. Mayor. Members of the council, this is hearing item two and the staff report would be done by Jason MacDonald, our purchasing and Business Services Manager.
Speaker 0: Mayor. Council Members. Jason MacDonald. Purchasing and Business Services Manager.
Speaker 6: Bureau. Bureau Manager for the Financial Management Department. Tonight you have in front of you the application for entertainment without dancing for James Sheppard doing business as the Tailgate Bar 2503 Santa Fe Avenue in District seven. All the necessary departments have reviewed the application. The application of proposed conditions are contained in the packet that was provided. We are prepared to discuss any questions or concerns along with the police department regarding the application.
Speaker 0: Or.
Speaker 6: Conditions. Our office has not been made aware of any complaints regarding this application or the business location. That concludes my.
Speaker 0: Report. Thank you. Thank you. And wanting to be sworn in. Do we know on the for this item or no oath? Mr.. No oath required. Correct. Okay. So let me go ahead and then now turn it back over to Country Ranga to comment.
Speaker 6: Thank you, Bear. Then. Thank you for that, for the staff report. I think that it shows that the business is doing well. And I would like to thank the city of Long Beach, the Development Services, Health Department, Financial Management, Police and Fire for their diligent efforts in addressing the needs of both our residential and business stakeholders in this area. I do not think that I could have been more proactive with provided with a more thorough understanding of the situation at hand and of our options for moving forward. You have allowed me to somewhat tenuously ensure the quality of life for our community while remaining business friendly. Furthermore, I am encouraged by Mr. James Shepherd's willingness to operate under the specific recommendations of the City of Long Beach to address the concerns of the West Miami neighborhoods and who live near in the Sugar Cove area. I am hopeful that in adhering to these recommendations, the tailgate bar will not only operate as a conscientious community partner , but will have the tools to become one of the go to venues in the seventh District and the city of Long Beach. Last but not least, I would like to thank the West Miami Sugar Code residents for their continued advocacy on behalf of their community, and especially for patiently working alongside my council staff and city departments as we progress through this lengthy process. And with that, I'd like to make the motion to approve the berm.
Speaker 0: It has been in motion. And a second, is there any public comment on the item? CNN members, please cast your vote to be close to hearing.
Speaker 1: Motion carries nine zero.
Speaker 0: Thank you. I'm going to go ahead. And Mr. City Attorney, you wanted to make an announcement from earlier?
Speaker 6: Yes.
Speaker 14: About 6 hours ago in the closed session, we were reporting out from the closed session regarding the hearing on the item for the address of 53, 70/42 Street by a vote of the City Council of 9 to 0. The Council voted to reject the offer to purchase the property, thus concluding any real estate negotiations. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you very much. Okay. So we are now going to go into our budget presentation or budget item and. I'm going to turn this over to. Mr. West. And obviously we're all mindful of what has to get done tonight still. | Public Hearing | Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record, conclude the hearing and grant an Entertainment Permit with conditions on the application of James Shepherd, dba Tailgate Bar, 2503 Santa Fe Avenue, for Entertainment Without Dancing. (District 7) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_08112015_15-0737 | Speaker 0: Thank you very much. Okay. So we are now going to go into our budget presentation or budget item and. I'm going to turn this over to. Mr. West. And obviously we're all mindful of what has to get done tonight still. So let's just try to. Be, as you know. Let's get on with it. How about that, Mr. West?
Speaker 6: Yes, Mayor. Council members.
Speaker 0: Can we get to the first line? So what we're planning to do tonight, we have two departments here. We have public works is going to go first, then Parks, Recreation and Marine.
Speaker 13: Each of their presentations should be under 10 minutes.
Speaker 0: And what we want to do is we tie these to police and fire in.
Speaker 6: Our public safety continuum. We've talked about this in the past. Parks, recreation, Marine play a.
Speaker 0: Large role in the public safety of our community, providing activities.
Speaker 6: Opportunities for youth to be busy.
Speaker 14: Opportunities to have open space in our and in our areas for seniors and everyone else. Public Works, of course.
Speaker 0: Plays a huge role in our.
Speaker 13: Community, in keeping our infrastructure looking good, also eliminating graffiti and just keeping a calm demeanor.
Speaker 6: And having our city look.
Speaker 14: Good and things like that. So again, I just want to highlight that both of these departments play a.
Speaker 6: Large role in helping police and fire keep our community safe. Our Malloy and our public works director is going to go first.
Speaker 10: Thank you, Mr. West. Good evening, Honorable Mayor and City Council. Thank you for the opportunity to provide a brief overview of the Public Works Department's Fiscal Year six proposed budget. During the city manager's presentation last week, he provided the public safety continuum. I have included how Public Works coordinates with other departments on supporting the strategy. The regularly scheduled meetings, which each of you have, has been invaluable to maintain constant communication and ensure were on the track with service delivery. In addition, I would like to thank the city manager and staff for day to day support to deliver quality programs and CIP projects. Finally, I take pride in our 442 employees. These are the silent heroes who are working diligently every day to maintain and enhance the city's infrastructure and environment for the benefit of the public. In order to maintain a structurally balanced operating budget, we focus on our key services. Although our four bureaus have very diverse functions related to quality of life and safety issues for residents, businesses and visitors. Our key services include provide for and maintain safe and adequate infrastructure for the community, provide for sustainable environmental protection and a positive service environment and safely and efficiently design, construct, deliver, protect, and maintain services for public facilities , public ride away and stormwater management. This includes building and roadway design and construction, infrastructure maintenance, refuse and recycling and stormwater management. It is through the performance of our valued employees that we envision a better tomorrow by serving and exceeding the expectation of the public. Our department is a critical component in the public safety continuum. Public Works addresses the more manageable issues such as litter pickup and graffiti to prevent blight when called upon. Our staff is trained to respond quickly with the necessary equipment. Our notable example of our safety and emergency response services are the recent Southern California Edison power outages. Public Works was one of the main responders to to support the city's EOC and field operations. Our dedicated staff worked around the clock to support the city. As a follow up to the mayor's budget message, Clean Streets team will remove litter and perform other clean up activities along major streets, such as pick up and dump. Pick up dumped items. Finally, our graffiti program removed 95,000 square feet of graffiti with 98% of a service request completed within 24 hours. In addition to supporting city's public safety continuum, fiscal year 15 has been a very productive year for public works, with the ongoing and one time funding provided by you, the City Council Public Works shortly staffing accomplishments include constructing 86 million in capital improvement projects, including airport library parks, public facilities, streetlight storm drains, streetscape streets, sidewalks and traffic improvements, completing 9.3 million and arterial street repairs 4.5 million and sidewalk repairs and 9.2 million residential street repairs. This includes 55 miles for major than residential streets and 15 miles of sidewalk repairs, repairing 42,000 potholes, trimming 25,000 trees, removing 200 tree stumps, replacing 9000 traffic signs and 700 street named signs. Repainting, repainting 19 miles of red curbs and re striping 40% of miles of streets. Continuing on our accomplishments, we have collected 183,000 tons of trash from 117,000 residents and commercial accounts responding to 2200 facility, 9000 traffic signals and signs and 12,000 Long Beach requests for service. Mobility programs continue to be a significant focus for the department. One of our recent events in the successful beach streets uptown that saw an estimated 30,000 attendees completing the Class One Beach pedestrian path, as well as Class three bike lanes on chestnut and orange. Finally, the department is currently in design on an estimated 38 miles of bike boulevards and lane miles for construction planned through fiscal year 16 through 19. Public works is nearly $140 million budget includes nine funds. I'll briefly mention a few key funds as shown on the pie chart, starting at the right side and going clockwise. Refuge and Recycling Fund is for refuge collection and contract recycling Operation Waste Diversion Programs as well as litter free Long Beach program. Public Works General Fund totals 35,000,009% of city's total general fund budget. The department's general fund expense is offset by 23 million from various revenue sources, including parking citations, permit fees and parking meters. The Civic Center Fund is for the Civic Center's ongoing maintenance and operation. This includes custodial and parking operations. Gas stock, street improvements, funds or moneys received from the state for right of way improvements in addition to capital funds also support eligible general fund street related programs such as street sweeping traffic signals and street signs. Finally, the transportation fund or monies received from the county for transportation purposes. This includes Prop A, Prop C and Measure R. Fiscal Year 16. Major changes continues to the city's focus on the importance of stormwater environment. As you know, the city is mandated to comply with Clean Water Act guidelines through the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System. The fines resulting from noncompliance of NYPD's permit can range from 5000 to 10000 per day. The 600,000 is a non-recurring general fund, and 233,000 is a non-recurring title, and funds will cover the required cost associated with permit compliance. The fiscal year 16 proposed budget includes transferring the Asset Management Bureau to the Economic and Property Development Department. There is a net zero citywide impact associated with this item. Lastly, positions were included in that to enhance our extensive parking operation, as well as providing clean up support for homeless belongings. In fiscal year 16. The significant issues and opportunities facing public works include implementing the street, sweeping optimization efficiencies to relieve congestion and parking, impacted neighborhood and improve efficiencies of service. We look forward to working on the first street sweeping routing in 30 years. We plan to start implementation at the end of the calendar year. Significant strides have been made in the last year to address the city's aging infrastructure with additional nonrecurring funds. However, it is not anticipated that these non-recurring funds will be available at that level in the near future. Aging infrastructure is a constant issue facing our city. The mayor requested that we include the topic of our infrastructure assessment and backlog of project as an item to be discussed in the further and further details at the September 12 City Council retreat. As one of the highlighted items in mayor's presentation, the department is continuing the effort to improve efficiency and the city's 30,000 streetlights system, including the installation of LCD lighting to achieve an energy and maintenance cost savings starting this year. Smart parking meters were installed in Belmont Shore, downtown and the pike. The miners are capable of accepting credit card payments and provide the first 5 minutes of parking free. One of the benefits of having the new sensor technology is the planned future app for drivers to identify open parking spaces. A major assessment of city stormwater pump stations, which focuses on the condition and capacity is anticipated to be completed in fiscal year 16. This will result in several budget recommendations for capital improvements in fiscal year 17 for a 23 storm rain pump stations. The pump stations are approximately 60 years old and serve as 380 miles of active stormwater infrastructure, including pipes, open channels, ditches, culverts and drains. The Traffic Signal Assessment Audit will be performed to ensure that signals have the requisite timing sheet and implemented process. So as new signals are added, that timed in compliance with best management practices as met as mentioned earlier in the presentation. Department will continue to focus on citywide mobility programs. This include initiating construction on 38 miles of bike boulevards and lanes. In addition, we're currently working on the full deployment of the city's bike share. That includes 50 stations and 500 bikes. Full launch is anticipated to take place in fiscal year 16. Finally of 16 includes a restructuring of refuse rates based on a study conducted by an outside firm to better reflect the full cost of service. These rates will be presented for City Council approval and will be subject to the public noticing and hearing requirements. In closing, public works school is to continue to provide as many of these essential services seamlessly. To put the level of service in perspective. The department's inventory includes 130 bike lane miles, 11 different share locations, 850 miles of streets, 250 miles of alleys, 1160 miles of sidewalks, 1500 miles of curb and gutter, over 400 public buildings, 147 bridges, 180 miles of storm drains, 23 pump stations, 3800 catch basin, 100 street, 100,000 street trees. 48,900 street signs, 580 traffic signals over 2500 parking meters and 117,000 refuse and recycling accounts. Thank you for your support in the past and I look forward to working with each one of you going forward. The Parks, Recreation and Marine Department presentation will follow.
Speaker 6: Honorable Mayor and members of the City Council. It is my pleasure to present to you the Department of Parks, Recreation and Maureen's fiscal year 2016 proposed budget. This budget provides the resources that not only help our city to be recognized as a national leader in parks and recreation services. But even more importantly, it provides us the opportunity to have a positive daily impact on the Long Beach community. As you know, the department is a large and dynamic organization. The following slide provides a high level overview of our services. We provide recreational opportunities to meet the diverse needs of the community. We provide for quality maintenance of parks, facilities, open spaces, beaches and marinas to promote an active, healthy lifestyle. We ensure that our marinas and waterway facilities meet both owner and community needs, and we promote responsible pet ownership and work to reduce animal overpopulation. You go too far. One more. Here we go. During the city manager's presentation last week, he discussed the city's public safety continuum operations. And I want to give you a few examples of how the department plays a critical role in Long Beach public safety activities. The department activates the city's youth and teens by providing access to healthy recreation opportunities during the hours that they are out of school and creating a safe environment for positive development and enrichment. The following is a sample of the diverse programing we provide. So we have afterschool programing that is provided daily during the school year at 26 park sites and Fun Day program is provided during the winter, spring and summer breaks. These programs offer everything from homework help to enrichment activities. Each provide each site provides youth the support and mentoring opportunities to increase their academic success. We anticipate over 225,000 visits for youth ages 5 to 12 this year. The Be Safe program provides extended recreation programing at six parks in this city and expands the free programing to include the entire family. We expect over 40,000 visits to these sites this summer. The Youth and Sports Program provides four seasons of sports to over 7000 youth, ages 5 to 12 at 26 parks. And this year, we were able to adapt the program and increase its services to include a pilot program for teens ages 15 and 16, which focuses on good sportsmanship and leadership development through positive play. The department operates ten summer day camp programs for parents looking for custodial supervision, along with engaging activities for kids. These are very popular programs. We've seen a 21% increase in the registration this year over last in our day camps. Teens visit our 14 centers over 15,000 times each year. These sites provide a supervised safe haven for teens afterschool. And during the summer, we have three year round in three summer community pools that provide swim lessons and recreational swim opportunities to over 225,000 participants. And our nine week summer food program provides approximately 125,000 free meals each year to youth ages 1 to 18. And just as important, but often overlooked, is that each year we provide hundreds of area teens and young adults their introduction to the workforce through volunteer and employment opportunities in our park programs. Moving on. Our beach maintenance operation works tirelessly year round to protect our coastline. During the two recent power outages, the department stepped up as it would during any natural disaster or emergency response situation, and in both events established an emergency shelter and food, water and ice distribution center at Chavez Park. And our Animal Care Services promotes public safety and the humane treatment of animals through emergency response to animal related incidents 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Over the last year, we responded to over 28,000 calls for service. Very briefly on our accomplishments. The Department continues its best in the nation service models and was once again recognized statewide and nationally for our achievements, including the California Parks and Recreation Society, once again honored us with three awards in 2015. We were named a Playful City USA and the Trust for Public Lands Park Score Index rated Long Beach as the highest ranked city in Southern California and 18th overall nationally. We dedicated three new parks, and we were able to move our Alamitos Bay Marina, rebuild efforts forward with the issuance of Marina revenue bonds, which will help us complete the remaining basins. We further enhanced existing water conservation efforts by eliminating irrigation of our grass medians with potable water. And all of this as we continued strategic investments of one time resources and all of our parks in our park facilities and amenities across all nine city council districts. Another great accomplishment is the demand for our park programing continues to soar. In addition to those programs that I spoke about earlier in the presentation, we also help seniors lead active, socially, enrich lives along with giving them easier access to health and social services. Our department makes contact with area seniors almost 500,000 times a year, and we had 32,000 contract class registrations in the last year taking advantage of our diverse class offerings. These classes are provided by private instructors, which serves as an economic driver for the Long Beach small business community. For fiscal year 16. Our proposed budget totals over $55 million across all funds, with 31 million in the general fund. As you can see from the pie chart, the department also has substantial Marina and Tidelands operating fund budgets to support our activities in the marinas, beaches and waterways. It should be noted that the department does have significant general fund revenue totaling close to $12 million, which helps support our programs. The Fiscal Year 16 budget proposes for just under 450 full time equivalent positions in during our busy summer months. Our total staffing complement grows to close to 800 people. And I'd like to point out that the department continues to work hard to identify other outside funding to help sustain our park system. The Department is extremely pleased with the continued investment in our services identified in this proposed budget. This will allow us to continue all of the services and programs that the community depends on. This slide highlights some of our budget changes for FY 16. Resources have been increased fully offset by new license revenue for the implementation of the mandatory spay and neuter program. This will help us to further our efforts to reduce pounds. We will consolidate staffing at Eldorado, East Regional Park and the Eldorado Nature Center into a one campus model. Not only will this improve the oversight of the operation of this large and unique natural resource, but also will provide a savings to the general fund. Various changes will be implemented to gain operational efficiencies and budget savings in the Tidelands Fund, including reorganizing the Marine and maintenance operations bureaus to be more responsive to our customers needs. And we will utilize nonrecurring funds to assist us in the conversion to drought tolerant landscaping in our medians. Yeah. The Department's his great opportunity and continuing our efforts to seek partnerships with the community, to improve our service offerings. Our relationship with the Long Beach Unified School District has allowed us for the sharing of resources to provide a broader scope of services to the community. For example, new aquatic programing is offered this summer by the department at the new Cabrillo High School Pool, which enhances our programing already offered at Jordan and Millikan High School Pools. The department has once again teamed up with the Long Beach Convention and Visitors Bureau to develop the 100 days of summer to help promote city recreational opportunities and the successful placement of thousands of impounded animals. Every year is dependent upon the many wonderful community partnerships that our Animal Care Services Bureau has been able to develop and nurture. We will further strengthen our community engagement and access to information through use of technology, including greater use of social media. We are going to be formalizing a turf in urban forest management plan to provide a road map for ongoing maintenance requirements, investments and conservation efforts. We will continue working in collaboration with the Department of Public Works to carry out our strategic investments in our parks and facilities. And we will continue our efforts to provide innovative new programs to meet evolving needs in the community. Honorable Mayor and members of the city council. We have a large park system with over 160 parks, 3000 acres, 26 community centers, dozens of athletic fields, 67 tennis courts, five golf courses, 54 playgrounds and three pools and three marinas. Our opportunities are many. Through all of these facilities and our programs, we have made millions of positive contacts with the Long Beach community each year. Your continued investment in the Parks, Recreation and Marine Department has been essential to our ability to meet the needs of the Long Beach community. We thank you for your continued support and this concludes my presentation.
Speaker 0: Thank you and thank you both for the presentation. Councilwoman Pryce.
Speaker 2: Thank you. I'm going to keep this brief, but you guys have worked so hard, I think it's worthy of a few comments for the investment that you've put into the presentation. So thank you. First of all, thanks to both of you for your reports. I think when you do the little the brag sheet at the end of both of your presentation, it really highlights. For those of us who are often very concerned about the projects in our own district, it puts into context what you're working on when you're not meeting with us individually. So it's really I appreciate you doing that because as Ara was articulating all the great things that his department does for the city, I was thinking, Huh, maybe that's why our projects aren't always at the top, at the forefront of his mind, even though I know they are. You always make it seem like they are. But you guys are really doing a lot, a lot citywide. You really are. So I appreciate that. And and, Mr. Scott, you are doing a phenomenal job in your new position. You're just you're doing a great job. And I really appreciate the collaboration, the creativity that bringing everyone to the table. You're just you're doing a wonderful job. So thank you for that. Just a couple of questions that I had or observations that I wanted to make in regards to public works. I think one of the things that you mentioned and I would like this to remain a citywide priority is for us to figure out how to keep maintenance of our city facilities and assets on the forefront of our minds at budgeting times. Because I think sometimes we, we neglect to adequately fund those reoccurring. Obligations of the city. So I think, you know, moving forward, I'll be looking for opportunities where we can make maintenance a priority for us for future budget years. To the extent possible, I think that's very important in regards to Parks Rec and Marine. You know, I think that there's there's one thing you mentioned in your PowerPoint that I think some councilmembers, most councilmembers are probably aware of, but having lived it for the last year, the Cosign Protection program that PRM engages in, it's really unbelievable the amount of work and resources that go into that program. And I think most of my colleagues and probably most of the residents of the city don't know or can't appreciate how hard your team works on that and how important that services. It takes them two weeks to build up a berm in anticipation of a storm, and they build up that berm in order to protect the homes on the peninsula from flooding. And the reason that they have to do that is because we have such severe erosion problems at that end of the city that those homes are constantly at risk and those citizens are constantly at risk. In fact, last year alone, we had several incidents where our team did such an amazing job working around the clock, building up the berms that our our beaches were safe and SEAL Beach got flooded. And that, to me, really is an important part of your department that sometimes goes unnoticed because it really only impacts certain parts of the city. I think it's important to point out that they are protecting the health and safety of those residents every single day. We did have a presentation earlier today regarding the municipal band, and I know it wasn't covered in your budget, but I'm assuming that you were here when I made some of the comments that I made. And if we were, you know, I realize that they've they've done some fundraising, but if we were to consider a six week , it's very important to me that the colleagues on council who wish to have some music from the municipal band or some sort of entertainment from the musical municipal band in their district, maybe a modified version of what the municipal band currently does citywide, maybe something that's a little more specific to their constituents that that opportunity might be a possibility for the six week if we were to do a six week. Do you think that's even feasible?
Speaker 6: I think certainly, Councilwoman, that it would be feasible. In fact, we had a program probably five or six years ago, which was a summer concert band season, which was above and beyond the municipal band season. And so we had concerts in the council districts that did not have the municipal band events within their district. So we've definitely done it before and you know, can certainly look at doing it in the future.
Speaker 2: So if we were to add a six week, that's something that we could consider maybe doing something on the West Side, for example, and tailor made for whatever if if the residents of that district wanted it tailor made for that district to some to some extent, obviously. Okay. And then one of the biggest issues we have is enforcement of our ordinances regarding animal control and responsibilities of pet owners. What would it cost if you know and if you don't, we can talk about this offline, but to add an additional enforcement officer for animal care services to help enforce things such as dog waste issues that occur throughout the city.
Speaker 6: You know, I don't have the fully loaded costs in front of me, but we can certainly provide that to you.
Speaker 2: Okay, that sounds good. Thank you very much.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilman Mongo.
Speaker 4: I, too, want to appreciate our our department heads who worked so diligently on both of these reports. I believe that our streets, our sidewalks, our potholes, these are the things that are most crucial to our quality of life. They allow neighbors to get to and from their jobs to and from their children's schools and to and from the places where they spend money right here in the city of Long Beach. So thank you. I really appreciate the extensive amount of work that has been done this year in graffiti removal around the parks. I know that in the fifth District we have a lot of parks and graffiti removal is a an indicator when we are able to clean it up quickly, it's it's a sign to those individuals that it will not be tolerated here and that that kind of behavior is not okay. And so I really appreciate the work that you've done on that. I know that there's some talk about the Be Safe program separate and apart from the one time funds. What is the Be Safe program? Ongoing budget.
Speaker 6: Well, the Be Safe program has been funded annually through the council office. One time funds for the proposal for FY 16. Through the mayor's recommendations, there's $186,000 identified. We look at about a $21,000 budget per site. And so working that for that could be six, seven or eight different sites. But there is no structural funding for the B save program.
Speaker 4: Thank you. And within the. $21,000 per site. That is the primary summer enforcement. Or is it weekends in the fall as well?
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 6: The $21,000 is for a ten week program throughout the summer. And this is for extended recreation hours at for this year six park community centers.
Speaker 4: Thank you. And then I also wanted to think. Our Public Works department on the work that they're doing with relation to our our parking meters and our street sweeping. I know that that has been something that residents have really been excited about. And we appreciate your innovation.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Councilman Braxton.
Speaker 10: Yes. I'll be very brief. First of all, I want to thank both departments for your presentations. Very well done. A job well done. And 15. I had a specific question for the public works department. Ah, in terms of the, there were two issues regarding the if significant issues or opportunities moving forward, the traffic signal assessment audit, I'm sure you explained it, but can you give me a little bit more detail on what that actually means and what that is? Absolutely. Councilmember Austin, the audit that I'm proposing is to look at every single traffic signal timing within the city and make sure that the timing is properly documented. And best management practices require that we put those timing sheets one at the center location, one within the cabinet itself, and and one is kept in the files. The reason for that is if there's an outage and somebody has to go out there and if the signal is on a blinking red and they need to readjust or reprogram it, they have the proper timing. It's a it's a purely from a liability perspective for the city. I'm trying to protect the city from any liability that could occur. I'm sure the city attorney can attest to that, that any time there's an accident at any intersection, the first thing that happens is they depose the timing sheets . So I want to make sure that all the timing sheets within the city are absolutely current. They are stamped by a licensed professional engineer and also it's programed into our traffic center. And what would they cost for that? This is no cost. Staff is doing it. Okay. And refuse rate restructuring. What is what is that in reference to? Is that for private? No, sir. I believe our rates have not been adjusted within a decade or so. A finance department has hired a consultant to look at the rates, and we will have a separate meeting to discuss the adjustment of the rates. It has to comply with proper notification and proper, proper meeting. Okay. Thank you for the clarification. And Mr. Scott, I wanted to follow up on Councilmember Mungo's question regarding the BE program. You mentioned that there currently in NY 15 is no structural funding for be safe. Are you saying that there are no there's no structural funding for be safe if why 16 as well?
Speaker 6: There is not structural funding for the BCC program in the FY16 budget.
Speaker 10: Okay. I was I'm a little confused there because in the budget presentation that we received last week, it where I was left under the impression that it would be part of a structural.
Speaker 0: I can clarify that for the budget message and it's written out there. The BC program would move from counselor discretionary accounts to the one time funded amount that's provided in the budget. That's why it's not structured. It's one time with the intention of moving that structurally in the future. That's how it's written out in the in the budget message. So it just essentially moves from council discretionary to being a funded one time dispense of the city's.
Speaker 10: So instead of being under.
Speaker 0: The control or.
Speaker 6: Of the council office, it is.
Speaker 10: Now the city.
Speaker 0: Manager. The one time.
Speaker 10: Budget or the department's one time.
Speaker 0: Budget. Right. A one time like any other one time expense.
Speaker 10: But essentially, we're still going to provide the the service. And that's the Internet.
Speaker 0: Is exactly right. All right. The idea is to, you know, prioritize that as something that's important. It's a citywide importance to focus on these parks and so to move them out of council and make it one time.
Speaker 10: Thank you.
Speaker 0: Any other questions? Councilmember Richardson.
Speaker 7: Thank you. So I want to begin just by thanking both public works and Parks and Recreation, not only on a good presentation, but on really keeping up with the community in terms of our demands. I know that we can be very demanding in terms of making sure that our our facilities are clean and maintained and ultimately being improved. I want to just. Just a few comments. I know that Parks and Recreation, we've got a very exciting year coming up in Parks and Recreation in District nine and that we're going to be taking on a master planning effort of sort of all of the parks in District nine, as well as looking at some more strategic things with with our only regional park in the area, Highland Park. So I wanted to just, you know, chime in and say, hey, I'm really, really excited. I think your budget is your budget is is everything that I've expected. And I look forward to continuing on this pace of improving our open space facilities. I want to I want to just chime in and and ask and ask for an update from Parks and Recreation on whether there's there's a focus on LED light conversion in our parks, similar to the way that we're placing a focus on our business corridors. And secondly, I know there was I know there was a discussion about improving our cameras in the parks. And I would like to just have an update on where we are. Does that program still exist and sort of where are we with that program?
Speaker 6: Councilmember Richardson, with respect to the LED lights, we are certainly on board with the conversion of our existing lights to LED lighting, where and when we have the available resources for new park facilities. Those will definitely be built into the plans and specifications. And as we're able to convert existing lights and have the funding to do so, we will certainly endeavor to do that.
Speaker 7: So I guess my question there would be is there some opportunity that we haven't evaluated in terms of exploring, maybe using some of the same resources or incentives that might be out there, whatever approach we're using on the business court or sort of seeing if there's some some crossover in our parks that we can explore, or is that something we can do?
Speaker 0: Pat, Pat, can you answer that question? Because I don't see why we wouldn't be looking at that. Tom Morello.
Speaker 13: So we are currently engaged in an effort to replace all of our lights with LED lights, and there are some financing mechanisms available to us. One is rebates from Edison and the other is an on bill financing. We are certainly going to be looking at our parks, at our beach areas, as well as all of our residential and corridor areas too. So if we are able to use those incentives to fund those, we would very much like to do that.
Speaker 7: So what? So I would my suggestion would be this. If there are and you know, I just stated it, we're going through a very intensive master plan process specifically with Highland Park. And lighting is is an element of that conversation. I would love to see that if we figure out a strategy to go. Leiby We sort of look at areas where we have synergy in our parks, where we're placing a focus on certain things so that we can make sure that's integrated into our master development process. And that's all I have to say there. Do we have any comments on the camera piece? Cameras in the park.
Speaker 6: Councilmember Richardson, over the last couple of years, we have had a pretty aggressive camera program in our parks. Those have been primarily funded through the council office one time funds. But it's certainly something that we want to continue working with the police department, the council offices and our Department of Technology and Innovation to try to maximize the use of the cameras in the parks and see if there aren't any synergies with some of the other efforts in the business districts and what have you.
Speaker 7: Thanks. So the last thing I have for parks is just a follow up. I haven't. I haven't. Forgive me. I don't know very much about the Long Beach Municipal Man. I've actually never seen one of their performances. I I've heard that they have tremendous turnout at their concerts. But since we might be talking about that, I'd love to just have more background before we actually vote on the budget in terms of, you know, how much does a municipal band concert cost, where are they held, what is the total budget of our muni band that we invest on an annual basis? And how does that compare to our concerts in the park in terms of where those are distributed, the cost per concert versus a muni band concert? What else is out there? Are we? I know that, you know, since we don't have a large concert in the district four years ago we started our Latin Jazz and Blues Festival and took a few years to get added to the city's concerts in the Park series. But I'd like to just get a whole picture on how equitable, how equitable we invest in entertainment in the parks, so that if we talk about expanding, we have an honest conversation about what we're doing. So that would be my request there on public works. I just want to say that, you know, there's a lot of excitement around, you know, you know, regional attention on Artesia Boulevard and Capital. And we talked about that. And I think that we've really I think we've met expectations this year in terms of our maintenance needs. We I think they're timely. I think we have a department is very responsive. But would you say our that we're in a best position in terms of staffing to carry out all of the infrastructure requests and needs that the council and the city requires of or requests of your of your office in terms of, you know, actually carrying out projects. How how where would you say you are in terms of staffing for project maintenance management?
Speaker 10: Councilmember Richardson That's a great question. As every department is being challenged by retirement of baby boomers, we have we're facing the same exodus of our our senior management or senior engineers. We're in that phase of recruiting. So I'm confident by the end of this calendar year, we'll be fully staffed. We lost a lot of individuals with a lot of institutional knowledge to retirement that that was the time that I guess they reached at that point in their lives that they need to retire. So I have to say, we're in that transition period that we're going from retirements and vacancies to filling them, and we're very aggressively doing that and hopefully within the next two or three months will complete that process and will be fully staffed to accept any challenges that the council officers are giving us. In addition to, we could utilize consultants, as we do now, on a project by project basis.
Speaker 7: Great. So I'm very pleased to hear that. And I personally, I've seen that you've got some superstars in your department who already you know, you I don't want to name names, but they're really taking it to these projects. I would just like to just say that if for some reason the staffing issue somehow becomes a problem, that we somehow prioritize projects that place a focus on projects where we have like imminent funding mechanisms that that, you know. That might be available from external resources. We sort of place a great a tremendous focus on those because I would hate for any opportunities that we have coming up that we miss out on those because we're not necessarily prepared. But I have the utmost confidence in your department. And so, once again, thank you to both departments and those are my comments on the budget.
Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you, Councilwoman Gonzales.
Speaker 2: Yes. I just want to thank you both as well. And I won't say I'll be brief, because everyone said that before and they weren't brief, though. I'm just getting I just want to get very much. Thank you both for this. These presentations. I have a couple questions. I'll first start with Public Works, so I know that we are converting to LSD, which everyone's talking about. I'm glad that Councilman Richardson brought that point forward about our parks, but I also have a concern with our alleys, our courts in a ways and lighting those. And I know, although it might pose kind of an issue because there's private property there. But I know I believe we had a program in place through neighborhood services where property owners can get a rebate of some sort. So is that something we can look into? I would love to peruse that again to see if there's an opportunity for that. As we're looking at lighting in general.
Speaker 10: I absolutely will take a look at that. Currently, we do have a program that if there are existing Edison Poles, but there are no streetlights and for 20 $500, we can install one single light if if the Edison has the capacity and and it's willing to do that. So we have that cooperation and collaboration with Edison. We can provide that service for areas that are dark. Also, we suggest that if people want to add additional lighting on their backyards to their walls and if they want to use LCD lighting, they can do that at any time without any any additional interaction with the city. But if they want something to be installed within the public right away, these are the alleys, then we can look at that. Obviously, we cannot install new polls in the alleys that are already congested. We would recommend maybe adding a single arm street light to to those poles and we can collaborate with any resident that wishes to do that.
Speaker 2: Great. But did we? I believe we had a rebate.
Speaker 5: Some sort of rebate program.
Speaker 2: Is that am I getting that correctly?
Speaker 10: I don't recall that being that in public works, that could be in the Development Services Department. It was.
Speaker 2: Through development.
Speaker 5: Services.
Speaker 10: I believe we can check with them and get back to you.
Speaker 2: Okay. That would be great. Absolutely. I'd like to look into that a little bit more. Um, okay. Thank you. And then I know for stormwater or storm drains, uh, I know our West Siders have often complained to me and have been very concerned with the storm drain issue on the on the west side. So how do we assess those and determine what is a priority city wide and how we can cast those out and get those fixed?
Speaker 10: Unfortunately, the storm drain fund is doesn't have any major funding resources. It's this is a true phenomenon with every city in the state of California, and it requires a vote of public to assess any kind of taxation in order to generate revenues, in order to fix those those infrastructures. As far as priority, basically, we have completed we're at 90% of our storm drain pump stations, which is basically the heart of the system. And then we have the arteries, which are their lines. So we want to start with the the main brain and the heart of the system and then get into the piping system. You will see maybe a presentation from me if if you're interested. And in the near future on the pump station conditions, we also have a master plan of our storm drain system which categorizes which pipes are undersized and which pipes need to be completed. It's just a matter of funding. And and we go from there. It's the same issue. Like you bring on any unfunded liability that we have or unfunded project that we have.
Speaker 2: Okay. Thank you. And I think you just in general for your work on smart meters and our power outage and and putting priority and emphasis on that. Thank you, Ira. And then Stephen for Parkes. I also want to thank you for your presentation as well. I know in the past we've had issues with maintenance of our parks and so are we doing anything different this time? Is there anything we're looking at? In a different light as far as quality and maintenance of our parks.
Speaker 6: Thank you for the question, Councilwoman. Yeah, I think there there has been an instance in the past where we had a contract situation where the contractor was not living up to the expectations of the city and the community. We did take steps very quickly in that particular situation to resolve that issue and use that as an opportunity to really improve our contract management capabilities. We have a new management team in our Maintenance Operations Bureau that is experienced and professionals in the industry. And so we definitely look forward to continued improvements in our maintenance operations and we're going to continue to look for opportunities to improve our maintenance of all of our parks and facilities.
Speaker 2: Okay. Great. Thank you. And I'll just comment as well that the Be Safe program although not structural, it's I'm I'm glad that the mayor has recommended a citywide approach because it's been so very impactful for the first district and your park staff is tremendous. I know we just had an event with the chief this past Saturday. It was so very positive for our community. So I have to thank you all for for doing that and staying committed to that. And then the security cameras I know you'd mentioned this, but just so my colleagues can know, I paid for that out of my discretionary funds, about $100,000 for 18 cameras. I'm working with tech services, parks and the police department. So it's proved to be very another very impactful point in our and our district. So thank you all. Appreciate it.
Speaker 0: Councilman Randers is thinking here.
Speaker 9: Now, it's a little after 12. I think we're trying to set another record, and I still want to be a part of that. So if you just bear with me another hour and a half from now, we'll get that done. And first of all, I'd just like to thank Bo Parks and. Public works for the fine work, both of the individuals done. Steve, I know you came on at the end, but your staff has been just tremendous, especially work with me in the sixth District. You know, I can't really tell them enough how much you guys have put into those parks that we have there. And and it's just one thing I'd really like to ask you. You know, I used the slogan, you know, keeping that little you know, keeping the kids busy is very important to me. And and you mentioned about the new team sports program. And I would like for you to tell me a little bit more about, you know, that pilot program that you have.
Speaker 6: Councilmember Andrews This is a program that we're very excited about as we were evaluating our youth sports program. Taking a look at what was working, what was were wasn't working. We noticed that we had essentially a gap in service. We weren't addressing the teens. We didn't have a sports program for the 15, 16 year olds. We had the youth sports program, which got us up to 12, but there was nothing beyond that. And, you know, high school sports are very competitive. There are limited spots. Organized leagues can also be very expensive. So we wanted to take the opportunity to use some of our existing resources to build a teen sports program that helped address that gap in service. And so we're in our first season right now. We have a six team basketball league. It's a six week program, and we really look forward to positive results from that program.
Speaker 9: Thank you. Thank you very much. And good public works or I don't need to say anything, but I just want to thank you and your staff for doing just such a wonderful job. It's just one question I have to ask. And and what is the estimate number of, you know, graffiti tags removed each year and.
Speaker 10: Honorable Andrews. Thank you. That's that's a great question. Yesterday, when I did the presentation, I mentioned 950,000 square feet of graffiti was removed. That kind of equates to about 75,000 tags. Each side could have a different square footage that gets cleaned.
Speaker 9: Thank you very much. And I'd like to thank both of you. Parks and I, you know, Public Square, you guys have done a great job. Thank you again. I'm not through because I have another hour to go, but I'll just pass it over to someone else. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Then a few other folks have a couple hours, so it's a long pause.
Speaker 8: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I want to thank both of you for the presentation and your patience. For waiting for us the entire night. So thank you. And I only have one question. Not an hour's worth. Just one question with the Park Patrol program, Mr. Scott. What? What is what's next for us? We have it. We have the pilot at the Bixby Park as well as in the six districts. Correct. Councilmember Field. So what would be next?
Speaker 6: Vice Mayor Lowenthal. You're correct. We had a pilot program both at Bixby Park and Shattuck Field. It's a park patrol program so different than the traditional park ranger program. These are actually recreation employees that are patrolling the park, making positive interaction and engagement with our park patrons, and then notifying the police department of any serious public safety concerns. But as you did mention, this was and is a pilot program. It was not funded in 2001. What we used were essentially salary savings from a vacant position to be able to pay for that. Looking forward in 2016, we do not have structural funding identified for the Park Patrol program at either location. And so, you know, that's something that's going to need to be addressed as we look forward. In fact, there is not structural funding to sustain the program.
Speaker 8: So when we had this conversation during the last cycle, one of the aspects of the program was an evaluation. We did commit to an evaluation, I believe. And so I'd like to know how the department will do that. Or is it already in your plan to do that? Because it wasn't intended just to have a pilot program and then it goes away. It's to evaluate it so that we can make some reference to what might be required at the parks.
Speaker 6: That's correct. Correct. Vice Mayor. We are actually in the process of completing the evaluation. We're basically about 12 months into the program. It started, I think, last August. So our team and our Community Recreation Services Bureau are completing that evaluation and we'll be providing that in a very shortly.
Speaker 8: And in that evaluation, will you be able to articulate how much it would cost, for instance, per park, to continue a program like that or to continue it at whatever recommended level you might suggest?
Speaker 6: Yes, we could do that.
Speaker 8: Okay. I would appreciate that. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. And Councilor Rose Hooper not.
Speaker 11: Thank you and good morning, gentlemen. I have just two questions. One for each group. For Parks and Rec on page 17. And it's under the heading of major changes. And that's the only reason I'm asking about it is is consolidated staffing in El Dorado East in the El Dorado Nature Center into one campus. At the end of the day, are there more or less budgeted positions at the Nature Center?
Speaker 6: Specifically at the Nature Center. It will be the same. It will be the same. Really what we're doing here is we're essentially just providing a higher level of supervision for the entire Eldorado campus. But we will have the same level of staffing.
Speaker 11: Okay. Thank you. And for on on on page ten, under the significant issues for public works, the storm water pump station assessment. So I'm as I'm hearing it, that we don't have a budget for any work on these, but I just like to document that. Station number nine at Atherton and the loss through this channel, it's the terminus of the former Atherton Ditch. The pump station is great, electric is all great, but the four bay loads up with about 18 inches of water continually. So I guess there's a sump pump that doesn't work. So I guess we're saying that we probably don't have the funding to repair that at this time.
Speaker 10: That's correct. We have funding in the budget right now to take care of more imminent issues in pump stations that are in a higher need. We usually tackle about one or two pump stations per year. But what I was alluding to is a comprehensive and comprehensive analysis that will give us the priority of every pump station and what needs to be done. We did a complete analysis of every pump station and investigated the electrical system, their scatter system, the four bays and all that. We tested pumps and we have a full engineering report that also indicates, you know, can they be an emergency generator or plugged in? Some of our pump stations are so old that we cannot just in case of a blackout, we cannot just attach a generator to run it. We have to go physically run, you know, wires. So which I'm trying to make it in a way that it could be easily plugged in or be ready for the generators. So it's more of for emergency response for all aspects of service. So that is being done. It's being put in a priority list and the funding that is needed. Okay. So it's a full blown CIP for pump stations.
Speaker 11: Okay, great. And to echo my colleague's comments, you guys are both doing a great job.
Speaker 10: Thank you. Thank you. And good morning to you also.
Speaker 0: Do you think you are facing.
Speaker 8: Just briefly to follow back up with Mr. Scott in the evaluation that you had mentioned that you are working on, it's going to be critical for council to have that so that they can work that into their budget conversations. Councilmember Price and I are having our community budget meeting tomorrow at Bixby Park. It will come up and so. I need to know a timeline and I need that timeline to be before council finishes its deliberations so that we can be informed by it.
Speaker 6: They did it for me. We will be able to provide.
Speaker 8: Okay. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Thank you all for the hard work and for enjoying the morning with us. Moving on. Any public comment on the budget? So is a budget hearing. Seen a public comment on the budget. So now moving on to item number 23. Thank you, guys. Yes. Item 23 on the regular agenda. | Agenda Item | Recommendation to conduct a Budget Hearing to receive and discuss an Overview of the Proposed Fiscal Year 2016 Budget for the following: Harbor Department; Water Department. | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_08112015_15-0779 | Speaker 1: Thank you, Commander. Motion carries eight zero 28. Communication from Vice Mayor Lowenthal. Recommendation to request the city manager to work with the Economic Development and Finance Committee to assess whether the city should allow residential repair coverage plans.
Speaker 0: Vice Mayor Lowenthal.
Speaker 8: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I wanted to make the motion and also ask council members that they may recall from their briefings or from your own research. There are coverage plans for sewer, plumbing and electricity that are separate from the standard homeowner's insurance policy. These cover leaks and other issues from the house to the property edge. These plans have been around in one form or another since the seventies, but the city of Long Beach has not partnered with any companies or supported them over the last year. So the city has been approached by a company wishing to offer the plan to residents. So I'd like to ask our E.D., an economic development and finance committee, to work with the city manager to evaluate this concept and determine whether it's appropriate for Long Beach. That's it.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Any public comment on the item? See none, please. Councilman Mongo.
Speaker 4: Vice Mayor Lowenthal, thank you for the recommendation. And how does this. How is the city a facilitator of the agreement? Is this company able to work with residents directly now?
Speaker 8: You know, they're not able to work with the residents directly. That's not my understanding. I think Mr. Modica can elaborate on that, what our role would be in facilitating it.
Speaker 4: Mr. MODICA If we could get a two from four before it comes, before it's enough so that we can be prepared on the item that would be. Appreciate it. Churkin two. Thank you. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you. Members, please cast your votes.
Speaker 1: Motion carries eight zero 29. Report from City Manager and Technology and Innovation Recommendation to execute an agreement with Code for America in the amount not to exceed 220,000. | Agenda Item | Recommendation to request City Manager to work with the Economic Development and Finance Committee to assess whether the City of Long Beach should allow residential repair coverage plans to be offered to residents and return with recommendations to City Council. | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_08112015_15-0766 | Speaker 1: Motion carries eight zero 29. Report from City Manager and Technology and Innovation Recommendation to execute an agreement with Code for America in the amount not to exceed 220,000.
Speaker 0: Thank you. There's a motion and a second. Any public comment? See. Now, please cast your counsel and roster.
Speaker 10: Yes, I recall the Copa America proposal.
Speaker 6: Coming before us about a year, year and a half ago.
Speaker 0: And I'm not.
Speaker 6: Exactly sure what our action was then. And and how is this different to that?
Speaker 0: Perfect.
Speaker 13: You are correct, Mr. Alston, that we did have code for America here last year that had to do with a discrete issue regarding Canada over utilizers of our fire system and looking at an application to really help with what we call the super utilizers of the of the system. This is a different application for code for America. This is actually tying into the innovation team. One of the things the I-Team has found is they went out and did a tremendous amount of outreach is that language really needs a system that helps people guide how to do business with the city? What are the different steps? How do you create a system that gets you resources to the Small Business Development Center before you get a business plan before you come to the city? How do you do business licensing? How do you do plan check? How do you interact with all of the things that you need to do to start up a business in a very intuitive fashion? So code for America to be working with the I-Team to create that system, to be one of the one of the premier startup Long Beach type systems in the nation.
Speaker 10: Okay. And as I read this and understand it, this won't this is this money has always been already been appropriated for the innovation team, correct?
Speaker 13: That is correct.
Speaker 10: Thank you.
Speaker 0: Any public comment? See nine members. Please cast your vote. So.
Speaker 1: Motion carries eight zero 30. Report from Financial Management Recommendation to receive and file the second budget performance report for fiscal year 2015 citywide. | Contract | Recommendation to authorize City Manager to execute all documents necessary to enter into an agreement with Code for America, a not-for-profit corporation of New York, NY, to participate in the Code for America Fellowship Program, for the period of September 28, 2015 to November 16, 2016, in an amount not to exceed $220,000. (Citywide) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_07212015_15-0675 | Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you. So I just a big message that we actually are given a time certain to the hearings. So I want to apologize and go to hearing number two. Well, and these are this one should be quick. So hearing number two staff. I know we read it already.
Speaker 6: The staff report will be conducted by our Malloy and our Director of Public Works.
Speaker 9: Honorable Mayor and Honorable Council Members. I have a very short staff report. This is basically the second hearing. This is a request for the city council to adopt their resolution ordering the vacation of May Avenue, north of Pacific Coast Highway. This you you had the intention to vacate this right away on June 23rd. And that concludes my report. If you have any questions, I'm here to answer them.
Speaker 0: Any public comment on the hearing on the on the vacation of the alley scene? None. I'm going to go back to any council. Deliberation council, Miranda.
Speaker 10: Yes. Thank you, Mayor. You, Lilongwe. City College has been a tremendous, you know, access to the sixth District, you know, as well as a great neighbor. And I agree, you know, with this item that is not is a no public use for this alley. And I am in favor of this vacation. So I want to thank you very much for this.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Councilman Austin, any comments?
Speaker 9: I support Councilmember Andrews on this.
Speaker 0: And Councilmember Gringa.
Speaker 6: Thank you, Mayor. As a former community college trustee, along with City College and part of the planning process for the master plan of what's taking place there, I'm totally supportive of this item. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. There's a motion on the floor. Please cast your votes on the hearing.
Speaker 1: Councilman Andrews.
Speaker 10: I mean, yes.
Speaker 0: He's having an issue here with them with the log and so he's this.
Speaker 1: Motion passes nine zero.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Hearing hearing number one.
Speaker 10: Can I get me back and.
Speaker 1: Report from fire recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record. Conclude the public hearing and adopt a resolution amending the master fee and charges schedule by adopting the fire first responder fee citywide. | Resolution | Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record, conclude the public hearing, find that the area to be vacated is not needed for present or prospective public use, and adopt resolution ordering the vacation of May Avenue and the east/west alley north of Pacific Coast Highway. (District 6) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_07212015_15-0674 | Speaker 1: Report from fire recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record. Conclude the public hearing and adopt a resolution amending the master fee and charges schedule by adopting the fire first responder fee citywide.
Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you. I'm going to turn this over to our city staff.
Speaker 6: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Members of the council. The staff report will be given by Mike Terry, our fire chief.
Speaker 11: Good evening. Mayor Garcia, members of the City Council. At the last Public Safety Committee meeting, we were given direction to come up with some various cost recovery and efficiency solutions to offset budget deficits proposed for fiscal year 17 and beyond. At that time, I mentioned that the fire department would be considering or has been considering implementation of a first responder fee. That would soon be we would soon be proposing to the city council. Tonight, we are proposing implementation of the first responder fee. Over the years, fire agencies from throughout the state of California have implemented first responder fees to recover costs and minimize the impact of budget deficits. This fee would help bridge the gap between costs of providing emergency medical services, which are approximately $22.1 million per year, and the revenue received for ambulance transport services, which is approximately $11.3 million a year. Additionally, as you are aware, there are projected general fund deficits that will need to be addressed in fiscal year 17 and beyond. The first responder fee is a proposed $250 fee that would be assessed for patients who are medically evaluated by the fire department staff on a first responder unit such as ambulances or fire engine or fire truck. There are significant costs associated with an emergency medical response, which includes a fire engine and an ambulance, and the six fire staff members associated with that apparatus or those apparatus. A patient evaluation and assessment involves a medical history and the taking of vital signs such as blood pressure, pulse, breathing, body temperature, and often includes monitoring heart activity and measuring blood sugar. Patients are often treated on scene as well. For example, we often evaluate and treat all diabetic patients with the intravenous administration of glucose or dh50. The first responder fee would help us recover costs of first responding personnel, as well as the cost for the use of emergency apparatus, equipment and emergency medical supplies. Currently, ambulance bills, which would in the future include first responder fee, are typically sent to insurance companies such as Medicare, Medi-Cal and private insurance companies for payment. Only about 30% of the bills that we send out go to individuals, and the bulk of those are typically not collected, as you can see. Other California fire agencies have implemented first responder fees. And this is not a complete list. But at the time we put this together, this was a good example across the board of many other agencies that have have this in place. These fees range in this grouping from $143 on the low end to $433 on the high end with an average fee of approximately $305. Agencies, as you can see, include Sacramento Fire departments, Sacramento Metropolitan Fire, Alameda County, Folsom, Novato, Contra Costa County, and in our neck of the woods, the city of Anaheim. Since this is a new revenue, it is difficult to project annual revenue amounts. Our best estimate is that the first responder fee will generate approximately $1.8 million annually. This would be partially offset by about $200,000 in additional annual costs associated with the billing and collection of fees, including staff supplies, postage and software maintenance. The net annual revenue is estimated to be $1.6 million once the program is established. If the fee is approved, we would only budget enough funds in fiscal year 16 to cover the $200,000 in additional billing costs. A year from now, when building the fiscal year 17 budget. We will then be able to evaluate the revenue patterns and collection rates to determine how much to budget for fiscal 17. Future revenue opportunities may also become available as a result of this fee under the states. Ground Emergency Medical Transborder GMT program. Under this program, the city is reimbursed for a portion of the difference between the full cost of providing medical transportation services to individuals covered by Medi-Cal and the amount of Medi-Cal revenue received for those services. Future GMT legislation has been introduced, and there's other legislation that will be introduced that will allow us to claim reimbursement for the evaluation and treatment of Medi-Cal patients when there is not a transport. However, we would only be able to recover costs under this program if we are currently charging customers for the response. The implementation of the first responder fee would satisfy that requirement. In a nutshell on that. We can't basically we basically can't build the federal government for something that we don't bill everybody for. So with that, that concludes my presentation. Council members, Mr. Mayor and council members and I stand ready to answer your questions.
Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you. Councilor Richardson, did you chime in or is that from the last time? Okay. Councilor Richardson.
Speaker 7: So what happens if this doesn't get a second? If this motion doesn't get a second?
Speaker 2: What happens?
Speaker 0: Well, I don't think you made a motion, but there isn't a second. I don't think you had. Is that right?
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 0: So it's not working, so.
Speaker 7: Yeah, that's. That's. But can we debate it without a motion.
Speaker 0: People are trying to.
Speaker 5: Press to get.
Speaker 0: Hold on.
Speaker 7: Well, if somebody does voice motions a second I want to. Okay.
Speaker 0: There is a second by Councilmember Andrews.
Speaker 10: Okay.
Speaker 7: So. I have a number of questions about this. I want to begin by just thanking our fire fighters, our both rank and file, as well as management for really anticipating. What we all know is that as city management says, winter is coming and we know that there are a number of tough decisions that are going to need to be made by the city council in the years to come. I have some concerns about this, some deep concerns about how this might disproportionately impact disadvantaged communities that I think we should consider as we move forward. I also want to want to have a better understanding on what the next steps are as this progresses. So first, I understand that Medicare, Medi-Cal and Insurance, this is something that they commonly cover. Is that correct?
Speaker 11: Yes, sir.
Speaker 7: So folks on Medi-Cal and I'm not sure that there's 100% certainty there, but how do we know that they that they actually cover this public. You know, covered California just insurance companies. How do we know that we cover that.
Speaker 11: The councilmember the the research that we did included reaching out to a number of the agencies you saw listed on that sheet there and asked that very specific question specifically related to Medi-Cal at the time and the ACA Affordable Care Act. Whether or not this would be reimbursed, we know, in fact, looking at our own health insurance here in the city of Long Beach, Anthem offers reimbursement for first responder fee. But we were unsure about the Medi-Cal and apps, but we did confirm it by reaching out to people who already have it in place.
Speaker 7: Okay. So so as of today, there is a potential benefit on insurance that we're not taking advantage of. I think that a better way to to look at that well.
Speaker 11: Councilmember I think yeah yeah I think that that's a good way to look at it. It's it's something that the insurance companies will pay for, but we are currently not charging them for.
Speaker 7: Okay. So I guess for the uninsured residents, what what sort of benefit? Can we is there some way that we can put in place a program or a mechanism for low income residents that are not insured? Is that something we can legally do or wrap your mind around as a part of this?
Speaker 11: Councilwoman Ramona, I'm going to let our director of financial management, John Groce, talk to that piece.
Speaker 2: I'm happy to. Councilmember We have an ambulance billing program now and it has not been a a program to date that has created substantial issues in terms of collections and people claiming hardships. We do have a hardship program in the city, monitored and done through the city attorney, where people who have a hardship can file a claim . We make the forms available. They are processed, reviewed by the city attorney. And then when when that is determined by the city attorney to qualify for hardship, we then follow up on that. So those that's probably our key mechanism. Again, history has not made it a huge problem because of Medicare, Medi-Cal and insurance. Most of our people who are unable to pay tend to be have had do not have a home address. We call them Jane and John Doe. Those people, as a matter of practice, it's not possible to collect from. And after a period of time, we write them off.
Speaker 7: Okay. So are you planning or preparing some a strategy to aggressively pursue those who can't pay? Are we going to put some guidelines in place that that provides some relief for those who have an economic hardship as a part of this?
Speaker 2: We have a program in place that already provides for that. We don't think that the situation will be significantly different, and we think our processes and procedures in place already provide for that and that we will be able to take care of those.
Speaker 7: Okay. So so if this were to move forward, I would I would like something more concrete. Then we have a program for this. I think it won't impact folks. I would love to see something more concrete that we can we can go out and educate our constituency on next. So I see that a number of city and county departments are utilizing first responder fees and they've seen some sort of a revenue increase. But I remember that the city council discussed the GM's funding, and we thought it was something that we could we could we could bank on. And and we thought we were going to be able to restore additional facilities and units into service. But but it didn't happen. So have we evaluated whether this is a stable revenue source that other cities have been able to depend on? And have they been able to restore services or maintain services as a result of implementing this first responder fee?
Speaker 11: Well, Councilmember, a couple of pieces there. So are our estimations on revenue generation with this program are very conservative. We are estimating the revenue at a 20% rate of return on our billing, which is a very conservative estimate. Traditionally, historically, we tend to do better than that with regard to our annual revenue in our billing. So the $1.8 million and if you take the $200,000 out to to offset the cost of additional people doing the billing, leaving 1.6 is a very conservative estimate based on based on what we know, it could very well materialize to a greater degree than what we're projecting. The as far as as far as the other agencies, when you talk about it being a stable fee source or a revenue generation. Yes. Our experience in talking with them or their experience has been that it's very stable. And I think the other point that I want to make clear is we're not necessarily talking about restoring anything when initially when we put this forward. We were very clear in saying that we don't want any of this revenue applied to our budget in fiscal year 16. Like I don't want to be in the same situation that we were in a few years ago with if recovery and some of the other programs where it didn't it didn't materialize like we thought it would, and then we were stuck with a negative hole in our budget. So what we want to do is we want to get one full year of experience. And so we know exactly what we're generating as far as revenue is concerned. And then have this discussion with the council again this time next year and say, here's a year of experience and this is what we would like to have applied to our budget, but it would be general fund revenue. So that would be a policy decision from the manager and the finance director and the budget manager and the council on how that gets applied. Certainly, we would like it applied to fire, though.
Speaker 7: Absolutely. And thank you for clarifying that you don't plan on actually spending these funds in the in the first year. You want to watch it and test it and see if this is something that we can bet our public safety on after a year of evaluation. And I think that that's smart, a smart thing to do if we move forward with this next. I know that there there's significant angst in the community in general and in certain communities about what the fiscal impact implications are when you dial 911. And there are some folks that. Might not press 911 because they're they're concerned about the cost of ambulance transportation fees. So I guess what can we or the fire department or just our city in general do to make sure there's an education component to a number of communities in court, including, you know, communities our diverse community that might not speak English? What can we do to educate and make sure that this there is an unintended consequence in terms of folks stop calling 911 because they're concerned about getting charged an additional fee. Have you done any thinking on that, Chief?
Speaker 11: Well, Councilmember, if if somebody needs to call 911, we encourage them to do that. I mean, I don't ever want anybody to not call 911. But the way this fee works is that if the firefighters, paramedics get on scene and we actually find a medical cause to do an assessment on somebody or find a cause to actually start to treat somebody with their consent, obviously then the fee would be applied. But for instance, one of the questions that we've had was, what if I what if, a, somebody is driving down the street and they see somebody down on the side of the street and they call 911 thinking, I think that person needs help. And we get there and the person says, I didn't call you. I don't want help. Would they have the fee applied to them? The answer is no. We will only if we provide the service. You know, I heard an analogy last week that I thought was pretty good. It's kind of like a toll road. You only pay for it if you use it. So I think that I think that's a fair enough analogy on on how this would work.
Speaker 2: I was joking.
Speaker 7: So so I guess the last thing I would say is so again, thank you for for doing the work and anticipating a solution to what we anticipate is some some challenging budget times. And personally, as a ninth District Council member, I've been able to watch and see the impacts when Rescue 12 was taken out of service and and sort of the feeling that you get when you know that this area of town has, you know, there's a perception that folks don't respond in a timely manner. When that when that happened. And, you know, I think is I think based on these these conversations, I'm comfortable with taking the next step in this direction. I definitely will watch those other things. But I hate I would hate to be in the position to cut to cut services in 1 to 2 years. That will that might impact the lives of our residents when we have an opportunity here today to make a meaningful step forward. And so that said, I guess my final question is, if this were to move forward tonight, what is the what are the next steps? Would this have to come back to city council at all?
Speaker 2: The end of that question.
Speaker 11: Is that question for me? Yeah, councilman.
Speaker 7: Or the city attorney or whoever can answer it?
Speaker 12: If this passes tonight, it would become effective immediately.
Speaker 7: Okay. I might want to think about it a little bit more, but but I think those are my questions that I have to make.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Councilwoman actually, Vice Mayor Lowenthal, to your second.
Speaker 3: I'll hold my comments for now.
Speaker 0: Councilman Price.
Speaker 8: Thank you. I have a couple of questions. First of all, I want to thank the chief for. Bringing this item forward for the following reason. We did ask, anticipating that we're going to have some difficult budget years ahead. We did agendas in our public safety committee, a budgetary item requesting that police and fire come to the Public Safety Committee with some recommendations and suggestions regarding how they might increase revenues and cut costs in anticipation of the budget situation that we have coming before us, really starting in 2017 and at the time that we agenda as the item, we did not know what 2016 was going to look like. I think we have a better sense of that in light of what we expect the budget to look like. And although I think this is a good item and I'm going to have a few questions to ask about it in a moment to clarify some of the concerns that we've received in our office. I do want to say that I hope that this item doesn't end our discussion regarding innovative ways that we might be able to increase revenue and or think about the potential deficits and their impact to our public safety structure, because I think that the proposed cuts to both police and fire are not the type of cuts that we can withstand in the city of Long Beach at this time in our city's status. So we're going to have to talk real seriously about that. And that conversation is not over. So I look forward to hearing some of the other proposals and they may be proposals that you would be recommending against, but I really would like to play those out a little bit more in detail in public safety in regards to this item. So thank you for coming up with this. I think the idea that we would. Have $1.6 million in our general fund as a result of this successful program is exactly the kind of innovative thinking process that we want our department heads to have. Now, going back to that. Where would you anticipate that that a $1.6 million going, would it go back into restoration of fire services?
Speaker 11: Well, Councilmember, it could it could go a couple of different directions. Initially, given given the budget projection that we were given a few months back, looking at a potential budget deficit of about a four fire, our share of about $1.7 million potentially in fiscal 17. If this were to material materialize tonight and we realized the $1.6 million over the next year, then our hope would be that those dollars would be applied to our deficit, which means we'd be able to keep our apparatus. The way it is today. If for whatever reason, the general fund rebounded and and we didn't have that kind of deficit next year and we had $1.6 million over and above, then we would apply that those dollars, if it was given back to fire, we'd apply those dollars directly toward our stated priority list that we had sent to the Council a year ago, roughly as far as the apparatus that we would restore. So it would go one of those two places.
Speaker 8: Okay. Now, we have received a few emails and inquiries from third district residents that I want to ask you a little bit about tonight. And I appreciate the time that you spent explaining some of these to me prior to council, but I do want to bring a few of these questions and answers to light so that the residents all have the same information as we continue to discuss this in a public forums and days and weeks to come. Some have said that this appears to them to be a tax and is a service that should be covered through property taxes. In response to that, has fire considered that argument and what would be the response to that?
Speaker 11: Council Member Property taxes pay for the fire department, fire suppression vehicles fire like fire engines and fire trucks, the active firefighting hazardous materials taking cats out of the tree, that sort of thing. That's what your property taxes pay for. Emergency medical service created in 1972 in Long Beach, was a fee for service business in addition to the regular line of business in the fire in the fire service. So their property taxes, although the general fund is subsidizing emergency medical service, emergency medical services meant to be a fee for service business. So none of your property taxes. Nobody should nobody should think that their property taxes are paying for paramedic service.
Speaker 5: Okay.
Speaker 8: In the staff memo specifically. We pull it up here? I think it's the second paragraph. Under the discussion section, you talk about a deployment model and the percentage of the responses, the deployment model that's used on 85% of the responses. Can you elaborate a little bit about that deployment model and what that paragraph means?
Speaker 11: So. Councilmember. I'm sorry. You want me to you want me to talk to you about how we deploy our paramedic service now and, like, how we respond on calls? So we have a tiered dispatching system in Long Beach. Basically three tiers for really, but three tiers of service and emergency medical service. Now, I want to start off by saying this. Of the nearly 70,000 calls for service, we get a year in Long Beach fire, 84.5, almost 85% of them are emergency medical calls. It has become the cornerstone of what we do. And it's it's not just a Long Beach thing that's a nationwide fire service thing. It's the paradigm has completely shifted. The way we dispatch calls is this if it's a non-emergent noncritical call, we call that an alpha response where we may just send the closest fire engine or truck to assess the patient and determine whether or not they should be upgraded and they should go to the hospital at all. A basic life support call, for instance, like a traffic accident or a broken leg possibly, or, you know, somebody falls, falls down or hurts himself. But it doesn't appear to be life threatening. We call that a Bravo response, where they'll get the first engine company or first truck company closest to them and the closest ambulance will respond as well. A charley response is the highest level of care that we have, and that's the first engine company and the first rescue ambulance. And those are the the calls like chest pains and shortness of breath and seizures and those things that are considered emergent calls. So that's that's how we respond. Now, one of the concerns that I've heard from constituents or from people in the community is how come we send the fire engine on these calls? Why don't we just send the ambulance? And that's a fair enough question. But the reality is we only have we have more fire engines than we have ambulances. And under the new paramedic program, I have a paramedic on every one of those engines so I can get an engine to the scene faster than I can get an ambulance to the scene. Now, if you had a different deployment model where I had 20 ambulances and and ten fire engines, then that would be that would be a completely different discussion. But the way we are deployed to to meet all risks in the community, it's faster for me to send a fire engine or a truck to the scene first and have the ambulance marry up with them on the scene. So that's why we deploy that way. I will tell you this, that my command staff are very smart, creative people, and they're constantly thinking about ways to for especially for the non-emergent calls. They're thinking about ways to to do kind of just that, where maybe we don't need to send a fire engine on everything. Maybe. Maybe instead of rolling the big red fire engine on the street, we can just send the ambulance on some things. And we're in the process of having that discussion now. And I actually think that sometime within the next year, we will we will see some progress in that respect.
Speaker 8: Okay, that's good. I look forward to that update because I think that would serve to, in terms of efficiency, at least what people perceive just to hear what the data is on that are on the non-emergent calls. Are there situations where the fire engine will respond and then if there's no transport necessary, the fire engine will just treat the patient and no ambulance will arrive on scene.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 11: So a good example would be the call that we get for someone who has fallen out of bed at 2:00 in the morning and they're unable to get themselves back into bed. So they'll call us, we respond out there, assist them back into the bed. We will evaluate them medically to make sure that the reason they fell out of bed was not because of a medical problem, put them back in bed, and then they often decline transport to the hospital. So yeah, that happens quite frequently.
Speaker 8: Okay, so, so it would be factually incorrect to make a statement that fire sends a fire truck and an ambulance and engine and an ambulance to every single medical call. That's that's not true.
Speaker 11: That's correct. That is not a true statement.
Speaker 8: Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Got somebody, Ringo?
Speaker 6: Thank you, Mayor. I, too, have some concerns with the. With the. Given the emergency that we had last week, I'm pretty sure that the system was. Slightly overloaded, if not overloaded with the now one. One calls everybody needing a response of one type or another. So this feels a little bit untimely, I would say, at this point. But the only reason is that had we been able let me ask you first, I guess, is there a record of how many 911 calls we received within the LAT when we had our outage last week. In those three days that we were a councilmember?
Speaker 11: Yes, there is a there is a record of how many calls we received. I will tell you this, that fire on the fire side of things. We saw kind of a spike in calls and within the first 24 hours and a lot of those calls were related to people stuck in elevators and other things that would be considered non-emergent. Just kind of check the well type things from the first 24 hours on, a lot of the calls that we had there were kind of self-created, where we were out knocking and talking and trying to find out what people needed from us. But we didn't see we didn't see a tremendous spike in calls for service because of the of the power outage, if that's what you're asking.
Speaker 6: Well, related to that, it was I get my question wasn't clear in regards to calls that were that needed for an evaluation that states what that that would have triggered this feat.
Speaker 11: And I'm not sure. I'm not sure I understand the question, but.
Speaker 6: The numbers of calls that you receive and i11 that would have required a medical or a paramedic to evaluate a patient.
Speaker 11: So. And are you asking how this fee would apply to the people last week?
Speaker 6: First responder fee.
Speaker 11: The first responder fee. So if this is the way this this fee is structured, if somebody calls 911 and we respond out there to evaluate somebody, if that person that we're evaluating says, I'm good, I don't need I don't need to be evaluated. I don't want you here. I don't want to go to the hospital or whatever. There would be no fee assessed on them if if we went out for the stuck in the elevator example, if we went out and responded to somebody who was stuck in an elevator, opened the elevator, got the patient out and they said, Thank you very much, I'm fine. We are kind of checking there. Well, there's no first responder fee there. The only time we would ever apply the first responder fee is if we generated a medical report form on the patient and actually treated them or applied our medical training to their situation. So it wouldn't just be blanket application across the board to every patient that we see.
Speaker 6: My staff and I did a little bit of additional research on this and we found that there are some municipalities that have an opt in paramedic membership program that costs between 30 to $60 a year, and it's included in their utility bill, which equals out to maybe $3 to $6 a month. What was that consider or why is this an option here?
Speaker 11: A council member that was considered it's been considered a couple of times over the past ten or 12 years. And our last evaluations called the subscription fee. The closest example to us here in Long Beach that are doing that is the city of Huntington Beach. They do they attach an annual fee to their utility bills. And you literally in Huntington Beach at one time anyway, you had to go in and opt out. You were just automatically opted in. And if you wanted to opt out, you had to physically do that. The the when we looked at it here in Long Beach, our payer mix in Long Beach is different than in a lot of the other municipalities that have the subscription fee. And we felt that when we added it all together that we would end up it would end up costing us more money than we would generate on the subscription fee, because our payer mix is vastly different than Huntington Beach and many of the other places. So we didn't think it would be a feasible option to generate stable revenue.
Speaker 6: Well, and certainly that's that's the important issue here, because I know we're coming into a budget season and we are going to be evaluating budgets all across the city, all our departments. So I'm sure that this discussion is going to be coming up there. So I'm I'm a little concerned that that this is coming now right before we start actually crunching numbers for our departments. Also, my my district is very diverse. As you as you probably know, my district goes all the way from our Long Beach airport to the port of Long Beach. I have high income, low income, middle income, low income families there. I also have the highest number of senior citizens, senior citizen housing in my area. So those are real concerns of mine that would affect my my residents. So I'm hesitant right now on this and not too sure whether it would be something that we could implement immediately. I'd like to have it stated more often, more often, more thoroughly. I also really would want to see what kind of program we can have either to opt in or opt out any first responder fee. I think that would be I think that'd be more palatable in this situation. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilwoman Gonzalez.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Chief. I know we have to always look creatively for a different budget option, so I just wanted to and for the body for presenting that to you. I also have a question about the hardship waiver. I'm still not clear. And so there's a few things. So it would be great to get some sort, like some sort of criteria as to what would qualify for a hardship waiver. Would it be income? What what what would it be exactly as to who could qualify for this?
Speaker 2: The form which I looked at today asks for any and all information that would would make a person qualify. We leave that up to the applicant because the conditions may be such that you don't want to specify specific types of situations. So we ask for any information that an applicant feels they may be qualified for. And we may also do credit check background checks. But we we feel that leaving it flexible is actually in the best interests of the applicant.
Speaker 1: Okay. Well, that that definitely concerns me. And I know with our parking enforcement, for instance, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but when we have someone who isn't able to pay, I know we go through, I think, an administrative review process. So perhaps that could be enacted here, I'm not sure. But it's basically you don't have to pay until you go through this review or you go through this hardship waiver income or. Review, I guess you can say. Would that be something we would be able to do here?
Speaker 2: The administrative review for parking tickets is a little different in that that's a process to determine whether the amount is actually owed or not as opposed to hardship. The hardship situation we have is consistent throughout the city dealing with the city attorney. So it's it is an administrative review. It's just through the city attorney. So there is an administrative review process. Not not quite the same for as the parking citation, but for parking in particular. There's both the review is the ticket valid? And then there's a hardship review that would be done by the city attorney.
Speaker 1: And they would that would be so they wouldn't have to come up with the funds first. They would go through this review and then if it was determined, then they would come up with the funds if they had to. So is that what I'm hearing or.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, would you repeat that again?
Speaker 1: They would have to pay the amount first, though, correct?
Speaker 2: I don't think that's the case. I don't think they would have to pay it first. In fact, I will say they would not have to pay it first. It's not it's not the same where you have a situation where we might tow the car or do something like that. So there's no there's no there's no requirement for them to pay first.
Speaker 1: Okay. And would fees still be enacted during emergency situations? So, you know, the power outage was a perfect example. And I was at Plymouth West with many of our seniors. And every hour, probably every half hour, there were fire engines and ambulance there for a variety of reasons. They could you know, they got stuck in the elevator. They couldn't walk down. They ran out of breath. So I get concerned in situations like this where, you know, now we have resources being sent over constantly. So how does that work out?
Speaker 11: Councilmember. The answer to that is no. They would not be assessed a first responder fee in situations like that. Plymouth West is a great example. Our folks were in and out of there over a 24 hour period last week assisting residents and checking on residents, knocking and talking, that sort of thing. They weren't doing medical reports on people. They weren't they weren't setting them up for transport to the hospital or any of that stuff there. They're just being firefighters. They're just doing good work, getting out, talking to people, making sure they're okay so the first responder fee wouldn't apply there. This will specifically apply to those situations where somebody calls 911 or the patient themselves calls 911 and says, I want I need the service. I need you to come take care of me. We get there. We work them up medically, work them up, do a medical report form on them and either transport them or not. That's when it would apply. But in the example that you use, no, it would not.
Speaker 1: But some of them were transported and did need medical and it was an emergency situation, you know, during the power outage. So that's what I'm concerned with. So we're still getting that treatment and it would fall under this and it was under the umbrella of emergency situation.
Speaker 11: So those patients that were transported have a bill would get a bill already for that transport. There's a there's a bill that goes along with ambulance transport, right. For both advanced life support and basic life support. So that wouldn't change. But as far as the first responder fee and just that kind of. Well checks on people. No, that's that's not what this is intended to do.
Speaker 6: And Marin County, if I may just add to that, we feel very comfortable that we do have a hardship provision already built into our system. What the chief was just mentioning is that we currently have a system where we are charging people who get transferred to the hospital a thousand, 1100, 1200 dollars, and this would be a fee in addition to that of 250. But we already are very comfortable that we don't have a problem where there are people that are needing hardship for the ambulance fee that we wouldn't be able to take care of. We have a process for that and we really don't see that that is going to be any different with this fee. We feel very comfortable that there is that process for them to apply for the hardship because we don't see on a daily basis us creating that hardship if there really is one out there that is justifiable
Speaker 1: . Sure. I just don't see any clear plan as to what the hardship would be, you know, so that it's just concerning to me. And there was another concern brought up by some of our property owners. So if, for instance, a resident couldn't pay or they just didn't acknowledge the letter, would property owners be billed?
Speaker 11: No, no. We will know what this has meant. This is actually meant to be implied, applied toward insurance, toward health insurance, homeowner's insurance, auto insurance, Medi-Cal, Medicare, ACA. No, we would not apply it toward like anybody in the apartment association shouldn't worry that we're going to apply this fee or put a lean on their on their building if their one of their tenants doesn't pay their medical bill.
Speaker 1: Okay. And then what about residents versus nonresidents? How does that work out?
Speaker 11: That from a fire service delivery. Some cities actually do differentiate between resident nonresident on how they apply the fees. We do not hear on any of the fees that we assess for treatment, transport or anything else we do. So this would be consistent with not differentiating between resident nonresident.
Speaker 1: Where we don't have a nonresident responder fee, it would just be resident responder fee.
Speaker 11: We just have this would just be a first responder fee for everyone, whether you're resident or not.
Speaker 5: Okay.
Speaker 2: And maybe I can make Councilman one more comment on on why we do not think there's there's an issue in addition to what Mr. Modica said. We're also have a practice which I'm reviewing really over the last month where, where, when we determine that bills are uncollectible and for, for the reasons that people can't pay, we have a process where we're, we're writing these bills off at at 180 days so that we do not continue to hassle people. And I think that's one of the reasons we also just historically have not had a problem in this area.
Speaker 1: Okay. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Before I go, I. Before I go to counter prostitution, I just wanted to touch on something that councilman said. Think it's. It's been repeated. Something. It's an important point to city staff. And maybe it's something that Councilor Richardson can address in his motion. But I think what you're hearing very clearly is that there needs to be a very dedicated and deliberate process for there to be an opt out provision for those that are disadvantaged and for poor seniors that have needs when it comes to income. And so, I mean, I'm hearing obviously from from from from staff that that is part of this process. But I think what you're hearing from council is that it needs to be very clear. It needs to be a very progressive in a sense, of leaning first and giving the benefit of the doubt to the person that's that needs the medical attention and it needs to be those that are needed. The attention shouldn't have to pay upfront. So it needs to be where they're they're not required to pay. And if they have, they believe that they qualify as a as a low income or disadvantaged person, that they can make that case before they're ever charge or expected to pay that fee. So I actually want to make sure that if Mr. Richardson can actually clarify that issue.
Speaker 7: Sir, what I'm thinking is exactly along those lines, like maybe separately they can come back because all those elements you I heard that from Councilmember Ranga and Councilmember Gonzalez, but I want to make sure that that actually comes back to that element, can come back to the city council at some point. So we can talk about what that program, what that program looks like. Is that something we can do? Because I'd like to amend my motion include that.
Speaker 0: Could part of that motion be for this separately that's separate from the from the from the fee that this program would come back to council for for review and.
Speaker 7: Conversation within 30 days.
Speaker 0: Within 30 days. Mr. Modica.
Speaker 6: Yes. We can certainly come back and review that program.
Speaker 0: Part of that comes from your ranga would like. I would like to add as part of that program, a councilmember to also review his suggestion of the what did you call it, the opt in program. Could it be part of that as well?
Speaker 7: Absolutely.
Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you.
Speaker 7: Vice mayor.
Speaker 0: Vice mayor. You okay with that? Okay. Thank you.
Speaker 6: Just for clarification purposes, the opt in program is that the paramedic subscription fee and evaluation of that?
Speaker 0: Yes. The council re ranking wants to see the evaluation of that as well.
Speaker 6: Okay.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilmember Austin.
Speaker 9: Thank you. And I just had a few quick clarifying questions because I think a lot of the questions and concerns that I have have already been raised. But I heard a lot about there was much talk about Medi-Cal and Medicare and and and the need to establish just to be able to collect from Medi-Cal and Medicare first responder fees. But for those who have private insured or who are privately insured, if they if they are they are in need of a first responder, does their insurance pick up the first responder fee? For example, does Kaiser or a Blue Shield pick that up?
Speaker 11: Council Member Yes. The answer is yes. The insurance, you know that we have here in the city of Long Beach, Anthem pays a first responder fee if needed.
Speaker 9: Okay. And many public agencies have been suffering with budget issues over the last several years. You laid out a number of them who have instituted this this first responder fee, in your opinion. Why haven't other agencies felt the need to implement these first responder fees? Because it seems to be rather minimal.
Speaker 11: Councilmember, the that that is the list that we showed during the presentation is a fairly abbreviated list. Since we started putting this thing together, there have been a number of other municipalities in the state that are moving toward a first responder fee, and they're doing it primarily because it will help augment the amount of dollars that they receive under the EMT program. Should the state legislation be passed to allow for first responders? So there's a there's a lot of municipalities that are in the same process that we're in here today doing that.
Speaker 9: Okay. And I also want to echo Councilmember Price's comments to you, because to sit on the Public Safety Committee and we did ask you to come back with some creative new revenue ideas, and we certainly hope it doesn't stop here, like like to know that there's more more options out there. And and I guess for me, the options is really important. I'm hesitant to move forward tonight on this because, you know, I don't know that there may be something else, you know, a month from now or two weeks from now that that may be a better option in terms of, you know, fixing the fire budget and speaking to fire budget, if we are to collect 1.6 million, $1.8 million. I'm not sure that I was I'm not clear as to how that's going to be spent or where it would be dedicated. Is that going to be in the fire budget or is that going to go straight to the general fund? And just kind of before.
Speaker 2: Because this money was is part of the fee structure for the fire department, this revenue, from our view point would be fire department associated revenue just as just the way the chief described it.
Speaker 9: Okay. And I know also before this council, we we talked about and we do have the best, I think, fire department in in the state. And that's, to your credit, Chief, Terry, and to the men and women who work for the Long Beach Fire Department. We we want to maintain if we're going to add fees, I'd like to know that there's some guarantees that we're going to maintain the highest quality in terms of personnel that are responding to two calls. Is that something that you can guarantee for me tonight? Because what we have now, I mean, I know particularly for the blessed, there are there are paramedics and then there are EMT. And we changed that model recently. And we can talk about how that model is doing later on. But I'd like for for my resident residents to have some assurances that if we're going to be adding fees, that we're going to make sure that they have trained the highest trained paramedics responding to their needs because essentially we're asking them to do more.
Speaker 11: Yeah. Councilmember. Yes, fair enough. Every single. Every single. Patient that's evaluated in the city of Long Beach will be evaluated by the highest medical care possible under the in the California Fire Service. And we have no plans on changing that.
Speaker 9: Okay. We can revisit that. And and lastly, on the action here this evening. I just need some some clarity as to the timing and why tonight and not during our budget process.
Speaker 11: Well, Councilmember, thank you. But part of the reason we wanted to bring this up now is, as I mentioned earlier, we're not asking for any of these dollars, but for the $200,000 to go to financial management for billing purposes. We're not asking for any of these dollars to be applied to the fire department in fiscal year 16. What we want to do is we want to have it in place and have it work its way through an entire year so we can get some historical perspective on what we actually generate as far as revenue. And then this time next year, when we're sitting before you talking about the fiscal 17 budget, we can say it's generated this much revenue, it's stable and this is what we would ask be applied to fire. So we don't want to use any of it now. We just want to we in years past, we had asked for our budget to be reflective of a potential revenue generation idea, and then that revenue generation idea didn't materialize like we thought it would. We don't want to repeat that process. We want to take a more conservative approach. And secondarily, I do I do have I just want to remind you that the the numbers that we're putting forward to you are based on the 20% rate of return. It's a very conservative estimate on revenue generation. So we think that as we put it in place, as we go throughout the year, we'll have a better idea of what we're actually going to generate, which will give you the ability to discuss it and discuss how best to apply it this time next year.
Speaker 9: So it's a there's a possibility that the $200 responder fee, $250 for first responders could actually be less. If the projections are higher, we could come back and talk, have that conversation.
Speaker 2: It.
Speaker 11: I suppose. I suppose the answer to that is, is you could. We could.
Speaker 2: The other thing I might comment that you you mentioned is that one another reason for it not being received as revenue in 16 and only for 17 is that it also gives the city council an opportunity to see if the program works as well as the administration thinks it does in terms of being able to handle the hardship cases. So it's an opportunity to evaluate that. Again, we don't think there'll be a problem, but it's a perfect evaluation period.
Speaker 9: And I guess Mr. City Manager will discuss this if approved this evening. When will this go into effect? Is this something that goes into effect immediately?
Speaker 2: Katzmaier will be working with the city attorney's office to get this implemented, but it'll go into effect as soon as possible after we provide information to the public on how it's going to operate.
Speaker 9: And will it be reflected in the FBI 16 budget?
Speaker 2: No. So not just the $200,000.
Speaker 9: Okay. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Councilmember Supernova.
Speaker 10: Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Chief Dorey, for your presentation. I have two questions right off the bat from constituents, so I want to read them verbatim in case there any subtleties in it. One is, if a patient can't or won't pay, will the property owner? 20 to 40. Okay well the property owner of the location be build and or have a tax lien placed on their property. Can we be assured that will not happen?
Speaker 2: But that will not happen.
Speaker 10: Okay. The second question is, does research show that the fee will be an influence on a patient's decision to call 911?
Speaker 11: I will use the Sacramento Metro Metropolitan Fire Department as an example. I asked that very specific question whether or not their fee, which is higher, considerably higher than what we're proposing here, had any kind of effect on people, whether or not they were going to utilize 911 as their primary care providers in some cases. In some cases, they said that it did deter some people who were high propensity users of the system from continually using the system like they would find alternative methods to get to an urgent care to their doctor. But for the most part, they said that that the $250 first responder fee because there their first responder fee, because it's applied toward insurance, was not a deterrent for people to call 911 if they actually needed it.
Speaker 10: Okay. Thank you. The next question has to do with restoration of the cuts. And I think I heard maybe two answers. So I just want to have a lot of clarity here and I'll give you the background. And the reason why it's so important to the residents of Fourth District is we have four engine companies that are in mothballs. That's 1018, 17 and 18 and engine 121 is a secondary engine company to station one. The other three represent the three Eastern Council districts three, four and five. So to put that in perspective, Council District three has fire stations four, eight, 14, 22 and 21, and then 21 is a boat. So let's throw that out. 22 is on the border so we can throw that one out so we can count three fire stations in in in Council District three. Okay. And District five, we have station five, 16, 18 and 19, Station 16 to the airport. So that's not available for medical emergencies. Station 18 is without a fire engine. So if you those two districts, one third of their fire stations do not have a fire engine. The fourth district has one fire station and it is without a fire engine. So 100% of the fire stations in the fourth District are without a fire engine. Sorry for the long explanation, but the very first question I will be ask is do we get our engine company back in Station 17? And I think your answer is the definitive no.
Speaker 11: Councilmember We would go back and revisit the data that we use to put together our restoration list that we sent to the Council last year. But I will tell you, with regard to Engine 18, it's a definitive no, not not right now. I mean, if we were to have dollars to restore things today, we would follow our restoration list that we sent to council before and we would go right down the list. And Engine 18 doesn't come in until until we restore three additional engines or at least two additional engines ahead of it.
Speaker 10: Okay.
Speaker 11: And then for engine 17, I'm sorry, I said engine 18, Engine 17.
Speaker 10: Right. And Station 17 is central to the Fort Dix. Not only is it our only fire station is central to the fourth district. So it covers the maximum amount of area in the fourth council district. Okay. Thank you, Chief.
Speaker 0: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Councilwoman.
Speaker 0: Councilman, Mongo.
Speaker 5: Thank you. I want to thank the staff for putting this together. I know that this was requested back when I was a part of the Public Safety Committee. And I, too, want to thank everyone for the hard work put in, because none of us want to see any more cuts to our fire department. And most importantly, as our medical calls for service are growing in their percentages. And we really need to have police and fire on hand to be able to respond. And our fire department is critical to that. My colleagues did an excellent job in outlining some of the things. I totally disagree that we are probably the best fire department in the country, not just the state, but just a small part. And thank you for Daryl, for asking the question related to our property owners, because I know that that's a big concern. With regard to our visitors and our recovery process on costs, a lot of the visitors that come into the city are here for events and such. And should those visitors. Receipt or if the calls are made by our hotel staff. How would that work?
Speaker 11: Well, Councilmember, we would we would approach that the same way, would approach any medical call for service. We we would obviously go to the scene and ask the patient whether or not they needed our assistance. If the patient were to decline and say, no, I don't need any assistance from you, there would be no fee assessed there . But if the patient did have a medical emergency, they were assessed. We did a medical report form part of that medical report form part of our our new system will be to collect insurance information. So that way we can assist financial management in getting the bill to the insurer. And so we would approach it the same way we would approach it. Every patient we respond on in the city gets approached will approach them the same way, whether they're resident visitor business.
Speaker 5: Whatever. And do you foresee any challenges with patients that are coming from other providers over state lines?
Speaker 11: Councilmember. I think that happens today where, you know, periodically we'll have conventioneers or somebody who's in town that has a medical emergency. They get transported to a hospital. I'm not familiar with any unique challenges associated with that. I mean, there may be that doesn't I'm just not familiar with any unique challenges there. We would still gather the same type of information to the best of our ability and and share that with financial management. And they would do their billing, I assume, the same way they always do.
Speaker 5: Well, thank you very much.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Councilmember Andrews.
Speaker 10: Yes, thank you, Mayor. You know, I really want to thank everyone on the diocese who really use some very thorough, you know, questions. And I want to thank you, cheap and also your staff, because the thing I really want to know about was the hardship program. And I think you explain that very, very well. So I really am in motion to agree with Mr. Ricks dealing with Rex. I will second that motion and go along with it, because I think you covered it very well. Thank you, sir.
Speaker 0: Thank you. And lastly, Vice Mayor Lowenthal thought will go to a vote with within public comment, obviously, as well.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I also wanted to thank staff for their work. I know it's very difficult to have this conversation about fee for service when we regard the service that we provide in the city of Long Beach to be all inclusive, especially emergency services. But I feel comfortable and confident that we have a compelling argument for not only protecting those that may not be able to pay, but also be sure that our our department can run and provide continue to provide the services that they do. Just a couple of brief questions. I know they may have been answered, at least in our conversations during our briefings, but when we talk about insurance coverage, I know Councilwoman Gonzalez had mentioned that there may be a limit on some people's insurance coverage. So I will lean into the mike. Is there a cap that you that you're aware of on the basic coverage that people have, not the premium coverage necessarily, but those that might be on Obamacare, for instance, or any other basic level of coverage? Is it one two per year that someone can have a reimbursable call for service?
Speaker 11: Council Member I'm not aware of any cap on calls for service. I mean, I think if, if you can as a patient, if you're transported to the hospital and you demonstrate a medical necessity, I believe the insurance pays the fee.
Speaker 3: But sometimes it can be an arduous battle, correct, between the insured and the insurer.
Speaker 11: I don't know the answer to that. Quite possibly, but I don't know the answer to that for sure.
Speaker 3: And I think we've heard from residents who do find that to be the case. But but still, I don't feel that your policy recommendation, or at least the recommendation for council to take action is is an onerous one. The hardship exemption. I, too, am interested in that. I know that our city would not would not place this kind of a burden on those in need. And so I have seen us do that in nearly the last ten years that I have been working with our city team. And so I think you'll find a way to ensure that those in need will continue to receive service. And I appreciate your comments earlier about this not being a barrier to service. I think that's that's what I take away from your description. It's not intended to be a barrier for those who need the service and have to call. And just as anyone rendering medical services, whether it's at the hospital or on the at the street level, you would not deny service. And that is not a a benchmark to reach prior to receiving service. And if I can feel assured that that is always the case here, then I'm in support of those. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Any public comment on the item? Please come forward. Please come forward.
Speaker 2: Very good you, Kirk, as the address. I'm glad I heard you.
Speaker 0: Just. Just the three rights I'm going to suggest. The three come forward. Look, go ahead, Mr. Goodhue.
Speaker 2: I'm glad the council said that you're open to looking at options. I think one of the options we have to examine and seriously consider. In terms of reducing our overall budget. Yes, we go back to work. What works so well for so many years? And not have a paid full time mayor and the staff that goes with it, period. One of the most ridiculous things that I saw in this outage over the weekend or last week. If we had a mayor. Out in the street with a podium and his and the seal of the city with a flight. You know, obviously, he's got a staff to do that. That's absurd. And that's an embarrassment to this city, period. There is nothing you know, you don't need a podium. You don't need a doctor in front of your name. Or if you do, you're in trouble. So I would suggest let's since we're not going to be getting any money this year, hold off. We will have that seismic change in management structure, both electric and otherwise, by mid-November period. And at that time, you can make we can make the decision. And hopefully I think you'll make the right decision as going back to what worked so well for so long. And have a part time mayor. There is selected. If not by the people, by the council, instead of a political hack using it for to build a political career which is devastating to this city or any city. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you, period. Please come forward and be speaker.
Speaker 2: Good evening. My name is Jack Smith. I live at 50 Elm Avenue. That's in the East Village in the second district. Attacks as attacks as attacks. You can call it a fee, if you like, about this insurance coverage. There's never been the mention tonight about the word deductible. Insurance will cover it, maybe. But you pay your deductible first and that's cash out of your pocket. So if your deductible happens to be if you're really, really got good coverage at 250 bucks, you pay that 250 bucks. If your deductible happens to be which one, a lot of people who have their own private insurance is as much as five $6,000. That fee comes out of your pocket. So it's not covered by insurance. It's covered by insurance after the deductible has been satisfied. The issue of does it delay call? Well, let me tell you about my own experience. I unfortunately had to avail myself of the services of our fire department and paramedics. And they did a great job and they cost a lot of money. When I had a serious injury here in the city a few years ago, I did not call the paramedics and refused for anybody else to call the paramedics because I knew it was going to cost me a lot of money out of my pocket because of my deductible. At that time, I heard 1100 dollars. I think the bill I got was about $600. Thank goodness. In that situation, I had a friend with me who was able to transport me to the hospital. The hardship process is cumbersome. I've been through that. It is a lot of paperwork. It is a lot of time. You reveal that stuff to yourself, to city staff that maybe you don't care to reveal. He says it's your choice, but there's a form there that gives you a list of everything you have to provide. And then it goes through the process. And my question would be, how much does that process cost? City attorneys involved. I would imagine it cost a significant amount. A question I would have with this, too, is does it if you don't pay, does it get turned over to collections? That has to come up tonight. Collection agencies are very nasty to deal with. Given all the questions and comments and suggestions that have come up tonight, my suggestion would be that you should table this for now, get those answers that you asked for earlier in this discussion and bring this back at a later time in the 30 days, if that's the time frame and make your decision at that point. Thanks.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker, please. Final speaker.
Speaker 2: Good evening. Thank you to the fire chief for the proposal and the Council for your wonderful questions. I just had a suggestion you might consider. It seems like you're adding $1.6 million to the general fund. It seems like your comments were that over the years, the efficiency of the system has changed such that you're responding 85% to medical calls. And I would just suggest that you might consider using some of that generated revenue to move the force in a direction that's more ready to respond to its its needs and invested in more ambulances for the city. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. So with that, we're going to Vice Mayor Lowenthal and we're going to go to work.
Speaker 3: Since it's been such a long discussion, can we restate the motion as well as the the part that is apart from the motion for the information coming back to us?
Speaker 0: Absolutely, Mr. Mason.
Speaker 12: Mayor, members of the city council, as I understand the motion, it is to approve the resolution adopting the fee and also request that the city manager come back with a report within 30 days providing more detail in regard to the fee waiver and also provide information about a program that has been referred to as either an opt in or opt out fee program. Thank you. Subscription fee.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Members, please cast your votes.
Speaker 1: Motion carries eight one.
Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you.
Speaker 2: No. But yes. Okay.
Speaker 0: Okay. Next up is we're gonna go back to public comment. And so we have Larry Goodhew, David Zink and Mr. Cromwell. Please come forward.
Speaker 2: Larry, could you if you can hold the cloud until we get a if I've got a transparency up there for the edification of the. Council members that have not seen it behind you or what you see here is the marine stadium to s which was nefariously raised about a year ago. This structure that you see is a repurposed structure, much needed, but was raised as a result of a criminal ruse that has the mayor's DNA all over it. And one of the things that has captured the attention of the Department of Justice. Is that the. Number of ring tones relative to this water fireside facility is remarkable, remarkably similar to a number of ringtones on a waterside facility 3000 miles to the east that sat on the Potomac. And which. In the year and 42 years ago. Engendered that 1011 word phrase by the late. Howard Baker. That forever changed the paradigm through which. Officers of the court and the Justice Department look at things. And I think you will find. That when they examine very closely. Their criminal roots and the DNA. Of Robert Garcia, who was then. Vice mayor. Coastal Commission member. You will find them looking and asking the same question that was posed by Howard Baker. The end result will be by November. Give or take a week or so, we will have that paradigm shift in management. Both on the 13th floor and the 14th floor. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Mr. Goodhue. And I'm wondering if Mr. Zinke is here. David Zinke. Okay. If I might call Mr. Cromwell. Thank you.
Speaker 5: Thank you. For those of you who had your support that was self-initiated, that was not accompanied by the CFO conversation. So I would like to thank you for that support. First, I would like to know who will be held accountable. Amy Burdick wanted code enforcement in regards to the retaliatory illegal eviction. Want a code enforcement to kind of inspect our union? I did oblige her, and she said we'd take it from there. Code enforcement came out. They did discover 14 violations, many of which existed prior to my initial tenancy. Uh, that have yet to be remedied. Uh, they came out. Nothing has been done since. I have zero follow up from Amy Burdick. Since then, the landlord has locked us out of the unit, locked our cats and our turtle in the unit, boarded up the windows, shut the electricity off. The food in my fridge was probably spoiled. I don't know what the litter box is doing. It's disgusting. It's illegal. So where am I in mind you that in the retired formulation I just rendered to them 60 $500? I tried to put a bid on one of the Parsons parcels that you mentioned today. So my question again remains, why did Amy have code enforcement come out? I never called code enforcement to. I know the fines are minimal and I would call in years ago. I did it to oblige her and in return just had empty promises. Second, Mr. Mike Conway on. June 23rd assured me that the partnership with her strong Community Foundation Corp. the owners of the complex, they would contact the attorney and stop the eviction. Now, Mr. Mike Conway approached myself. In that room, in the hallway. Making these false promises and saying that he had a meeting to attend to the next day. And I have not heard anything from him since. Not once a little thing. June 2nd, City Council commented that they care about the tenants and retaliation and I would like them to prove it. There's no reason why we should not be placed back into our unit. We did absolutely nothing wrong. I should be able to go home tonight. Apologize to my cat. Apologize to the turtle. Clean the litter box. Clean the turtle cage and whatever else is going on inside of that unit. We did have food cooking as well. I was told it in regards to all of these events that it sounds bizarre. And that may be to some. However, Long Beach is no stranger to the misappropriation of funds at all. This is a fact. We did nothing wrong. Now the impact of the scope of this apartment complex owner.
Speaker 0: Thank you, ma'am.
Speaker 2: In Long Beach.
Speaker 0: Thank you. I have to wrap up. Time is up. Okay. Thank you very much. Do you have the rest of the speakers list, vice mayor?
Speaker 3: Yes, I do. Thank you, Robert Jackson. Lawrence Weathers. Georgie Rivera. I don't believe they're here, sir.
Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you. So we will move on now. Moving on from public comment, we do have I'm moving a couple items up because there's there's folks here. So I'm going to be moving at 1035 to the top of the regular agenda, which is going to be. Which is which is which is here. So 35 will get moved up if there's other requests of the council can come. Give it to me right now let's do consent calendar minus item four. Can you get a motion, please? | Resolution | Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record, conclude the public hearing, and adopt resolution amending the Master Fee and Charges Schedule by adopting the Fire First Responder Fee. (Citywide) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_07212015_15-0720 | Speaker 1: Communication from Councilman Austin. Recommendation to adopt a minute order declaring a moratorium against the issuance of permits for the construction of new homes or additions. More than 1500 square feet and the r1l zone and request development services and the Planning Commission to review the development standards.
Speaker 0: He counsel for Austin.
Speaker 9: Yes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Several months ago, many residents of the Lower Cerritos neighborhood approached my office with concerns about the possibility of changes to the district character. Distinct character of the neighborhood. The Yellow Cerritos neighborhood north of Bixby Road is the only area in the city that has the r1l zoning designation because of the large lot sizes. Many of the homes in the neighborhood are marked by spacious yards and set backs of the homes away, away from the sidewalk and street. However, the development standards in place for this zone do not do enough to protect the character of the neighborhood. It is timely now because of the maturing of the neighborhood. We are seeing a transition in ownership and more homes for sale than in recent times. A community of neighbors. I actually did their homework researching the history of the building permits in the neighborhood and surveying what other cities and similar zoning have done to address this issue . They work with my office in developing a recommendation that will place a moratorium and allow our development services staff to work with the neighborhood to develop new standards that would ensure the protections for this zone. The moratorium would not limit homeowners owners from doing any improvements on their property. It only applies to the construction of new homes or the addition of more than 1500 square feet to an existing house. When you think about it, 1500 square feet is about the average size of most homes in most neighborhoods in our city. Anything less than that? And a homeowner can still get permits under the existing standards. Other cities, including Arcadia, Pasadena and Los Angeles, have taken similar approaches, and the neighbors have worked hard to inform and involve the entire neighborhood affected by this recommended action. More than 250 residents have signed a petition in support of tonight's recommended action. I ask you, my colleagues, to support this motion. It only affects this one neighborhood in eighth District and allows the residents to work with our planning staff to review and improve the zoning standards in the very near future. So with that, I would ask for your support on this matter. And I know there are some residents here to speak on it.
Speaker 0: If there's a motion any second on that comes from Iran, could you have any comment on the government? Okay. So what's the public comment of vice mayor, which after a public comment, please come forward. I have three speakers on this item. There's four speakers on this item. Please come forward. If you're going to speak, please line up then when we have a long night. I'm trying to abbreviate and know how, but what's the length of each comment here? So please, please begin.
Speaker 5: Esteemed mayor and council members. My name is Stacey McDaniel. I live at 4110 Cedar Avenue in the low risk district. There is an urgent need to enact this temporary and limited moratorium to preserve the character and livability of our neighborhood caused by an unprecedented number of homes for sale in the neighborhood. The action only applies to about 600 homes in the R-1 L zoning area, all of which are completely within the eighth District. And over 300 of our neighbors have signed a petition supporting both this moratorium and more zoning restrictions. This request is not about any particular family or home or street. It's about preserving the character of our neighborhood. When we say preserve the character of our neighborhood, what are we really talking about? We want to preserve the spacious feel of the lost Tahrir Square. The homes are appropriately scaled to maximize yard areas, preserve heritage trees and provide adequate light and airspace surrounding homes on their lot. Our current zoning zoning restrictions do not do this. For example, under the limited restrictions we now have given the size of the lots in our zoning area, a 12,000 square foot home could be built on a 20,000 square foot lot. And if that lot was on a corner, one side of that home could be built to within six feet of the sidewalk. There are two homes in this area that are currently on the market that fall exactly within those parameters. In fact, one of those homes could legally be subdivided. Rather, the lot could be in two separate 7200 square foot homes could be built on those two lots. We carefully researched what other comparable Southland cities were doing, and our city does not have many of the protections other cities used to prevent mega mansions and preserve gracious neighborhoods . In the last ten years, 75% of the remodeling requests in our area have been to only add between 501,000 square feet. This moratorium would only apply to additions greater than 1500 square feet. Please help us preserve the jewel that slow, storied us. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, Samir. Council members. Staff. My name is Freddy Carolus. I represent a resident of Los Rita's neighborhood. First off, my client is not opposed to the trend of stopping.
Speaker 2: The mega-mansion in.
Speaker 0: The mega-mansion development in this area. Is opposing.
Speaker 2: To how its it is.
Speaker 0: Suggested on imposing the moratorium or immediate moratorium on construction. It's in its current form. The suggested moratorium will negatively impact several aspects of the real estate. Development business and the construction industry. There are other measures that could be properly affected, properly imposed, such as the stopping of the mergers and verifying if the reduction of the FFR goes from 60% to 50%.
Speaker 2: The approval of the suggested immediate.
Speaker 0: Moratorium.
Speaker 2: Will.
Speaker 0: Affect the following items. Current projects that are in the planning.
Speaker 2: Development stage.
Speaker 0: That have been through the planning department for several months have been reviewed and approved.
Speaker 2: On phases and are close to acquiring.
Speaker 0: A permit for construction. My client has been in the planning department for almost three months, has been working very hard with the planning department. Officials met all the requirements.
Speaker 2: And is.
Speaker 0: Short of a future meeting of next Thursday for final review and approval and potential permit application. My client has been has invested.
Speaker 2: A large amount of money in.
Speaker 0: Acquiring the services of the professional architect.
Speaker 2: And this architect is specialized.
Speaker 0: In high end.
Speaker 2: Development to just make sure.
Speaker 0: That the character of his new business model is going to is going to be okay with the character of the neighborhood. Having said that.
Speaker 2: My client has never been properly notified of such a petition being in the works. Had he had been properly notified, he would have stopped this much investment in such a model.
Speaker 0: Thank you very much. Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 4: Hello.
Speaker 1: My name is Karen Miller.
Speaker 4: I have lived at.
Speaker 1: 3833 Pine Avenue since 1998.
Speaker 3: And have been selling real estate in the area for the last 11 years.
Speaker 1: My concern with the mansion ization is the lowering of.
Speaker 3: The property values.
Speaker 1: In our area. Please consider the homes that have been there for about.
Speaker 3: 80 years and a mansion is built next door. The current residents lose privacy in their backyards. They use loose natural light in their.
Speaker 1: Homes, in their.
Speaker 3: Backyards, and their views are obstructed.
Speaker 5: When these people.
Speaker 3: Go to sell their house as houses.
Speaker 1: Many of them have been there for about 80 years. Suddenly, next to the mansion, it's considered small and dark.
Speaker 3: And will sell for much lower property value than other comparable homes in the neighborhood. For these reasons, we say that.
Speaker 1: This mansion zation, along with lowering.
Speaker 3: Our property values, it's caused dissension among the residents.
Speaker 1: Which is why we're asking you tonight to.
Speaker 3: Please help us stop this.
Speaker 1: Happening in our neighborhood.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 2: Look, I'm. I'm a little confused by the speaker mentioning that by raising the general neighborhood, you would thereby impact property values negatively. But let's just put all that aside. If I wanted to change something in my house, I would have to apply for a variance and then I would have to put a public notice. That's not the measure that's being put forward here tonight. You are now coming in and saying immediately, we must stop all new construction. I happen to live across from a home that is, quite frankly, an eyesore. It's probably 80 years old. I know that somebody purchased the house. They planned to knock it down and built something new, nice and esthetically pleasing. This moratorium would effectively quash that immediately. I also want to point out that I used to live at 4256 Country Drive, which is the house is well over eight years old and it's over 6000 feet. Its next door neighbor, also a relatively old house. Also over 6000 square feet. So I don't understand what exactly is being proposed here. And then on one final note that I would like to make is that a wise person once told me that there is no such no thing, so permanent as a temporary government action. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 2: Mayors, City Council members.
Speaker 9: Kevin Case I've lived in the eighth and in Los Cerritos for over 25 years. I support what's in front of you. It's a.
Speaker 2: Temporary moratorium, but it really.
Speaker 9: Is an.
Speaker 2: Opportunity to give everyone a chance to take a breath.
Speaker 9: Step back and.
Speaker 2: Look at how we're going forward. A lot of the zoning standards don't really work well in our neighborhood.
Speaker 6: And we're asking for the opportunity to work with people on the standards.
Speaker 9: And try to get something better. And it's not all about big houses.
Speaker 2: A lot of the lots have been subdivided.
Speaker 9: They've gotten pretty tiny over the years and you can put a really huge house. And again, it gets into what some of the other people have said where.
Speaker 2: They're very close together, they're very tall.
Speaker 9: And it just.
Speaker 2: Disrupts the openness.
Speaker 6: And the look and feel of the.
Speaker 9: Neighborhood. So what all those people that have signed, I guess it isn't a petition, but they're noting that they are in favor of a second look or another look in more detail at some of these.
Speaker 2: Zoning standards.
Speaker 9: And trying to get something in place for our little pocket of homes.
Speaker 2: There. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Speaker, please. This is our last speaker. And we're going to we're going to vote.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Mr. Austin, and your staff, for the work that you've done in bringing this forward. The goal here is to give city staff a toolbox to use to develop and maintain the unique character of the law street as neighbors associate Las Vegas Neighborhood. In the past, there are 15 or 20 years. There have been a number of loopholes that have come up where it's it's changed the character. We have three streets coming in Bixby, San Antonio, Roosevelt and some people have changed the direction of their front yards and it's and allowed them to turn a different direction, which again, allows instead of a large setback, not only having a six foot step setback that can affect the ingress and egress out of the area, causing, you know, the character to change. And these setbacks are what what what make it unique and actually benefit the neighborhood for everybody. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you. Public comment has now closed. Vice Mayor Lowenthal.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I don't know if the city manager has someone from planning to answer this question, but in the report it indicated that Council District eight may be the only district that has this circumstance or not circumstance, but the r1l zone.
Speaker 2: Angela Reynolds.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Angela.
Speaker 2: So sorry.
Speaker 12: City Attorney Vice Mayor Lowenthal. I checked with planning staff on that and they indicated to me that, in fact, the eighth district is the only place in the city that does have this unique r-1 one l zoning designation.
Speaker 3: And I see all the compelling reasons why we should definitely support this. And out of curiosity. Were there others with those designations and we had eliminated them or this was always the only one with this designation? I'm just curious how this comes about in one particular district. What is the nature of that district that compels a planning team and a policy body to do something like that?
Speaker 5: Councilwoman. The question was, is this was. Were there other one else zones in the city.
Speaker 3: That we had.
Speaker 5: To leave? So that's our one one house. L for large, for the larger lots.
Speaker 3: Any thoughts on how this policy came about?
Speaker 5: Yeah. Well, you know, the city and how how it developed over time. That area has much larger lots than most any other part of the city. So that's why they had their own specific zoning.
Speaker 3: Okay. And then I wanted to know from the maker of the motion, how long is the moratorium for? Typically when we do moratoriums, we have a time certain.
Speaker 9: You know, I kind of left that open ended because I recognize that that staff in talking to the staff and preparing this that it would take several months to to to be able to go through a process that would engage the community and development services staff. So I think that question might be best for Councilman Austin.
Speaker 12: Generally speaking, with the moratorium on land use, what we do is we craft into the ordinance itself because we will have to bring back a formal ordinance, three meetings from now. And that ordinance typically would have a one year moratorium period. But there is a provision in there that the moratorium goes away if the planning commission and the City Council adopts new regulations prior to that time. So there's an incentive for staff to bring it back, but it also gives them flexibility as to when it comes back.
Speaker 3: I appreciate that. And I'm very supportive of measures like this that support neighborhood character preservation. And my questions really just were from being personally stunned that this exists. I thought really it was the second district that had all of the bad planning measures that were implemented. So it was an equal opportunity. I mean, you know how we look with our parking status. So I'm disappointed, but I'm glad we're able to rectify it, hopefully rectify it going forward. So thank you.
Speaker 6: Canterbury Ranga Yeah, you actually one of my questions in regards to the length of the moratorium. So just to get the fair idea as to when it takes effect that we will vote on this tonight, will take effect tonight or will it take effect when it comes back to us as a as a as a ordinance.
Speaker 12: The way moratoriums work, you are actually adopting the minute order that was proposed by the councilman for the eighth District. So it does take effect this evening. It is formalized 3 minutes from now when we bring back an ordinance, one thing that we typically ask for clarification of and sometimes it's not easy to know the first night it comes is what happens to projects that may be in somewhere in a pipeline. In other words, someone mentioned that they had, or at least in the planning process, typically you are not vested to move forward with the project until you have an actual building permit in hand. In the past, sometimes council has chosen to exempt people that aren't quite that far but are somewhere in the process. But typically most councils that do that would want to know how many are somewhere in the pipeline, how many that would affect, what the nature of that particular construction or constructions were. So we can address that when we bring the ordinance back. But you may not be able to adopt the ordinance the first evening if you want to later exempt people that are somehow reasonably in the pipeline. Otherwise it would apply to anyone that does not have a permit in their hand as of this evening.
Speaker 6: And that's my concern. I know there's an investment that's been made by some people, although I support I support the ordinance, no question. However, I am concerned that people have already made an investment in going to planning and trying to get a permit. And I just want to make sure that it's fair to them that they get property noticed and know exactly what's happening. So. Do I need to make a friendly amendment to this to to maybe give it a 45 day extension before it takes effect in order to in order to address those issues for those applicants?
Speaker 12: Well, what what typically happens if you give it an additional 40 day, 45 days or any period of time, it does alert people and sometimes that generates folks to get in the pipeline and actually spurs the type of development that you're trying to put the brakes on while you formulate new regulations. When we've done pipeline type situations before, we have exempted folks that, for instance, have don't have a permit in hand, but prior to the night you adopt the moratorium, had submitted an application and the planning department has deemed that application complete. But they are still in the process, for instance, because they are still going through planned check and you know, back and forth between the architects and the planners and no actual building permit has been issued. So that's an option. I'm not suggesting that you do that, but that isn't an option.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well, I guess my concern is those that are already there as of today. Do we have a number of applicants? We have a number of advocates who are already there. That would be, I guess, exempt because they weren't properly notified of this possible moratorium.
Speaker 0: Mr.. Reynolds. I think the. From what I understand, there are none that have actually received the building permit per se, but there may be some that are in the process of trying to get to that place of the permit. I also, from what I understand and correct if I'm wrong, Councilman Austin, but this motion as presented is with no exceptions, is just to have the minute order begin tonight, regardless of where they are in the process, in that process. Isn't that correct?
Speaker 9: That is.
Speaker 0: Unless they have a building permit in hand. This would this would stop that process.
Speaker 9: Well, the building permit and what the city attorney. Correct. Is a little different.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Mr. Reynolds, can you can you can you add. Do we know if there's a group of folks who answered to answer? CUSTOMER Your Angus question and customer assistance question.
Speaker 5: Mayor, I'd have to actually get that information to at a different time. I don't know how many are in the planning process. I know it's very few, but I can't tell you exactly how many. Like maybe one or two.
Speaker 2: And I don't know.
Speaker 5: If they've gone to plan check yet or not.
Speaker 0: We don't know if the one or two either have their building permit or not because isn't isn't that the.
Speaker 5: That's.
Speaker 12: Well, if they do have a building permit, this would not apply but will.
Speaker 0: Not apply to them if they don't have the building permit. This would.
Speaker 2: Apply that this would apply in order.
Speaker 5: To get the building permit, you have to go through basically the whole planning process and the and the building plan check and it's at the end you get the building.
Speaker 2: Permit.
Speaker 0: So I think that's the clear indicator.
Speaker 9: Councilmember So, so I just want to get some clarification because I heard two different things I heard. I mean, and the mayor's kind of focused on permit. Mr. Mayes you you made reference to in the planning process, and that means they're in the planning process. There has been some sort of engagement with development services that. Correct.
Speaker 12: Typically what that means is that someone has submitted an application to start a project, but they are and the planning staff has deemed the application complete, but they have not yet been issued a permit because what usually happens is there's a back and forth with the larger house between an architect and the planning staff to make sure everything is being designed correctly. So Ms.. Reynolds indicated there may be one or two that are in the process somewhere in they've submitted an application. The application has been deemed complete, but they haven't actually got the permit in their hands.
Speaker 9: What I the intent of my my motion was obviously neighborhood preservation. And, you know, I don't want to to to hurt any of any of my residents who or anybody that that may be in the process as well. But I want I want this to start this evening. But if I could amend the intent of the motion to if to exempt anybody that has any any applications in the planning process so that nobody is losing their their investment, so to speak, and then we can move from this day forward.
Speaker 12: So if I can suggest an amendment to your motion that would be to adopt the minute order and direct the city attorney's office to bring back an ordinance that reflects the minute order, but exempts anyone who lives with in the r1l zone that has a completed application on file that has been deemed complete by the Planning Department as of July 21st, which is this evening.
Speaker 0: So moved that the motions are on the floor. Please cast your votes.
Speaker 1: Motion carries nine zero.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next up is Adam, 35. | Agenda Item | Recommendation to adopt a minute order declaring a moratorium against the issuance of any permits for the construction of any new homes or additions of more than 1,500 square feet to existing homes in the R-1-L zone; and direct City Manager to have the Department of Development Services and the Planning Commission review the development standards for the R-1-L zone and make recommendations to the City Council. | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_07212015_15-0730 | Speaker 1: Communication from Councilwoman Mango Councilman Price and Council Member Super Nnuh recommendation to work with the Long Beach Unified School District to address ongoing parking and traffic issues at Long Beach schools impacting local residents and neighborhoods.
Speaker 0: Before we go there, too, I also I think there's there's folks here for item 34. I know we haven't had any requests to move that up yet, but I'm going to move that up after. We're going to do we're going to do 235, then we're going to do 21 and then we're going to do will move up 34 after 21. So next up is 35.
Speaker 5: Yes. I'm excited to bring forward an item tonight where we can strengthen strengthen the partnerships between our Long Beach Unified School District and our neighborhoods in addressing some of the traffic concerns that have come up through the years. Several of our schools have needed to make changes to adapt to the changing environment of our students. Some places where we used to have junior highs, we now have high schools, and some places where we used to have bussing. We now have neighborhood schools. And so there used to be a committee that would work on these types of things with our neighborhoods. And I feel that the time has come to work hard to put citizens back in touch with the school district through our our city process to ensure that we have a safe place for children to go to and from school and to get in and out of the cars and to ensure that when we get in and out of our cars were being safe and that we're not putting any of our children at risk.
Speaker 0: Okay. So you're making the motion as presented in this item, correct?
Speaker 5: Yes. I'm expecting some friendly amendment.
Speaker 0: Okay. Councilwoman Price making a second to that Councilman Price.
Speaker 8: Thank you. Is someone else going to make the friendly or should I go ahead. What did you want to make me?
Speaker 5: Go ahead.
Speaker 8: I'd like to make a friendly amendment that we reactivate the joint.
Speaker 3: Powers Task Force was the committee called. Joint Use.
Speaker 8: Joint Use. Joint Use Committee. I apologize. Sorry about that. I would make or recommend I would make a friendly that we reactivate that committee to allow the partnerships to continue.
Speaker 5: I think that would be great.
Speaker 8: Okay. In regards to this item, I want to thank Council Woman Mango for bringing it forward. I do want to say that our office works very closely with Long Beach Unified. We attempt to and they have been very receptive to our office in terms of working with us, coming up with solutions. And I say that knowing that there are some constituents in the audience here today who have not liked some of the recommendations that Long Beach Unified has made. And just within the last few days, some of the recommendations that we've made to support Long Beach Unified in terms of some of those recommendations. But I view our partnership with Long Beach Unified to be a very positive one in terms of our council office, and that's all I can speak for. And so my hope with this item is that we can continue to work in partnership as we have been through a more formalized setting, which is such as the Joint Use Committee. So I want to thank you for bringing this forward. And I think this is a conversation that it's appropriate to have. But again, I think that the partnerships are very well in place, and I hope that they continue to move in a positive direction. Thanks.
Speaker 0: So just to be clear, the the motion on the floor is to bring these items forward to the already established Joint Use Committee. Is that is that right? Yes. Reactivate. Okay. And just as we're clear, the joint use committee members are appointed. The council members are appointed by the mayor, I believe, and the district then appoints district members to the Joint Use Committee as well. There's a make up of that already set to well, we'll go through that process. Council Member Austin.
Speaker 9: So I'd like to volunteer first to be on the Joint Use Committee, Mr. Mayor.
Speaker 0: We'll see about that.
Speaker 9: And and I'd just like to say, you know, parking and traffic issues around every school, I think in every neighborhood in the district is is a concern. We all certainly hear about them. I have been working very closely with our school board representative, Megan Kerr, who's been a great, excellent partner to to raise these concerns with and to, you know, kind of put our heads together and strategize on solutions in and around in the neighborhoods where we have school, school issues and traffic in our community. And so that's it. I'm looking forward to this issue, going to the Joint Use Committee and, and building that, that sound partnership or improving upon our partnership with the school district to address concerns and what we have. I'll just say this where we have active PTA is I can't go can't can't not commend the PTA that that are that are out there doing the valet parking situations and have great volunteers. We have active participation, parental peers of participation at our schools. These issues are much easier to to to address. So I just wanted to make those comments. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Councilor Richardson.
Speaker 7: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Councilmember Mongo, for for beginning this conversation. I just want to chime in and say that, um, just over the last five years, I've been, you know, working here in the city of Long Beach. We've, we've worked hard at the relationship not only with the district, but with the schools. The ninth District obviously is home to Jordan High School. And there's no I guess the point I want to say is there's no way to legislate good relations. It takes hard work to go out, meet the principals when there's a new principal, meet that principal and have conversations about the community's concerns and local solutions to those concerns. I've seen how we've placed things on the city council agenda, and it's actually diminished some somehow some of our relationships that we might have. And what what I'd like to see and don't use is great, but I think I've seen better results when you can pick up the phone, call your principal or your school board member and work out a solution with your neighborhood association and maybe parent groups. So so I'm going to I'm going to support this tonight, but I would just encourage us to have a more informal, less legislative relationship and more informal personal relationship to work out some of these issues. And those are just my thoughts on this.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Councilman Ringwood.
Speaker 6: I want to echo Councilmember Richardson's comments. I think that it's a good thing that we reestablished. Just I want to thank Councilmember Price for making the First Amendment, because I think that's the appropriate way to to be able to deal with this. I want to also thank, um. Chairwoman. President. President Carter, I guess. I'm sorry, Adam.
Speaker 5: Diana Craighead. Diana. Diana.
Speaker 6: Right outside. I was just at your board meeting yesterday, and I was making comments here. But welcome to our two hour council meeting here. Sorry to keep you so late, but looking forward to having the grow that relationship because it's a relationship that needs to be established or reestablished and grown. So thank you very much for being here.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilwoman Gonzalez.
Speaker 1: I just want to say I'm glad that we had the friendly because I think that's certainly a more appropriate avenue for us to tackle these issues. And we, you know, in the First District, we have a variety of different schools with the same issues. And I know we've often contacted our principals directly to ensure that we're just engaging in a conversation about that. But I have a question for city staff. I know this is sort of related and I know Council member Austin brought this forward some time ago and I'm not sure when it will be back. Is the crossing guard item it was. When do we expect that back? Because this is some, you know, some somewhat related as well.
Speaker 2: Are a million will respond to that. He's running the peace committee.
Speaker 9: Honorable mayor, honorable council members. Councilmember Gonzalez, thank you for asking that question. We have finally reenacted the pedestrian safety committee. We have full membership now from all council districts. And unfortunately, our second meeting was supposed to happen on Thursday last week. And due to the blackout, we canceled and will postpone that meeting. But the meetings are moving forward and we will report back after we had our second meeting. The first meeting was just to establish rules and regulations, identify what needs to occur. And in this meeting, we're going to discuss specific intersections that need to be addressed. And we will reschedule it within the next couple of weeks. We have to find the most appropriate time for the participants because we had already notify them. We will have three meetings in this fiscal year. We buy by charter. We are supposed to have two. We will have three to make up what has happened in the past, but will definitely come back when we have the second meeting.
Speaker 1: Wonderful. And I want to thank you. And I think some of the concerns may be addressed through that committee. I see maybe some crossover in that. And then lastly, I just want to thank President Craighead and School by school board member Megan Kerr just for your continued work with the city. And I just saw you yesterday as well, so we're certainly there and we go back and forth with discussions. So thank you for being here.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilmember Super.
Speaker 10: Thank you. I also wanted to echo Councilmember Richardson's comments about just the neighborhood coalitions. A couple of years ago, we had tremendous impact set back from school and neighbors got together. And again, all mentioned board member Craighead. She showed up at one of those meetings, I think it was two years ago. I remember it was that triple digit day. That's that's the biggest part. I remember it's about 103 degrees in a elementary school cafeteria. But the school board and the school district came through and actually put a parking lot on the school grounds, which I thought was pretty amazing. Also, speaking of crossing guards, don't forget to use them for intel. We get our best intel. I'll mention Deborah Willard, who contacts her office and gives us a lot of good information about traffic concerns. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilor Andrews.
Speaker 10: You know. Yes, Mayor. You know, I really want to thank everyone for being a part of this, because being in the educational field, I think it's extremely important that we do strengthen our partnership with the language Unified School District, you know, to address this issue at the schools, this traffic issue. You know, my office has struggle with Lafayette School days for many years. And even after I've had to park inside, I had to change and a one way street added for certain hours. But hopefully this item will bring new insight to to the reoccurrence of issues that might that the neighbors have had faced in doing this year . So I'm really hoping that this will bring some more help with our neighbors and with the school district so we can get this issue taken care of. And thank you again for being here.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilwoman Mongo.
Speaker 5: I just wanted to address some of the comments that were made. First and foremost, the quality of life for our residents and our citizens and our our students is of utmost importance. And the informal process is in place. There are lots of neighborhood associations that already have meetings and work with our neighborhood principals and work with our PTA presidents and sitting in this seat. There's an advantage to being able to see that there are certain things that work really well at certain schools that can be shared. And while it's great for our school board members and ourselves to make those those correlations for our community, it's also really a powerful thing to have that open forum and this more formalized committee for some of the issues, as Councilwoman Pryce mentioned, related to how sometimes the recommendations that we put forward aren't always the recommendations that the community feels are best for them. And so just having this additional process, I think, will strengthen the informal process that we've had in place for a very long time. Several times during my my leadership as the neighborhood association president, we invited our school board member to our community meetings. And Diana has already been to a community meeting in a neighborhood adjacent to a new school that's changing. And so these are great things, and there's always room for improvement. And I just look forward to this opportunity to have that more formalized process. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Any members of the public like to speak? Please come forward. As they come down, I want to thank both of our school board members that are here tonight. I think it shows your commitment to the city and vice versa. I think, you know, I love you both very much. And I want to thank you for being here and showing your interest. And if you're even really interested, you can be on the Joint Youth Committee. But thank you. I think you all know we have an all star school system. And I want to thank you for that. Our public speakers. Yes, sir.
Speaker 6: Hi, everybody. James Craig Bishop. I'm a Long Beach resident and the founder of the School Neighbors Association here in Long Beach, which you can see online at school neighbors dot com. It's established with the goal of reducing the traffic dangers here in Long Beach that we all live with to ensure the safety of our kids and their schools citywide here in Long Beach. The traffic and death injury rates on our streets are basically.
Speaker 2: Doubled around school zones. School traffic.
Speaker 6: Kills a person in Long Beach every two of three.
Speaker 2: Years above background levels.
Speaker 6: School traffic causes 72 injuries a year on our streets and 12 collisions with students or pedestrians anywhere in vehicles occur each year in our Long Beach school zones. There are two contributing factors and main reasons that I attribute to these high death and injury rates in our school zones. One, the map that was up just a moment ago showed the School of Choice traffic that's produced in the city. The school choice program produces about 40,000 vehicle trips per day, mostly in the neighborhoods that are designed for pedestrian.
Speaker 2: Traffic.
Speaker 6: As students are driven across town instead of walking to their local schools. East Side schools are hit most by this traffic, with production of over 1100 vehicle trips per day at schools and at some as many as 1400 per day. And that's just from the school choice program. That doesn't include background levels from from other events and basic local traffic for the school. The second main reason is the initial design capacity of many of the schools has been expanded and in the process the traffic worsened through bungalow additions because when the bungalows were added, Long Beach Unified did not comply with the requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act when they put the bungalows in which would have required them to take a look at traffic concerns from adding the bungalows increased demand they cause and to mitigate the issues that come up from that. Briefly, I want to mention an example from where I live at ten shore.
Speaker 2: Preparatory.
Speaker 6: School traffic comes in from the north, drops kids off and has a desire to turn around and go back and exit where they came from. In the process, they make U-turns in the street and turns into our front yards and across sidewalks, often while pedestrians, including my own kids, are present, it's a real danger. They immediately change direction to back up towards pedestrians in the street, toward kids on the sidewalk behind them, and very often don't see those in the way. It's a serious issue, not just at my house, but up and down our street that all of our neighbors are concerned about. The response we've received from Long Beach Unified has been a little bit different than what was described here tonight. The transit director, Paul Bailey, calls this issue a chronic citywide problem. The school principal has identified the safety issues as a big concern of hers, but nonetheless, neither of them has been willing to even discuss ways to fix it. And I'm about out of time here, so I just want to offer my support. I did a few changes I would suggest, but generally suggest the proposal of compelling some communication on this.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Thank you, sir. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 2: One meeting I just found. So, Professor.
Speaker 0: Dr. Stewart, Dr. Farber, I didn't recognize your.
Speaker 2: First 350 Monrovia. My wife and I have lived there for about 35 years. I am not coming here as Dean or as professor, but I'm coming here as chair of the Community Watch Program. If I might be permitted. I can save a lot of time if you let me pass this out. I have one for every person here. Good professors like to save time. Um. First of all, I'm very pleased to be here and pleased to see former good students and all-American athletes that once. Gracious to our halls at Cal State University, Long Beach, to his former student body presidents and one as an all-American halfback. And they're all sitting right here smiling.
Speaker 3: What about the adjunct professors? The adjunct professors?
Speaker 2: Oh, yes. Traffic congestion is a problem. Ed Rogers, let me paint a picture for you. Rogers Middle School and the elementary school borders right up to each other. Monrovia Avenue to the east and the ATO Avenue to the west. Broadway and Appian Way. It's a box. Oops. Get me there. It's a box. And the traffic problems that exist there are paramount. I've asked Mr. Reavis. I wanted to get an actual count of how many cars we're talking about going from north to south on Monrovia Avenue, which fronts Roger's middle school. My wife Trish and I live directly across the street from Rogers, so we're constant observers for the last 35 years of what's been going on there. Mr. Reavis, who is the engineer associate city of Long Beach, took a count on the traffic 815 to 9:15 a.m. on Monrovia Avenue, and the count was 1058 cars. 1058 cars in a period of. What time? Killed 58 vehicles. He said it ran about 18 vehicles per minute. 18 vehicles per minute coming down Monrovia Avenue. Either stopping at Rogers or continuing on to Lowell Elementary School. The congestion part of the congestion we have when we paint the picture for you. ROGERS And law schools do not provide parking space for their employees or their guests. Look that let that one sink in.
Speaker 0: So, Dr. Farber, I know a rep that I'm going to let you wrap up because times are ending here, but.
Speaker 2: Could do a little.
Speaker 0: Bit. Just real quick, think your.
Speaker 2: Parking space is the resident's parking. So when they take our space, we don't have it. And so that's part of the major problem we have there. We've tried to consider that one and get over that. Monrovia is a rather narrow one way street. And so when parents come in to drop their students off or other parents are parking their too long, it blocks the traffic. Then because the faculty and staff have taken their spots across the street at further blocks of traffic.
Speaker 0: Dr. Farber Yeah, and I hate to do this to you because you're my former faculty member. But I have to follow the time rules.
Speaker 2: So I request another couple of.
Speaker 0: Minutes. I actually am not able to do that because I have to do it for everyone. But I'll let you kind of wrap up what I did. You were able to. Were you able to pass out what you needed to pass out?
Speaker 2: Okay. They can see all that.
Speaker 0: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: Let me get to the suggestions that I can't. We do that for a couple of minutes. Just just the suggestions we're.
Speaker 10: Actually prepared to give away.
Speaker 2: Well, we're pleased that we I think this needs to get out of here because we're talking about cooperation between schools.
Speaker 0: So. Dr. Farber. Yeah, I guess what I'm going to do is I can't actually extend the time, but it's 3 minutes and I have to be fair to everybody. So what I would like to do is I will add this item is still on the agenda. I will possibly ask a couple of questions and we'll we'll get some of that information from you in just a minute. Okay. So if you just just hang out right there, Dr. Farber and I will make sure that we're able to get some of those recommendations. Right. Okay.
Speaker 2: Okay. Okay.
Speaker 0: Next speaker, please.
Speaker 2: Good evening, Mr. Mayor and council members. I'm Ken Weiss and I live at 378 Q Avenue in and third District, right around the corner from Rogers Junior High School and Law. And the parking and traffic issues are basically gridlock. We have parents that are parking in the red zones in front of the fire hydrants, in the intersections to drop their kids off. There's a lot of potential accident waiting to happen. I live on the on the corner. So my my garage and the alleyway are the ramp for the garage to call. It is right on the beginning of the alley. They park and leave their cars and run from my garage door. And, um. As I said, one of the big things is parking in front of the fire hydrants, which is a safety issue. They're parking in all the red zones. When we call the law enforcement to come out, they send the meter readers and they say, well, the zones aren't red enough today, so we're not going to write tickets. And the school, both Rodgers and all Lowell has been better and trying to work with us. Rodgers has been horrible in terms of the traffic issue and the parking. And I, I really support this agenda item and I just hope that you're really going to for those of us in the third District in Belmont, you're really take a hard look at what's going on at Lowell and Rodgers because it's really pretty bad. That's it.
Speaker 0: Thank you, sir. I close the speakers list, but Vice Mayor Lowenthal. Or Councilman Price.
Speaker 8: Dr. Farber, I'm curious, do you have any recommendations for us in regards to the suggestions that you raised?
Speaker 2: Thank you. Yes, I do.
Speaker 5: Great. You're prepared.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to take a lot of time. You have it. You have some of it in front of you. We would like to encourage students. To bike and walk more as they already have begun. We would like to encourage more students to bike and walk. That would take some of the load off of the cars that are traveling up and down the street. Picture there's just the one street and the cars are going all the way up from Monrovia, all the way down to lower. Um. We would like some signage. We were like, Thank you. We would like some signage that that indicates loading and unloading 10 minutes from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m.. The current signage doesn't doesn't.
Speaker 10: Doesn't account for that.
Speaker 2: We would like Monrovia Avenue repaired, please. It's a major street. Currently, there's approximately a 30 yard length of street with a breakage offset of 1 to 5 inches. And this has caused many bikes. And I have personally assisted three major injuries that have cut off bikes, one just last week, and that street needs to be fixed. We've asked for that for quite some time. Rogers needs to provide adequate parking for the numerous, and they have a lot of programs there for the evening programs, PTA concerts, open house back to school night and other special programs. We suggest using the Gate School entrance off Appian Way that allows cars to come in and use the blacktop. On Sundays, we observe the Sound House Church, which is currently leasing land on Sunday for their church at Rogers. They use this entry and I've counted as many as 40 cars there. That would be more than enough for faculty, staff, students to be able to come in there in part and take them off of Monrovia Avenue. There's a need for a crossing guard. And I'm glad to hear the committee is back in operation. We need a crossing guard badly at the intersection of Vista and Monrovia Avenue. There's a pile up of cars that go through there, and we need a park guard to help the kids get across so they don't just have to dodge cars to make it across the street. So these are the kind of things that we're looking for. I'm glad to hear that there's increased cooperation anticipated between the schools. Personally, I have seen a little bit of a break in the last ten years between Long Beach Unified School District and and the board. And the city of citizens in the city. Along these things we try to get done. One is apt to point to us and say, I'm sorry, we can't do that. That's that's a matter for them. We go to them. We can't do. That's a matter for them. These two teams and I've heard Mayor Garcia talk about this and he's right on. They must work together. They can't just stand back and say, no, we can't do that. The Long Beach Unified and the council and the people at work must work together. Many of the problems we have as counting the price, those are the result of lack of working together. We've tried as parents, as faculty, people who who've run these board meetings and we're just, you know, being sold out. But I think I see a break and I with your help and your help, Dee, and your help, Susan. I think we can get some work done, so I look forward to it. There are some signs, Patricia and I've gone round to other schools. There are schools within Long Beach that do what we're talking about. They have signs up to talk about when you can park. This particular one came from another school, middle school, just down the road, not too far from where we are. There are signs limited parking in other areas. So I know it can be done.
Speaker 0: I think you have to find.
Speaker 2: A way to start. Thank you for your help. Whatever we can do.
Speaker 0: Thank you. And make sure you give Trish our love, particularly from Susie and I.
Speaker 2: So did you have another question?
Speaker 8: No, I think I'm good with the questions and thank you.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 8: You never ask a lawyer that question. Your father.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Thank you. We have a motion on the floor and members. The motion is to reestablish, not reestablish, but begin a conversation of the Joint Use Committee. Please cast your votes.
Speaker 1: Motion carries nine zero.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Item now. I think it's.
Speaker 1: 2121. Communication from Councilman Austin. Councilwoman Gonzalez. Recommendation to refer to the Election Oversight Committee to study the merits of developing an 11 member appointed Citizen Redistricting Advisory Commission. To research the possible mid-decade and future redistricting processes. And request the EOC to report back within 90 days. | Agenda Item | Recommendation to request City Manager to work with the Long Beach Unified School District (LBUSD) to strengthen partnerships between the City and LBUSD in order to address ongoing parking and traffic issues at Long Beach schools impacting local residents and neighborhoods. | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_07212015_15-0729 | Speaker 1: She took communication from Councilmember Urunga, Vice Mayor Lowenthal, Councilman Andrews and Councilmember Richardson. A recommendation to receive and file a list of the recommendations compiled from the Medical Cannabis Task Force.
Speaker 0: Councilmember Wrangham.
Speaker 6: Thank you, Bear. Basically, I want to thank my former colleagues, council members, who with the Andrews and Rex Richardson for sending on to this. It has been a nice long process for the the task force has been working has done its job. It has it has a series of recommendations that are coming here to us. And I would hope that my council members would approve receive a file of this item.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilmember Richardson.
Speaker 7: I don't have any comments at this point.
Speaker 0: Councilwoman Pryce.
Speaker 8: Thank you. I'm going to urge my colleagues to vote against this item. I appreciate Councilman Yanga bringing this forward, but I have a few points that I just want to share with my colleagues and ask you to please keep an open mind regarding the points that I want to make. First of all, I read the agenda item. And just as a point of clarification, Mr. Mays or the city clerk who I know has been at every one of these meetings, these task force meetings. Are these recommendations or are these just topic items that all the task force members were able to put on this list?
Speaker 12: Councilwoman Price I'll try to answer. And if I say anything incorrectly, if the city clerk could jump in the way and I have been to every meeting except for one, the way this has worked is initially the task force had engaged speakers to come down and talk about various subject. And as those subjects were discussed after maybe three or four meetings, I think we were into it. It was decided to more or less keep a running tab. They would vote on issues that later they would come back and then make formal recommendations. So basically it was a running list. I would characterize it as a running list of topics, but no actual recommendations other than defining the topics have been passed. The plan was the task force self committed to trying to end the process on July 29th. What would have happened last Wednesday night had we not had the emergency situation in the downtown area, is that we would have started going through the list of recommendations, the list of topics. There are approximately 45, some of our double topics, approximately 45. The plan was to go through them one by one, have a discussion on each item, and then hopefully get a motion and ultimately a clear, concise recommendation back to council on something. So from my perspective, none of those are actual recommendations, but just topics.
Speaker 8: Have the task force members voted on any single one of these recommendations or. I'm sorry, running list of topics.
Speaker 12: Not. Not that I can recall that they voted to formulate a recommendation and start compiling a list to send that back to council only. Topics.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 8: And the reason that I that I asked that question is so we all. Other than Councilman Supernova, who is not here but the rest of us actually selected members of the community. I believe most of them are residents of the city of Long Beach to serve voluntarily on this task force with the commitment that we made to them that their work was going to be meaningful and that we were going to consider their efforts, and that at some point they were going to get to vote or at the very least offer some sort of closing remarks to the people that they've been serving with since April. Is that when they started their service in April? Or that when they first met.
Speaker 12: If I recall, I think the first meeting was maybe the first week in April.
Speaker 5: Okay.
Speaker 8: So but it is am I correct to assume that the task force members believe that at some point they were going to get to either vote on recommendations that that that this process was designed for them to at some point get to vote on a recommendation?
Speaker 12: Exactly. There was so much material to cover, it was sort of impossible to keep your thoughts collected without keeping sort of a running tab of issues that became apparent as different speakers or written material was provided to the task force.
Speaker 8: And at the time that we created this task force in February of 2015, we had not yet received from the city staff data and information that came to council and through the task force in the form of two memorandum provided by various departments in the city. Is that correct?
Speaker 12: That's correct. And I think we did receive the task force did receive the second memorandum approximately June 4th.
Speaker 8: And so the task force, where they provided copies of the information that we were receiving in terms of fiscal impacts, regulatory impacts, those kinds of things. Were they updated with that information?
Speaker 12: Both of the memos that the city management prepared were provided to the task force as soon as, you know, at the next meeting after the document became public.
Speaker 8: Okay. My concern with this item and I think I, I understand where it's coming from and I appreciate the intent behind it, which is to to move the process along. And I completely get that. I understand it. I, I respect that position. Certainly nobody wants and I'm sure the members of the task force would be the first to say they don't want to serve an indeterminate term on this task force, that they're hoping that it comes to an end at some point. So I appreciate the intent behind it, but I believe that getting involved at this juncture, when the task force has one final meeting set that they're hoping, well, they had two meetings. One was canceled as a result of the power outage, but that they have a date certain on their calendars. These are citizens in our community who have active lives, who have families, who have things, who have these dates on their calendars. I know for a fact that at least one member of this task force has rearranged their family schedule, vacation schedule in order to be at this meeting that they had contemplated to be the last and final meeting. I think it sets a bad precedent for us to get involved and basically call a list of items that they've put together, recommendations and call it a day. I think it sets a bad precedent for our future engagement of the community in terms of citizen advisory commissions. I think Citizen Advisory Commissions can be a very helpful tool because these people serve their time to weed through the data and figure out exactly no pun intended there. Figure out exactly what it is that they think are best for their best recommendations for their cities as as residents of the city. And we rely on them. So, you know, this the the medical cannabis task force that we created has been working on this for months. I believe it's only fair that the process continue or at the very least, each task force member be provided an outlet where they can contribute their thoughts and a final meeting or a final to meetings. The recommendations provided have not been voted on. They are simply a list and the task force members do not feel that these tentative recommendations are representative of everyone's views. In fact, if you look at the list, there's a recommendation on there that the city's current ban continue and another one that says we should wait until 2016 to see where the initiative process goes. And then there are actual land use recommendations. So the the list isn't even consistent in terms of its theme or its direction to council. This is a very controversial topic and the task members varying recommendations are a testament to that. If we receive and file the recommendations today, we will be shutting down the task force without even giving them an opportunity to share some closing thoughts and viewpoints with one another. They are a committee that has been working collectively, hand in hand to the best extent to that, to the extent that they can to do service for us. And I think it would set a very bad tone if we were to end that service without at least giving them an opportunity to close the process in the way that they deem fit within their dynamics. So I think you guys, my my colleagues for listening and I urge you to vote against this in the spirit of the future commissions and task force that we're going to create and and request the assistance of our colleagues and our residents to help us move forward. So thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Can I get one clarifying question? Because, I mean, I thought that I understood the need to start to consider your anger. The item in front of us wouldn't preclude the the committee from having another meeting that I think they're going to have still in July. Is that is that correct?
Speaker 12: The next meeting is presently scheduled for the 29th. There's nothing on the agenda item that would, if it were passed, would disband the committee directly. The the only I think the thing that needs to be avoided is doing something that causes confusion in the community, in the sense that if the community believes that these are recommendations, and I think clearly they are not at this point recommendations that would cause some confusion either now or later when this is ultimately addressed by council.
Speaker 0: And I would because I think I know and I understand having had a few conversations. I understand the the both the urgency and the need to allow the the committee to try to have an opportunity to come together and give either recommendations or some type of some type of ideas to the council. So I just wanted to ask Councilmember Turanga, was it your intention to have the committee have at least one other meeting but then still have the recommendations come the council soon after that? I understand that was your original intent.
Speaker 6: That is my intent. And in fact, they could have had a meeting because it was a meeting that was canceled. So if the task force had already identified a a date when they were going to conclude their work and that was the 29th, then fine. They can they can make up that meeting that they lost because of the outage. And so they can have another another meeting or two if they so wish to have it, and then bring it back as recommendations in August.
Speaker 0: So I think I think setting a time certain of having this come back to the council in August would give the flexibility to staff to schedule that in August. And that way we obviously have a variety of meetings in August, but we would be able to schedule that with the rest of the calendar so that at least both the community and the task force know that that their you know, if the maker wants to craft the motion this way, that their work is coming to the council in August for the council to actually deliberate. So I don't know if I want to make that motion, maybe a little if you're willing to accept that.
Speaker 6: I accept that as a motion.
Speaker 0: Okay. So the motion with the slight friendly is to receive and file these recommendations that would come to council in August. But there's still going to be conversations and other recommendations are going to come forward, I'm assuming, if this group meets again. So at least that's where it's at right now. And we'll see where where the council is on that. Councilwoman Mongo.
Speaker 5: Thank you. I, too, want to thank the city staff, specifically the city clerk's office and Mike Mayes for the work that they've done on this. And the commissioners are the committee members that we've each appointed. I have been thoroughly impressed with the depth and the breadth of knowledge that they have digested in such a short period of time and the types of discussions that they've had and the considerable thought that has gone into this. And I do not want to delay. I want the citizens who have volunteered their time to be appreciated and have closure. And I want to thank my task force members for having done an excellent job. I would, however, state that considering and I don't have a August vacation. And so I hope that people take this as a genuine desire for all of my colleagues to be present for the discussion. And I know that in August we have council members who are going to be absent from certain meetings. We actually have two August council meetings because through a motion from Councilmember Richardson, myself and Leanna, we are celebrating neighborhood night out in our communities for citizen engagement and we are dark the last Tuesday of the month. So I would only ask the council member to make a date certain of September 4th, the first meeting in September. The first meeting that we know all council members are present. And again, I mentioned this is not for myself. I am not. It's September 1st. Thank you. I am not taking a vacation. But I do feel it is important that every councilmember be here, you know? Right. September one. Wonderful. Thank you. I appreciate it.
Speaker 0: Just let's be very clear.
Speaker 6: So our last meeting in August.
Speaker 0: I think right now. Right now, the friendly ask from Councilman Bongo was to actually set a date, which was September 1st. First. And I think right now, as it stands, Councilmember Urunga has said by the end of August, which is different. And so I think it sounds like you're sticking with your initial last, which would be the last available meeting in August. Okay, so that's the motion on the floor. Councilmember, your Enga.
Speaker 6: It gives. I'm sticking to my motion the end of August, which is the same. If you go to September 1st, it gives another two weeks. So it gets extended even two weeks even further. So I can't I can't accept that that that amendment, because it just prolongs it even more. So let's let's get done with this task force.
Speaker 0: Okay. So the motion is, is for the end of August. Councilwoman Pryce, or did you just go or was that.
Speaker 5: No, I still have the floor.
Speaker 0: Sorry. Cleared out. Let me go back to Councilman Mongo.
Speaker 5: Thank you. I'd like to make a substitute motion that we have a date certain of September 1st so that all council colleagues can be a part of this very important decision impacting all residents of the city of Long Beach.
Speaker 0: So there is a substitute. I think it's a substitute. Substitute motion, right. Or is it just a substitute? Okay. That's just a substitute motion to have the date certain for September the first that it would come to the council. And I'm assuming and let me ask this question to Mr. Mays on the date that the recommendations will come to council. Would the council be able to make any policy decisions that date? Would it be agendas for policy decisions?
Speaker 12: Well, it depends on how it was agenda is actually but in theory you could we have a draft ordinance that was prepared at the direction of the planning commission. You could use that as a starting point and you could go through there the task force recommendations and vote to, for instance, include certain things in a draft ordinance . But we would have to bring a draft ordinance ordinance, an amended draft ordinance back to you eventually anyway. That.
Speaker 0: But. But the council could give you policy direction at that meeting. Absolutely. We'd like you to do X, Y or Z. Okay. Yes. All right. Okay. So the subject of motion is September the fourth. It first. I'm sorry. September 1st. Councilwoman Price.
Speaker 8: Thank you. I want to thank my colleague, Councilwoman Mango, for requesting the September 1st date. First of all, we're going to be going through some pretty heavy budget discussions in all of August. And realistically, given the study sessions that we have and the PSC meetings that will be there, I think this is an item that I understand two weeks seems like an eternity, but I think that it's important that we give the the the subject, the weight and time that it deserves. I would be requesting first of all, I have an issue with the wording of item 34 because I believe that legally the term recommendation is inaccurate. And so I don't believe that item 34 is legally accurate as it's currently worded. So, Mr. Mays, do you have any concern with the use of the term recommendations?
Speaker 12: I'm not sure I could say it was legally inaccurate, but it is inaccurate as a reflection of where the task force is. So it is it is not an accurate reflection of the task force because they, in fact, have not made recommendations to this council. It is a list of topics to be voted on in the future.
Speaker 8: Okay. So, you know, I think that that we may want to correct the wording there if that's important to any of my colleagues. The second is point that I'd like to make is in February when we voted on this, I voted against it because we put forth a timeframe for this task force that was.
Speaker 5: Completely.
Speaker 8: Unrealistic. And that's why I was the sole vote against the the item, because the task force that we created, we had a very short turnaround for them. And yet we were asking city staff to come back with financial data, regulatory data, land use data, public safety data, and still expecting the task force to come back. And at a specific period of time, that was not realistic given what we had asked city staff to provide in terms of data. So I understand that we we believe that there are folks who are here in the audience who deserve a swift resolution of this issue. I get that. But I also want us to be cognizant of the fact that our burden in regards to this item grew, as did the work for staff and the workforce for the the workload for the Commission. So we have to be realistic of that. I understand we want to rush it along. I would request of my council colleagues and I cannot imagine a scenario where my colleagues wouldn't go along with this request, is that I'm going to be out of the country on August 18th. I've communicated that to my colleagues on the BSE and and for whatever reason, it seems important to at least one of my colleagues here to have the meeting on that night. This is an issue that's very important for our city. I was in Washington, DC testifying before the National Highway Traffic Administration last week as a subject matter expert on the issue of of medical marijuana and marijuana in general in regards to traffic safety. It's an issue that I've been very involved in. And if my council colleagues feel that it's important to have all of us here for issues that have affect our city, that applies to all of us equally. So I just I really don't even think that that's a subject of debate. I'm asking my colleagues for some consideration. So.
Speaker 0: Thank you. And I know I will say that I know one major on major issues that have come before the council, including this one in the past, there has there has been deference to ensuring that you do have a full body. And so just to make that note, Council Member Austin.
Speaker 9: Okay. It just seems to me that we're quarreling over a week or two and and if if it will generate consensus here to to to get us and get the ball rolling. I think it's not really worth the fight. I will support the motion in front of us right now to move this to the September 1st. That makes a lot of sense. I'd like to have some time to debrief with my my appointees on the task force. And a lot has been said about it has been brought up already. We are going into a budget season. Time is going to be very, very limited. And so with this issue, it is a complicated issue. Clearly, there isn't a lot of consensus even on the task force or agreement on the task force on much of these issues. There's no reason to believe that this council is going to get there either. But I'm willing to take that on in September. That's it. I thought you brought up Councilmember Price, brought up the timeline for the task force, and I was going to ask the question. But did we ever establish. I don't recall that. But was there a specified timeline for the task force to actually work?
Speaker 12: I think originally there was a timeline. I don't recall exactly what it was early on in the process. The task force asked that we send a two from four memo to the council indicating that because of the complexity of the issues and the number of speakers that they wanted to engage to inform themselves about the entire topic , that it wouldn't be possible. That said, there were some weeks where they met, you know, every week, most often because of their schedules. There were so many on there. They met every other week. So they have been working hard. Each meeting was, I would say, at least 3 hours if not 4 hours long. So they have been putting a lot of time into it.
Speaker 9: Thank you. Well, I think we do need to figure out how to to recognize the efforts of these citizens who've been putting a lot of time in to to assist this council in our decision making. I also just want to go back to the word recommendation, because the item is a recommendation to receive and file a list of the recommendations compiled by the Medical Cannabis Task Force for the next council meeting. But when I go back to the agenda, I look at the agenda of the actual medical cannabis task force. There. One, two, three. Everything starts with the recommendation. And how do we. How do we. How do we separate that from. From. Mr. Mays, how do we separate that from not sending the wrong message?
Speaker 12: Maybe the correct motion would be to receive and file the list of topics contained in tonight's agenda item rather than refer to them as recommendations. And again, I if I could ask. I will ask the clerk who's been attending the meetings if I'm mischaracterizing it in any way. It was always my understanding that we were compiling a list of topics and that. Starting well last week that they were going to vote on those topics and formalize recommendations that would come back. Is that correct?
Speaker 1: That's correct.
Speaker 9: Okay. So. I guess the the for the the I guess the motion on the floor would it be in order to offer a friendly amendment amendment to to to characterize it as the city attorney has?
Speaker 5: I believe that is absolutely necessary. Thank you. Absolutely. All right. Thank you, Mr. Mayes. Thank you, Councilmember Alston.
Speaker 0: And I think I know. I'd like to add that I think that comes from your anger and I know this is an item that he brought forward, I think is amenable to just accepting the September 1st date as a as a friendly amendment just to bring consensus and move on here. So if I don't know if the if the maker of the substitute motion would be willing to essentially let the councilmember set the September 4th date with the change of the wording of the recommendation September 1st date, we're okay with that. It would be essentially the same. The same motion. Yeah. Okay. That way he has still his item that he's moving forward. So. Okay. So there's a motion on the floor which is contrary. Ringo's which is to September 1st have have the the issue come back. By then, the the committee obviously will have met before that. And we're changing the wording of the word recommendation. Let's you know, we have still a long agenda in front of us. I'm going to keep going through the speakers list by Samir Lowenthal.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Just quickly on the word change of the list of recommendations. What was the word that he changed it to Mr. Mays? Because all of.
Speaker 2: Mr. Mays.
Speaker 3: All of their minutes referred to them as tentative recommendations.
Speaker 12: A list of topics of topics.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 12: Is what I indicated. Maybe somebody has a better word, but that's really what it is.
Speaker 3: That's fine. That's fine. That's why I'm thinking. Mr. Mayor.
Speaker 0: Councilman, your income.
Speaker 6: Let's get some clarification here. What was sent to us. In its present form, says recommendations. Obviously it was mischaracterized because it should have been sent to me as topics. So my motion here was based on what I received. So that's a mischaracterization. Not my problem. I didn't do it.
Speaker 2: I didn't do it.
Speaker 6: So what's happening on September 1st then is still the same. I want recommendations on September 1st, not topics. So if there's a change that needs to take place here is to correct this, um, memo that says recommendations and revise it to say topics. But my recommendation to come back on September 1st is still to come back with recommendations. So that's the st that stays. Is that correct?
Speaker 0: Yeah, I think that's correct, Mr. MAIZES. Yes.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 6: That's correct.
Speaker 0: That's excellent. Counselor Richardson. And then we're going to hopefully vote.
Speaker 7: Yes to hopefully, hopefully vote. I just want to say how how pleased I am to see after all that discussion, we've landed on the same thing. And I just also want to say I also want to say that there's only two meetings in August, and the 18th is my birthday. So give me a break. Let me repeat.
Speaker 2: This, man.
Speaker 7: So, come on. I want to be here till midnight on the 18th.
Speaker 3: September 1st.
Speaker 2: I know. That's why. Okay.
Speaker 0: Here we go. So next up, a have public comment. Is there any public comment on the item? Please come forward and we're going to go to a vote.
Speaker 2: Good evening. I'm Jack Smith. I live at 50 Elm Avenue in the second District in the East Village. I was pleased to be appointed to Vice Mayor Cecil Lowenthal to the task force. We've been working on this a long time. A couple of quick answers. We always creating a list called tentative recommendations. And we were very, very, very careful every step of the way to make sure those were tentative recommendations with the idea that would be going through those tentative list, that tentative list, and then finalizing those. The document you're considering this evening is not a report. It is the agenda for the July 15th meeting at which we were going to be taking up a number. The full list of tentative recommendations. Now, at the July 1st meeting, there were three recommendations that were approved. They are not on this agenda because they're in the minutes of the July 1st meeting. So this list that you are looking at is not a complete list of all of the tentative recommendations because three of them were actually approved. Those three were to be approved. I mean, they were voted on and majority one to review unequal cultivation sites through long throughout Long Beach, you create equal sites in each district. The businesses cultivating and sales would be allowed in any location, not zoned as residential and not within specified buffers. And three, there be a maximum of three collectives per district. Now the minutes of July of the July meeting may have a slightly different wording for that, but that's what was that's essentially what it was. At this point, I guess it's possible that it's irrelevant whether they are finalized. I mean, what you're what the motion is asking to do is even file a document that is not finished. If you were to set a date certain for us to finish our work, that makes sense. But it makes no sense at all for you to get this list of tentative recommendations in any way thinking that this is what how the task force stands. Now, just because I'm here, I'll give you my list of tentative recommendations to eliminate print advertising, the amount of crime be considered in the areas where the business is applying to locate maintain 1000 foot buffers between the businesses and no two businesses can occupy the same site. All applicants pass a complete background check. May I see my clock, please? Applicant City residents of Long Beach for two years prior to the approval of the copy, the transfer of ownership not be permitted. Any change of ownership requires a copy testing be done by a third party qualified lab safety standards on the ordinance to be the minimum state's safety standards. At a discussion of the location of edible production and an annual regulatory fee assessment, be on it and specify an application fee. My I would expect there's about 850 applications that we'll expect to have to process for this. So. Because of my first comments. I don't get the race. But remember that what you're reading now is a list of items that each person on the task force put forth. Without discussion of the task force. They were tentative list anything item could be put on there. Only three were approved. I would suggest that you have got to even file. You just set the date certain. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Very much. Next week, please.
Speaker 2: My name's sophomores and so I'm a resident of the second district and I actually used to work for you guys. I'll be very brief because I know you all are very exhausted. This has gone one way too long. And I'll just say this. You've run out of time. You've had since 1996 to pass a workable ordinance, and you've had seven years since. It's been a primary issue within the city of Long Beach. Three of them, four of them, members of this body have been here through the entirety of their entire terms, dealing with this one specific issue. And what has changed? Nothing. The law is mostly the same on the state level. You guys have waited entirely too long to be able to pass on that to be workable for this entire community. You shifted the burden on to this task force, which has also come to the same conclusions, which is there's a lot of disagreement about this issue. Every time this has gone before, the people, the city of Long Beach in a ballot initiative, it has passed in dramatic numbers. And if you fail to do something that actually serves the community by either pushing this off or accepting the city manager's proposal, which is an unworkable, basically lawsuit bomb, then what you'll see is an either another ballot initiative or you're going to see every single piece of your work preempted by state or federal government. Once they actually manage to pass something. So please don't delay this any longer. Either set it, either follow a jack as recommended, set a date certain receive and file these with these preliminary findings that you have right now and do your job as legislators and pass something to benefit the community. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker, please look to the last speaker and then we'll go to the vote. Oh, we have another speaker play, please, with two more and then last two speakers. Please someone.
Speaker 2: Defer. Jeff Abrams I defer to Adam because Adam Hejazi has direct knowledge of being a member of the task force. But I would just like to ask you, council members, to consider the fact that I don't know that it's a topic continue the ban. I don't know. That's a topic per se. I think that's a recommendation, and that is something that you're going to see in this list, which talks about hours of operation and security concerns and ban it at the same time. That doesn't seem to be a qualified consensus from a task force. It seems like people saying yes and people saying no. Frankly, the conversations devolved into medical marijuana. Yes or no? In a lot of cases. And I found that pretty appalling, given that the science is very clear now. And we have to remove the mindset of 1915, 1916, 1917, 1980, 1990. Because every day you're looking at the same information. If you read newspapers and if you read magazines, you listen to the radio, watch TV. You're listening to the same stuff that I am. And that is the L.A. Times. About two weeks ago, the staggering suicide rate of veterans, the staggering 22 per day. Could they be helped by medical marijuana? Possibly. Who knows? But at this point in time, you certainly can't get it in Long Beach and certainly not in a in a manner that's what I call safe and dignified . Our veterans who are struggling are already made to feel criminal in trying to secure the product, procure the product. I spoke to Chief Luna directly at a town hall meeting not too long ago because I did want to ask him about all of the negative interactions that vets will have with the Long Beach Police Department. And these are the same fellows and ladies. Six times more women are killing themselves than the national average. I just asked him, how are we going to mitigate all these negative interactions with vets? These a lot of these fellows are homeless. It's a sad situation in Long Beach. And I do believe that the veterans, aside from M.S. and ALS and IBS and Crohn's and a whole malady, a group of malady that are just horrifying. This is an un-American effort to deny veterans who are suffering with PTSD. A naturally occurring herbal medicine that has been used for thousands of years. When I tell you that Queen Victoria used this for PMS, I plead. I ask you to Google it. I learned many, many years ago, 40 years ago in Jamaica that this is a cure all for so many things. And the fact is true, Western medicine uses a pill. They prefer herbs. Thank you so much.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next, our final speaker. We're going to vote.
Speaker 2: Good evening, Honorable Mayor. City Council. My name is Adam Hijazi and I'm a task force member. First off, I wanted to thank Vice Mayor Lowenthal for her appointments. Second of all, I wanted to thank all the council members for having this process and deliberating with a wide spectrum.
Speaker 6: Of individuals that have different concerns. And honestly, it's been a educational process.
Speaker 2: Being a previous legal.
Speaker 6: Operator and just learning a lot from different.
Speaker 2: Aspects that have come up. So also I wanted to thank the.
Speaker 6: City attorney's office.
Speaker 11: And the city clerk's.
Speaker 6: Office. It was another educational figuring out.
Speaker 2: Robert's Rules of Audit. And I also want to thank Jack Smith because he pointed a lot of that out to.
Speaker 6: During that process.
Speaker 2: Hopefully, we're we're happy to see some sort of date that come into.
Speaker 6: Place that September 1st will.
Speaker 2: Actually come in and.
Speaker 6: Recommendations. And we look forward as.
Speaker 2: A task force to provide those recommendations to you on that date. And, you know.
Speaker 6: Just one last thing.
Speaker 2: To consider is that the urgency.
Speaker 6: From among a lot of reasons.
Speaker 2: Is.
Speaker 6: To has it been safe access in Long Beach for the last three years. And hopefully we can bring back safe access to these patients.
Speaker 2: And a model that can actually work and will be a model for up and down the state.
Speaker 6: A lot of people are looking towards Long Beach, other cities, not just individuals. So I wanted to thank you guys very much for the opportunity.
Speaker 2: And have a good night.
Speaker 0: Thank you. I have I have one more final council comment, which is Councilman Price.
Speaker 8: Thank you. After hearing public comment, I'd like to make a substitute substitute motion. I am moved by the comments of resident Jack Smith. So I would like to recommend that simply this that the medical marijuana task force complete their service to the city of Long Beach by August 21st, 2015, in order to provide time for council to debrief with the members and have it on their September 1st council agenda. My recommend, my my substitute motion includes just the time certain for the completion of the task force. It does not include adopting or receiving and filing any topics, recommendations, suggestions, tentatives, anything like that. Because after hearing from Jack, it seems to me that there may be some recommendations that aren't even included in this list, and I don't want to receive and file and bring anything into our record that doesn't represent any official actions by the task force, because I really don't know what the benefit to the city would be of receiving and filing and bringing it into the record. So my substitute substitute is complete their service by August 21st, 2015, in time for it to come back to council on September 1st for policy action.
Speaker 5: Second.
Speaker 0: There's a motion and a second, Vice Mayor Lowenthal.
Speaker 3: So, Mr. Mayor, I'm not quite certain how that is in the spirit of Councilmember your anger's motion different, or that had it been offered to him, he would not be amenable to that. I think we have a long history on this council with this issue and. Jack Smith, who is my appointee, has forwarded the remainder of the recommended the list of topics for consideration. I believe it's part of the record. And so I in the spirit of collegiality, I would urge the maker of the motion and the secondary of the motion to offer that to member your UNGA. Because I don't believe in the course of our conversation that I witnessed any disagreement there.
Speaker 0: Sure I.
Speaker 2: Shall. To impress?
Speaker 8: Absolutely. I'd offer a friendly to Councilman Urunga to agree to set the time, the date certain, but to not receive and file any documentation from the task force.
Speaker 6: September 1st is the date that I think I put forward, and that's the date that I would want to receive the recommendations if it is appropriate to direct the task force to finish its work on August. 21st, 21st, and that's fine with me.
Speaker 8: But are you amenable to the part about not receiving and filing this document that was mischaracterized? Apparently, I mean, clearly to you.
Speaker 6: So, yeah, it was mischaracterized. Yeah. But at the same time, it was also you know, I was also informed that it would be part of the part of that record anyway, so it could go either way.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 8: Would you be amenable then to not receiving and filing it in this body, knowing that it's a part of the official record for that body? Okay. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Okay. So the there is no substitute substitute on that. Councilman Andrews.
Speaker 10: Yes. I would like to ask one question. I'd like to know what the other. Well, we have another individual who's who's on the task force. What was his decision on that? We have two people on the task force. Then in the soup.
Speaker 2: So what would.
Speaker 10: I would like to get, you know, both.
Speaker 0: So I think they had.
Speaker 10: Because this is just we can't just take one person's word for it. We got two people on a task force.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well.
Speaker 0: Yeah, they're going to come on. So I think we had public comment and you know, they weren't they didn't speak. So what we have right now is a motion on the floor. And and I actually think and I heard from Rank City attorney that, uh, Councilman Fresh's motion would have been a substitute motion.
Speaker 12: That is correct, because the.
Speaker 0: Okay, so there is there right now there is nothing but a main motion on the floor.
Speaker 2: Correct.
Speaker 0: Just Councilmember your rank is motion.
Speaker 2: Correct.
Speaker 0: So that is queued up right now. Please cast your votes. A councilmember during his motion is for this to come back on September the first for the committee to complete its work on August the 21st first. And that recommendations would come at that time to the Council for Policy decision upon.
Speaker 12: September.
Speaker 0: 1st. Okay. Thank you.
Speaker 3: And Mr. Mayor, we're not receiving and following the recommendations. I think there's little.
Speaker 0: That's correct. That is correct.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Councilwoman Pryce. Thank you. Motion carries nine zero.
Speaker 0: September 1st. It is moving on to the next item.
Speaker 2: You can. You can. Yeah. It s at me. I can. We just people.
Speaker 3: Right, Madam Clerk.
Speaker 1: Item number 22 Report for Financial Management Recommendation to approve the Fiscal Year 2015. Second Departmental and Fund Budget Appropriation Adjustment Citywide. | Agenda Item | Recommendation to receive and file a list of the recommendations compiled from the Medical Cannabis Task Force. | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_07212015_15-0571 | Speaker 1: Item number 22 Report for Financial Management Recommendation to approve the Fiscal Year 2015. Second Departmental and Fund Budget Appropriation Adjustment Citywide.
Speaker 3: There's been a motion by Councilmember Mongeau and a second yet. I got it. Okay. Councilwoman Mango, would you like to speak to your motion?
Speaker 5: Is there stuff?
Speaker 3: There is a staff report. Mr. West, the Ericsson.
Speaker 5: Good evening, Vice Mayor and City Council. This is the second department and Fund Budget Appropriation Adjustment Report for a fiscal year 15. This reflects changes in revenue or operating operating conditions that require appropriation adjustments. In many cases, this is the result of past City Council actions that require appropriations now or grant revenue that has been awarded to larger items. To mention in this report includes appropriating 18.7 million in order to fund the Highland Reprioritization of projects which city council already approved. Also, another large item is appropriating the 59.9 million for the Alimentos Bay Marina bond proceeds. There are also three items in the general fund. However, none impact the bottom line funds available as they are offset by reductions or transfers in other areas. This concludes the staff report and department representatives are available for any questions that you may have.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Miss Erickson. Councilmember Mongo.
Speaker 5: Thank you for bringing forward a balanced recommendation. I hope my colleagues will support the item that Lia has so eloquently presented.
Speaker 3: Councilman Andrews.
Speaker 2: No, I didn't.
Speaker 3: Oh, it says. Request to speak. Okay. No problem. Thank you. I want to know, is there any member of the public that wishes to address Council on item 22? Seeing None. Members Cast your vote.
Speaker 1: Motion carries nine zero. Item 23 Report from Financial Management Recommendation to award six contracts for as needed professional compliance monitoring services and an aggregate annual amount not to exceed 600,000 citywide. | Agenda Item | Recommendation to approve the Fiscal Year 2015 second departmental and fund budget appropriation adjustments in accordance with existing City Council policy. (Citywide) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_07212015_15-0693 | Speaker 1: Motion carries nine zero. Item 23 Report from Financial Management Recommendation to award six contracts for as needed professional compliance monitoring services and an aggregate annual amount not to exceed 600,000 citywide.
Speaker 3: This motion and a second two staff report.
Speaker 2: Leah ERICKSEN.
Speaker 5: Um, good evening, Mayor and Vice Mayor and City Council. City Council approval is requested to enter into multiple contracts for as needed compliance monitoring services. We've selected six vendors to provide federal and state required Labor contract compliance monitoring for city projects. The contracts are on an as needed basis for approved projects, and costs will be included within those project budgets. This concludes my staff report and I'm available for any questions.
Speaker 3: Thank you. To the maker and seconder of the motion. Wish to speak to the item.
Speaker 2: No. Oh.
Speaker 3: Okay. Is there any member of the public that wishes to address Council on item 23? Seeing none. Members. Cast your vote.
Speaker 1: Your anger.
Speaker 3: Councilmember Young.
Speaker 1: Motion carries nine zero.
Speaker 3: Item 24. | Contract | Recommendation to adopt Specifications No. RFP FM15-084 and award contracts to Comprehensive Housing Services, Inc., of Fountain Valley, CA; Harris & Associates, Inc., of Irvine, CA; Pacifica Services, Inc., of Pasadena, CA; Padilla & Associates, Inc., of Santa Ana, CA; Perceptive Enterprises, Inc., of Los Angeles, CA; and Contractor Compliance Monitoring Inc., of San Mateo, CA, for as-needed professional compliance monitoring services, in an aggregate annual amount not to exceed $600,000, for a period of three years, with the option to renew for two additional one-year periods, at the discretion of the City Manager. (Citywide) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_07212015_15-0694 | Speaker 1: Report from financial management in Long Beach. Gas and Oil. Recommendation to execute and equipment lease purchase agreement with Bank of America Public Capital Corporation for the financing of the Advanced Metering Infrastructure Project in an amount not to exceed 18,500,000 citywide.
Speaker 3: Submission. Second is a staff report.
Speaker 2: Chris Garner and Dave Nakamoto. Good evening.
Speaker 10: A year ago, the city council approved our going forward with a smart meter program for the gas utility. And so what's before you tonight is the financing mechanism for that effort. With this financing, it'll be the question is how will it be paid for? And it will be.
Speaker 9: Paid for.
Speaker 10: Using the annual cost savings that we will achieve by eliminating our manual.
Speaker 2: Manual gas meter.
Speaker 9: Reading.
Speaker 2: Contract.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Is there any public comment on the item? CNN members cast your vote.
Speaker 1: Motion carries nine zero.
Speaker 3: Hey.
Speaker 1: Item 25 Report from Health and Human Services. Recommendation to execute all necessary documents with the State of California Department of Public Health in the amount of $19,337,101 for Women, Infants and Children Nutrition Supplement Program Citywide. | Contract | Recommendation to authorize City Manager to execute an equipment lease-purchase agreement and related financing documents with Banc of America Public Capital Corporation (BAPCC), a Kansas Corporation, for the financing of the Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) project, in an amount not to exceed $18,500,000, plus interest and fees, payable over a 15-year period. (Citywide) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_07212015_15-0697 | Speaker 1: Report from Human Resources recommendation to execute all necessary documents with the City of Los Angeles to accept Workforce Innovation and Investment Act funds totaling 1,075,000. To continue operations of the Harbor Gateway Work Source Center citywide.
Speaker 3: There's a motion in a second staff report, please.
Speaker 11: Executive director of our Workforce.
Speaker 6: Investment Board, Nick Schulz.
Speaker 3: Microphone, please.
Speaker 2: Muted. It's late. I'm sorry. Madam Vice Mayor remembers the City Council.
Speaker 10: This is our fifth.
Speaker 2: Year in a contractual.
Speaker 6: Relationship with the City of Los.
Speaker 2: Angeles and its Workforce Investment Board to operate.
Speaker 6: Our San Pedro based Harbor Gateway work to our center on behalf of the L.A. community. We serve the surrounding L.A. Harbor area under contract to.
Speaker 2: The city of Los Angeles, which helps us to bridge regional employment opportunities in that harbor area and the Twin Ports.
Speaker 3: Thank you. And you haven't seen late yet, sir. There's a motion in a second. Is there any public comment? CNN members cast your vote.
Speaker 1: Motion carries nine zero.
Speaker 3: Wonderful item 28.
Speaker 1: Report from Long Beach Gas and Oil and Financial Management Recommendation to adopt resolutions authorizing the city manager to execute contracts for gas meters and other services and parts without advertising for bids in an aggregate amount not to exceed 350,000 per year citywide. | Contract | Recommendation to authorize City Manager to execute all documents and any needed subsequent amendments with the City of Los Angeles to accept Workforce Innovation and Investment Act (WIOA) funds totaling $1,075,000 to continue operations of the Harbor Gateway WorkSource Center for the term of July 1, 2015 through June 30, 2016, with an option for annual renewal for three additional years; and authorize City Manager, or his designee, to execute agreements and amendments with necessary WIOA training provider vendors. (Citywide) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_07212015_15-0699 | Speaker 1: Report from Parks, Recreation and Marine. Recommendation to execute agreements with the Long Beach Unified School District for the operation of the After School Education and Safety Program. Authorize the required 15% in-kind match of 270 207,929 and increase appropriations in the General Grants Fund in the Parks, Recreation and Marine Department by 1,000,100. $1,102,544. District 124679.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Madam Clerk. There's been a motion by Councilmember Richardson and a second by me, Mr. West.
Speaker 2: Acting director Steve Scott and Gladys Kaiser, Vice Mayor, members of the City Council.
Speaker 6: The item before you tonight is to execute agreements with the Long Beach Unified School.
Speaker 2: District for the Department of Parks, Recreation and Marine to operate afterschool programing.
Speaker 6: Onsite at.
Speaker 2: Eight Long Beach schools. This is a.
Speaker 6: Program that's funded through the.
Speaker 2: State and administered by Long Beach Unified School District. The department is one of eight providers, contracted providers.
Speaker 6: Through the district.
Speaker 2: We provide services at eight sites. The remaining.
Speaker 6: Seven providers provide services at another 49 649.
Speaker 2: Sites. This is our eighth year providing the.
Speaker 6: Service and we expect to serve about 200,000 students this.
Speaker 2: Year. We're open for any questions.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Is there any public comment on the item? Seeing none. Members, cast your vote. I'm sorry, Councilman Andrews.
Speaker 10: It's late. It's late. No.
Speaker 3: It's. It's not late, Councilman.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 10: Good. You know, as a teacher, I really see the hands of the importance. You know, the benefits of my school program. And I think that they are linked in the significant gains. You and standardized test scores and work habits, as well as reduction in behavior. You know, after school hours are always the peak time for juvenile crime and risky behavior. So I serve this, you know, and prevent this type of activity as well. So I'm definitely flavor in favor of continuing this program for our youth. And thank you for bringing this forth.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Councilman Andrews. Is there any public comment on the item? Seeing none. Members cast your vote.
Speaker 1: Motion carries nine zero.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Item 30. Yes. Yes. | Contract | Recommendation to authorize City Manager to execute agreements with the Long Beach Unified School District for the operation of the After School Education and Safety Program at Burbank, Edison, Garfield, Grant, King, Lafayette, and Lee Elementary, and Hudson K-8 school sites; authorize the required 15 percent in-kind match of $207,929 in the form of Community Development Block Grant and General Fund monies; execute any future documents, including amendments, necessary to accept, implement, and administer the agreements; and
Increase appropriations in the General Grants Fund (SR 120) in the Parks, Recreation and Marine Department (PR) by $1,102,544.
(Districts 1,2,4,6,7,9) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_07212015_15-0701 | Speaker 3: Thank you, Madam Clerk. Item. 3131.
Speaker 1: Communication from City Attorney Recommendation to Declare Ordinance Amending the Long Beach Municipal Code relating to the Board of Health and Human Services. Read the first time and lead over to the next regular meeting of the City Council for Final Reading.
Speaker 3: This motion by Councilman Andrews and seconded by Councilmember Urunga is their staff report. I'm sorry. So any member of the public that wishes to address the council, please come forward.
Speaker 5: Good evening, city council members. My name is Christine Pettit. I live in the sixth district and I'm here tonight serving in my capacity as the newly elected chair of the Board of Health and Human Services. The board reviewed the proposed changes to this ordinance at our June meeting and we are supportive of them with regard to board composition. Although your voting to add these categories into the ordinance, we do currently have a mental health professional and an environmental health professional that are serving on the.
Speaker 1: Board.
Speaker 5: And we think that the youth perspectives are valuable and want them to continue moving forward. The board has the diverse membership and we take up a breadth of issues from the more traditional disease and prevention to broader public health issues like affordable housing, or actually the safety and health of our housing, as well as violence prevention. And the board really wants to be seen as a resource to you all. So I was also going to invite members of the public. I'm sure some are still watching. Right. But the board meets on the second Fridays of each month at 745 in the morning. Lucky us. At the Miller Family Health Education Center, 3820 Cherry Avenue. Our next meeting is on August 14th, and we're so passionate about our service that we actually voted to not have our hey this summer. So thank you all.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Councilman Andrews?
Speaker 10: Yes. I'd just like to say congratulations. And you wouldn't realize how many people are still watching this.
Speaker 3: There's the motion in a second. Members, cast your vote. Our family doesn't count.
Speaker 10: I was speaking of my wife.
Speaker 3: That's how.
Speaker 2: I feeling.
Speaker 1: Motion carries nine zero.
Speaker 3: Item 32. | Ordinance | Recommendation to declare ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code by amending Chapter 2.24 relating to the Board of Health and Human Services, read and adopted as read. | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_07212015_15-0728 | Speaker 1: Communication from Councilman Diane Andrews recommendation to approve the use of six Council District Fiscal Year 2015 one time infrastructure funds in the amount of 56,000 to fund community improvement and community engagement activities and decrease appropriations in the Capital Projects Fund in the Public Works Department by 56,000 and increase appropriations in the General Fund in the Human Resources Department by 56,000. District six.
Speaker 5: It's.
Speaker 3: Mentioned by Councilman Andrews and a second by Councilman Austin. Councilmember Andrews.
Speaker 10: Yes. Thank you. You know, since I've been in office, we have seen, you know, a lot of positive changes within the district. You know, with all the tasks that we have completed, we still have a lot of needs. And I would like to engage the City Workforce Development Board, who has been instrumental in fixing a lot of the problems from reducing unemployment to removing blight and to assist with continuing this challenge. And I would hope that my colleagues will. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Thank you. Councilman Andrews, I wanted to thank you for taking this step. I think it's very important and appreciate that you're making this move. Is there any member of the public that wish to comment on this item? Seeing None members cast your vote.
Speaker 1: Motion carries nine zero.
Speaker 3: Okay. We have taken item 34 and 35. And. New business.
Speaker 2: What is this first thing? Let's try.
Speaker 3: Okay. This is the opportunity for any member of the public that wish to address Council on items, not agenda raised. Seeing new members of the audience wishing to speak. I will go to new business from Members Council Member Richardson. | Agenda Item | Recommendation to approve the use of Sixth Council District Fiscal Year 2015 one-time infrastructure funds in the amount of $56,000 to fund community improvement and community engagement activities in the Sixth Council District for a one-year period; and
Decrease appropriations in the Capital Projects Fund (CP) in the Public Works Department (PW) by $56,000, and increase appropriations in the General Fund (GP) in the Human Resources Department (HR) by $56,000. (District 6) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_07142015_15-0633 | Speaker 1: Can I have, um. Would you please stand and raise your right hand to if you plan to testify or speak to this hearing? Please stand. Raise your right hand. Do each of you solemnly state that the testimony you may give in the course now in pending before this body shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God. Thank you. Hearing Item number one Report from Harbor Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record and conduct a public hearing on two appeals of the Board of Harbor Commissioners. Certification of the final IIR for the MTC Cement Facility Modification Project filed pursuant to Lomita Municipal Code by the Coalition for a Safe Environment and Earthjustice, an adopt resolution denying the appeals and upholding the Board of Commissioners certification of the final air.
Speaker 8: Thank you, Madam Clerk. If I may ask Mr. Mes.
Speaker 7: To make Vice Mayor Lowenthal a members of the City Council. As the clerk said, this hearing involves an appeal of a determination by the Board.
Speaker 2: Of Harbor Commissioners.
Speaker 7: To certify an environmental impact or port for a project for a port tenant who operates a cement import facility on Pier F in our port. As you know, the Board of Harbor Commissioners has jurisdiction over project approvals for all projects in the port district and pursuant to the city charter, they also act as the lead agency for sequel purposes when processing project applications. And they typically are the body that would certify URS or negative declarations or other environmental documents for all projects that are taking place in the port. However, under our municipal code, if a non-elected decision making body, such as the Board of Harbor Commissioners, certifies an environmental document, whether it be an environmental impact report or a negative declaration, a party that feels that they are aggrieved by that determination has the right to appeal the determination of the lead agency, the harbor board, to the elected decision making body. Who are you folks? The City Council. So that's why we are here tonight. It's important to point out before we move forward that unlike Appeals Planning Commission decisions which you deal with more often, that the Council's only jurisdiction in this case involves the secure or the environmental determination and not the underlying determination regarding the project approvals or the appropriateness of the project. That's solely within the jurisdiction of the Board of Harbor Commissioners. And since we don't have a lot of these appeals come before the city council, I like to go over the process that we follow tonight and all of the parties involved in this, both port staff, the project applicant and the appellants have previously been advised of this process. So we start off with the harbor department staff will provide a brief staff report on the project and the status of it. The appellants will then present the merits of their appeals. The project applicant that is NCC and the harbor department will then respond to the appeals. The appellants will then have an opportunity, if they wish and feel it necessary, to submit a brief rebuttal to any of the points that were brought up by the applicant and city staff. Because this is a complicated situation, we've allocated time slots for the appeals and what we've advised all the parties is that the appellants collectively will have 30 minutes to present their appeals and they can divide their time as they choose between the main presentation and their rebuttal time, and they can allocate their time as between the individual appellants. And I assume that they have already determined how they're going to make those allocations. The harbor department and the applicant, M.C., will likewise have 30 minutes to respond to the appeals, and they too can divide their time between them as they so choose. Again to mention the scope of the appeal. The Board of Harbor Commissioners has filed a final decision making authority over the project for which the final year was certified . Council's responsibility in this case is to determine whether or not sequel was properly complied with. But council does not have authority to either approve or reject or modify the project itself, as laid out in the memo that was provided to council. Basically, at the conclusion of this hearing, there are two paths that the Council could follow. They can choose to deny the appeals and adopt the resolution that's been presented for your consideration, which would essentially affirm the Board of Commissioners determination in regard to the air.
Speaker 5: Or.
Speaker 7: The Council could vote to grant one or both of the appeals. And direct the harbor department to proceed with appropriate school review or additional review before the harbor department then reconsiders the project approvals themselves. And with that, unless there's any questions about the procedure, I turn it over to harbor staff to start with the report.
Speaker 8: Thank you, Mr. Mayes. If I could have Mr. Langer up, who's the Chief Executive Officer of the port. Start the presentation and also introduce the staff that will be following him.
Speaker 2: Yes. Mayor Garcia and council members. With me tonight are three of our commissioners, President Drummond, Vice President Dines and Tracy Agus. You along with several members of our staff and we are before you this evening to confirm and defend the Environmental Impact Report that was certified by our Board of Harbor Commissioners for the MSC Cement Facility Modification Project. And at this point, I would like to introduce Heather Tom Lee, our Director of Environmental Planning. And with her is our managing director of Planning and Environmental Affairs, Rick Cameron, who will present the Harbor Department's agenda item.
Speaker 9: Thank you, John.
Speaker 7: Vice Mayor Lowenthal. I'd also like to introduce Barbara McTighe, who's seated to my right. Barbara is one of our in-house port attorneys, and between the two of us will respond to any legal questions that you might have separate in apart from the staff presentations. Thank you.
Speaker 8: Thank you.
Speaker 9: Thank you very much. Honorable Mayor Garcia, members of the city council. As John indicated, the harbor departments before you this evening to respond to two appeals that have been filed against the Environmental Impact Report for the M.S. Sea Cement Facility Modification Project that was recently certified by the Board of Harbor Commissioners on May 11th, 2015. Prior to responding to the appeals, we would like to present a brief staff report describing the MSC Cement Facility Modification Project and the secret process. The proposed project is located at AMC's existing cement import facility at 1150 Pier F Avenue in the Port of Long Beach. The facility is currently permitted to receive bulk cement by ship stores, the product in a warehouse and loading silos and loads the product onto customer trucks for delivery to local and regional concrete batch plants. The existing facility is permitted by the South Coast Air Quality Management District, or UMD. The permit includes throughput limits for ship unloading at 8.76 million metric tons per year and truck loading at 3.45 million metric tonnes per year. The proposed project would not modify the permitted unloading and loading limits. The existing AQ EMD permit includes a requirement that all vessels use shoreside power instead of their auxiliary engines while at berth. However, not all vessels that call it the facility are able to use shore power the entire time during unloading operations. The cranes onboard the ship are used to lift a payload or into the vessel's.
Speaker 1: Hold.
Speaker 9: To remove the last portion of cement. The high electrical load needed to operate the ship's cranes exceeds the amount of power that can be supplied by the shore power system. In addition, there's a need for additional storage capacity to minimize inefficiencies due to irregular ship deliveries and fluctuations in cement demand since cement deliveries to the facility are ordered months in advance. Changes in the demand for cement can occur after the order has been placed. There have been periods where the warehouse was full and ships calling it the facility could not unload upon arrival, and the vessels had to wait at birth or at anchor until sufficient warehouse capacity was available for the ship to offload the entire ship's load. Accordingly, AMC proposed a project to meet the following objectives to upgrade the existing facilities, to improve operational efficiencies and provide 40,000 metric tonnes of additional storage capacity to meet the future cement demand in the Los Angeles region. To install an emissions and mission control system called the docks. To reduce at birth nitrogen oxide emissions from ships auxiliary generator engines when vessels are not using shore power. And to modify the HQ and permit for bulk cement ship unloading, which currently requires shore power for all ships, and to instead allow either the use of shore power or treating at berth emissions from the ships using a dockside catalytic control system or docks. The project would include the following modifications to the existing cement import facility installing the docks, which is a movable at birth emission control system consisting of a crane arm and capture hood or bonnet. And this is part of the project, not a mitigation measure or a project alternative. Constructing additional storage consisting of four 10,000 metric ton, direct loading, concrete cement silos and two new truck lanes beneath the silos, upgrading the ship, cement, unloading equipment and other landside structures. The existing cement and loader would be upgraded and a new cement and loader would be installed. And the dock dockside crane rail for the unloading will be extended and the wharf structure and back lands will be reinforced. Based on a capacity study. The maximum throughput for the facility that the facility could accommodate after the modifications is approximately 4.2 million metric tons of cement. 99 vessel cost per year and one 166,400 annual truck trips. The secret process was initiated when MK filed a harbor development permit application with the Harbor Department for the Facility Modification Project, and our Environmental Impact Report was prepared for the project under SEQUA. The impacts that were identified in the air are significant and unavoidable, even after mitigation were applied to air quality, global climate change and biological resources. First for air quality project and cumulative operational air emissions and cumulative construction, air emissions would exceed the AQI thresholds. Mitigation measures include the modernization of the truck fleet, use of a diesel particulate filter for the at birth emission control system. In a demonstration project and use of Tier four construction equipment. In addition, mitigation measures were also added in the final IIR in response to comments by the public, which included participation in the demonstration and testing of the Advanced Maritime Emission Control System or AMAX and periodic technology reviews to investigate new emission reduction technologies, including zero emission cement delivery trucks and cement handling equipment. For global climate change. The total annualized greenhouse gas emissions generated from the proposed construction and operation would be above the A2 and significance threshold. Mitigation measures include the installation of solar panels, energy efficient lighting, energy audits and contribution to the port's greenhouse gas mitigation grant program for biological resources. Distribution to biological communities on a cumulative impact level in regard to invasive species and offshore whale strikes. The project includes an environmental control measure for all ships calling at the MTC facility to comply with the port's vessel speed reduction program of 12 knots from 40 nautical miles. All feasible mitigation measures were applied to the project and were adopted by the Board of Harbor Commissioners as a part of the Project Mitigation, Monitoring and Reporting Program . The final air was certified by the Board of Harbor Commissioners at a public hearing held on May 11th, 2015. As a part of their approvals, the Harbor Commission found the air to be in compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act, or SICA, and approved the proposed project. Two appeals were filed to the Long Beach City Council on May 26, 2015, by Earthjustice on behalf of ACR, Communities for Environmental Justice and Coalition for a Safe Environment, and also by Coalition for a Safe Environment, representing several additional parties and considering the merits of the filed appeals, the City Council is tasked with determining if the Harbor Department certification of the final air is in compliance with the requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act. This concludes the Harbor Department staff report. Thank you.
Speaker 2: And Vice Mayor Lowenthal. I wanted to apologize. I addressed the mayor. I didn't realize he was out of the room. And I apologize for not recognizing your chair.
Speaker 8: Thank you. I appreciate that. Is that it for the ports presentation at this time? It is. Okay. Thank you. If I might call up the appellants. You have 30 minutes total. For your presentation. How many of you will be speaking? Just two of you. Okay. And you'll utilize the entire time?
Speaker 10: No, actually, I think I will spend 10 minutes and then see the mike to Jesse Sean minutes, and then we'll try to save ten for rebuttal.
Speaker 8: Sure.
Speaker 10: Um, so I think I see you can hear me. Okay. I'm just going to open up.
Speaker 8: Ready? Super.
Speaker 10: Okay. So, good evening.
Speaker 8: Good evening.
Speaker 10: Thank you. Council members and Vice Mayor Lowenthal for your time. My name is Tamara Zaken. I'm an attorney with Earthjustice, and I'm here on behalf of East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice and the Coalition for a Safe Environment. I want to thank you for your time on an issue that is very important to my clients. I've described how I'm going to spend the time, and I just want to start by explaining that my clients are grassroots organizations based here in the harbor area, based in Long Beach and Commerce East L.A. They are the port's neighbors and they represent and have been advocating on behalf of the communities that are most disproportionately impacted by the in particular, the air pollution impacts of the port. And they have been fighting hard to move the needle forward as far as getting controls in place to to improve air quality in the port region and in the communities that they that they live in. The Council is familiar with the air pollution issues I'm talking about. And now I want to stop here and say that the council has done over the last four years a really good job of starting to address and deal with the air pollution issues that we we face. And the port as well and the companies that have do business at the port have been doing a good job of addressing these air pollution issues. But I think we all can see, just from looking at today's air quality, that that our job is not done. And still today, the air that we breathe is not safe. And and that's really why we're here today, because we're concerned about adding a project to already an unsustainable air quality situation that has significant impacts and disproportionately impacts the ports, community and neighborhoods. Um. The question before the council is whether Square has been complied with here and the appeal that has been brought. It challenges the Square view onto on to planes, which I will address soon. But before I talk about Secure, I just want to point out the broad scale human health hazards that are associated with these emissions. And I think we lose. We talk about Zika and we have a big document and it's technical, but I think we lose sight of what we're what we're dealing with on a human health hazard level. And one of the biggest air pollutants we're concerned with is is NOx is what they're called. This is nitrogen oxide. And it's emitted by ships coming into the port and trucks going in and out. And just just for a sense of what kind of impacts we're dealing with. You spend just a few hours, 3 hours in low levels of NOx, and you are already vulnerable to two chronic respiratory issues. And this is especially true for our children who are vulnerable populations, are pregnant mothers, our grandmothers. And it's undisputed that the project we're dealing with will be adding to to a baseline already of unsustainable NOx levels in our communities. A few points about the project itself. I think the staff report does a good job of summarizing it, so I'm just going to make a few short points. First, the terminal has been idle since 2010, and even before that it was not very active. So the port has issued a lease with Mitsubishi in 2022 and for the first four years of the lease, the facility was active. In 2006, activity went down and then in 2010, activity stopped entirely. The other point I want to make is we have obviously a very large port in Long Beach, but this project, but a piece of it is a very large project and the project is going to add 166,000 truck trips a year to the communities. The trucks are going to be going in and out 166,400 truck visits a year as a result of this project. And again, we're talking about ships and trucks being the overwhelming majority of the daily emissions at issue. So we'll hear about Secord. That's the jurisdiction you have to review. We've got an unsustainable, unhealthy air basin and then we have a project we're adding now that has been identified as adding to that significant levels of air quality emission impacts. And the job of Sequa is three things to study the impacts, identify the impacts. So we know the public knows what those impacts are, identify mitigation measures that will reduce the impacts. And this is really important. The mitigation measures are why my clients are here. This is where the rubber hits the road. We identify what we're dealing with and we don't want to put the burden on the public of having to shoulder the pollution issues. So we address them with mitigation measures to bring the pollution levels down. The third piece of the skill requirement is identifying alternatives. That's not at issue here. We're concerned with have we identified the impacts properly and have we mitigated sufficiently to protect the public, to protect our disproportionately impacted communities? First I'm going to talk about the impacts and get a little bit technical, but I mean, try and keep it simple. We have a baseline issue. The way we measure impacts is using a measuring stick called the baseline. It's the it's the way that we assess what a new project will add. And if you inflate a baseline, if you pick a level of activity as a baseline that's too high. Then what you're identifying is impacts to mitigate for the public benefit becomes smaller and you end up mitigating less and putting more burdens on the public. So it's very important that the baseline is accurate. And what we have here is a baseline chosen in the air that is almost a decade old, and the baseline is defined as being a realistic capture of the of the existing activities at the terminal. And as I describe, the terminal is inactive. So we have a baseline from 2006 at a time when the activity was at its highest peak. And it's creating an inflated level of of baseline impacts against which we're measuring now the project and what we're mitigating for the public as a result is something smaller. So one of the reasons why the council should send the air back is because the baseline is inaccurate. We need to address real conditions on the ground and if you look at the length of the lease, the real conditions have been for the majority of the lease, something much less than what happened in 2006. That's not a current representation of the terminals activities. We also are concerned that the impacts aren't addressed because the truck, the trucks that we're talking about are distributing cement across the region and they're going at least 30 miles out. If you look at the air, it's identified as up to 30 miles. But if other parts of the air, well, assess that or state that the the truck travel is going as far as the southwestern U.S. But the way the air identifies the impacts from the trucks is by seizing the analysis at three miles. So the minute the trucks get out to three miles, we stop our analysis. Any impacts beyond three miles are not in the air. We're not those things. The emissions resulting from outside three miles are falling again on the public, on the disproportionately impacted communities. Those impacts are not being mitigated. And again, that alone is a reason to send this project air back so that we can again capture the impacts of the truck emissions from hundreds of thousands of truck trips that this project will put on to onto the roads. And then I think before I before I conclude I think the are again the rubber hits the road when we talk about mitigation discussion the mitigation impacts for the mitigation measures for our impacts. We've got ship impacts and we've got truck impacts, all creating air emissions that are adding to unhealthy air that's not safe to breathe. And what are we going to do? This is the juncture now with this document. What are we going to do to make sure we're reducing our impacts to the maximum extent feasible to protect the public? And we we have identified in our comments ways in which the mitigation falls short. Again, these are reasons why the port should return to the air and reassess first. Ship controls the ships. What Mitsubishi or Masisi has committed to in its mitigation for ship emissions has been. Again, we see a theme. What they did in 2006, ten years ago. And we all know that in the last ten years we've seen technology develop. And Mitsubishi itself, in its opposition to our our appeal, admitted that the 2006 mitigation measure this is for shoreside powering where we are powering ships through through onshore terminal electricity is that level from 2006 could actually be raised to a higher level to 80% . And that's something that's not disclosed in the actual FBAR, the obligation under seaQuest to disclose that publicly. But we only see that in their reply brief to our appeal that there's higher levels of mitigation we can do on ship emissions. Those things are not in the air. There's going to there's a conversation about additional mitigation we can do for ships. I'm not going to address it. But there's a representative here from Amex, which is a technology that also can help mitigate ship emissions. And I'm going to defer to that representative to discuss that technology and why the absence of that technologies discussion in the air is is is problematic that we could do more by considering broader technologies. We have a truck fleet, too. I've talked about the truck fleet that's going to be going out tens of miles, hundreds of miles out. We don't get that analysis in the air. We don't understand those impacts. So already we don't know what exactly were mitigating because the analysis is limited. But even with respect to what we do know, even with respect to a three mile radius, there's a mitigation measure called modernizing the truck fleet, which the staff report described. But all the modernization does is bring cement trucks, and we've all seen them on the roads up to basic standards of law, the minimum standards. And some if you if you read the mitigation measure, it has some options in it. But at the bottom, the bottom line is that mitigation requires as much as you can do feasibly to protect the public. And what we have are mitigation standards that just mirror the minimum standards of law. And again, without getting technical, we want to we want to force the port to go back and comply with secure by disclosing. Disclosing the the truck mitigation measures that are still available. I think I'm going to let Jessie speak. I will. And rebuttal, perhaps address some additional issues. But I think, again, you know, we've got impacted communities and we want public disclosure. We're dealing with historic data. We can do more and we should do more. These are communities that have been burdened for a long time, and this is the juncture in which we need to address the issues of our impacts and and bring them under control. And I will now see them, I think.
Speaker 5: Good evening, Mayor. Council members and members of the audience. My name is Jessie Marquez. I am the founder and executive director of the Coalition for a Safe Environment. But let's first have an understanding of my background. So, you know, when I speak what type of authority I have, I have held. I worked in the manufacturing industry for approximately 20 years. I've been a test technician, a manufacturer, engineer, quality engineer, test lab manager, production manager, as well as division auditor. I worked in commercial electronics, aerospace and military and held the position of secret clearance. Issues I brought up was because of my concern is the project including all the best design features. Are the technologies they using the best that are available today? Are they mitigating all the types of impacts that their facility will be doing? And my answer conclusion was no. I am one of the foremost authorities for supporting alternative technologies and new technologies. But what happens is that when I read the information on the docks, it raises an immediate red flag. But Doc's technology has never been built before. It doesn't exist anywhere on the planet. The company that NCC contracted has never built a docks, has never built any ship emissions capture system, has never built any ship emissions treatment system. They have no experience in ship emissions capture or treatment technologies whatsoever. When I looked at the drawing that they presented on their technology. I recognized it because here at the Port of Long Beach is a company. That has the Amex technology, the advanced maritime emissions ship control technology. They have ten years experience. They are the first company to ever design and build a ship emissions capture treatment system. They have five U.S. patents. I did a patent search. There is no patent for the docs or a patent pending. But the Amex does have five and I've read those five. And looking at the drawing by the manufacturer of the docs, they are now violating all those patents. Now, maxi attorneys have told you that the patent issue should not be a concern of yours. It has no relevance whatsoever. But you, city council members and the Board of Commissioners do have a responsibility in doing due diligence, because that due diligence would have disclosed that there is no experience on this. They've made a statement about this system being there at FCC. No, all we have is parts sitting on a dock. It's never been configured before. They haven't even submitted a test protocol for CARB to approve. Whereas if we look at the AMOC system, they have ten years experience. They've been at the Port of Long Beach for seven years and this is what got me, because what's not disclosed in the air or in any presentation is the fact that they've been at the Port of Long Beach for seven years. They have tested their technology and over 70 ships, they have tested their technology on 34 bulk loading ships, the same type that would be carrying cement. They have never had a failure. You'll see that the argument was the footprint. Well, the Amex has five different designs that I've seen. And Mitsubishi never asked them could they build a system on a wheeled vehicle, which they can do? Mitsubishi never asked them. Could they have a smaller footprint equal to or smaller than the dock system, which they are fully capable of doing? So my concern is that when you do not investigate things, you do not contact the manufacturers for current information. You don't. Do not know what exist. But here we have a proven technology that exists already today. They want to spend three years testing docs and it may not still work at the end. And that's not acceptable when we have a technology that's available today. Changing to trucks in the air. It states that there were no zero emission trucks that they could use for this facility. In a document that was handed to you today or should have been represent to you today, is that we had already disclosed that there were numerous zero emission truck manufacturers that existed. I provided information on four of those zero emission truck manufacturers that have zero emission trucks up and running right now since the facility MTC will be built in two or three years. Every one of those would be available in two or three years. In addition to that, there are another four manufacturers of near zero emission trucks. And you can go right now to Mac, to Volvo, Freightliner, and pick one up right now. Zero emissions. And here's your emissions, which are your natural gas LNG types. Yet the air says they don't exist. Therefore, they weren't even considered. We have a problem with that. So there is technology. They also use a top loader. They said they could not find a top loader to help scrape the bottom of the holes in the insides of the ships. I found one. That's the zero emissions. So the issue is who is doing the proper due diligence? It is not we the public's job to be doing their job. If I go into the net and find forged emission truck manufacturers for news of your truck manufacturers and a tractor, then they should be able to do the same thing. But see, they never contacted any of these manufacturers to find out what the current status is. And even if it's not available today, they can be ordered. And built to order to any manufacturer specifications. And that's why these are viable technologies that need should be included in the year. We had also brought out that, you know, we were concerned about the construction of the facility. We all know about, you know, sustainability being part of our laws. This provides an opportunity where some of these sustainable technologies are also emission prevention technologies. So they need to be included. And I provided some information in our public comments, both draft and final, and in this document that shows what things are feasible off the shelf and can be done in terms of green construction. Solar energy is available. Building materials, such as even simple things like poles for light can be using recycled, you know, rubber and plastics, recycled carbon and fiberglass. So there are numerous more opportunities that would reduce emissions from that. A concern, too, that was brought up by one of our members that signed on with us was regarding the cement itself. We had asked for disclosure of the origin of the cement. And what type of assurances that we would have that this foreign imported cement would not have any toxic chemicals, toxic substances, hazardous materials, or have natural uranium radiation, for example. We were not provided any assurances that, you know, what are they going to do to make sure that does not happen? They also mentioned in the air that they are also maybe using cement like materials which might be furnace, slag, porcelains and fly ash. Again, these elements can also be toxic, can be hazardous and can be radioactive. What protects the public. That's what any air is supposed to do, is disclose in full detail these types of things. They also talk about how they comply to the Clean Air Action Plan, how they comply to the green port policy. The only thing they did in that regard is that they referenced the things that they did comply to. They did not list the things that they did not comply to. And those are some of the things that we listed and that we brought up that were not addressed, saying that you comply to one thing. At the same time, not complying to others is not acceptable. And I thank you for this time.
Speaker 0: Thank you very much. So we're going to stop the clock and leave it at 915, or are they? So that'll be the remaining amount of time. If the appellant wants to do a rebuttal that they can use for the time. Okay, so let's go ahead and get the clock back started for 30 minutes and our next presentation will be from the port. I will be inclusive with the applicant comments and if they like to take up to 20 minutes divided how they would like and if they want to save than ten more minutes for any sort of rebuttal or you can take 25 minutes and say 5 minutes for any kind of rebuttal, it's really up to up to the port. Okay. What's the what do you think you're going to take as far as your.
Speaker 1: I didn't think we had.
Speaker 6: Um. We didn't talk about that with Mitsubishi.
Speaker 9: We we'd like to reserve 5 minutes at the end for rebuttal.
Speaker 0: Okay. So then you have 25 minutes. We'll set the clock at 30. And when you start reaching those last 5 minutes, the clerk will let you know. And you may want to conclude at that time. Okay. Thank you.
Speaker 9: All right. Thank you very much. In response to the issues raised by the appellants, the harbor department will be providing our presentation first, followed by Mitsubishi. The Harvard Department has prepared detailed, written responses to the grounds for the appeals, and those have been included in the staff report. Several issues raised by the two Apollo letters were beyond the scope of the City Council's review in this appeal hearing. While the appellants may be raising important issues for debate, the issues in front of city council tonight is a narrow one. Did the E.R. prepared by the Harbor Department comply with Sequel? Tonight, I'll present a summary of the key issues related to the Harbor Department's compliance with Secure. An argument raised by the appellants is that the final year did not use the correct baseline. The IIR utilize 26 as the baseline year because it was the last full year of normal operations before the economic downturn in 2011. Operations at the facility were in a temporary hiatus. Allows lead agencies to recognize that there will be fluctuations in operation levels over time due to economic and other factors, and to set an appropriate baseline that takes these fluctuations into account using 2011 as the baseline when there was zero activity at the site would be misleading, ignoring the fact that the fully permitted, fully entitled cement import facility already exists because the existing MDC facility has valid operating permits and already has undergone comprehensive environmental review under SEQUA. At any time they could have operated the existing facility at its maximum capacity permitted under its aq m d permit. The ER could have used the AQ and permitted capacity for the facility as the baseline. However, to be conservative, the port determined that the most appropriate way to provide meaningful information to the public and the decision makers would be to use the actual activity levels from the facility. In 2006, prior to the economic downturn, which was much less than the AQ d permitted limit. Therefore the baseline used in the ER fully complies with sequa. Another argument raised was that that all feasible mitigation measures were not imposed. First, the appellants argued that the Amex technology should have been required. However, under secure Amex is not a feasible mitigation measure or an alternative to Mtc's dock system. MTC proposed the docks as an essential part of their project to treat emissions from vessels when shore power could not be used. Square requires the lead agency to evaluate the project as submitted by the applicant and to identify appropriate alternatives and feasible mitigation. Although the AMEX is a promising technology undergoing demonstration testing, it's not currently approved and available for use. There's one Amex prototype unit that recently underwent testing for container ships and is awaiting approval from the California Air Resources Board to be used as an alternative to shore power for container ships specifically. The Amex will also need to undergo the required demonstration and testing for dry bulk vessels and go through the card process to become available as an approved and commercialized system before it can be considered feasible under sequa for the use on bulk vessels that call at the MSC facility. Therefore, Amex cannot currently be relied upon as a feasible mitigation measure or an alternative under sequa. However, in the in response to the comments received, a mitigation measure was added to the final IIR that requires MCP to participate in the demonstration of the Amex. In addition, the docks will also need to demonstrate the use of a diesel particulate filter for reducing particulate emissions. Further, FCC will also be required to work with the port through a periodic technology review process to monitor development of the various technologies that are appropriate for their operation and integrate them over time to continue to address emissions impacts. And finally, the Harbor Commission approved a motion after certification of the document, which went beyond SICA to direct staff during any lease negotiations with AMC to include the use of best available technology to capture ship emissions. Second, the opponents have argued for the use of zero emission trucks, while zero emission technologies are promising. There are currently no zero emission technologies readily available in the marketplace to replace the types of cement delivery trucks used at the facility. Zero emission trucks remain in the testing phase, with a current focus on demonstration of prototype trucks for container drainage and are not currently feasible for cement delivery in connection with the MKC terminal. Because the development and testing of many of these technologies are still in the early stages, the timeline for commercial viability is speculative at this time. Through the cap and the Clean Trucks program. The port has worked consistently over the last decade to reduce emissions from trucks serving the San Pedro Bay ports. In connection with this project, the port has gone a step further by imposing a mitigation measure that requires MTC to go above and beyond current requirements. At a minimum, the trucks must be in compliance with the Clean Trucks Program and State Drage truck regulation. But 90% of the trucks calling it the MTC facility must go further and maintain engines that are no more than five years old or equivalent. In addition, MTC must participate in periodic technology reviews every five years over the duration of their lease. That expressly includes zero emission and near zero emission technologies for cement delivery trucks for incorporation into their operations when they become feasible. The port remains committed to supporting development of zero emission truck technologies through our Our Technology Advancement Program. And we've invested significant funding to support and expedite their development. We will continue to partner with other agencies in funding, development, developing and demonstrating zero emission truck technology so they can become a feasible option in the coming years. And this will be a focus in our update to the Cleaner Action Plan, which has recently been initiated. In addition, an additional issue raised by the appellants is the amount of funding contribution to the greenhouse gas mitigation program consistent with the port's previous year. That Air for Mitsubishi requires a contribution of $15 per metric tonne of all CO2 equivalent emissions from the baseline to the emissions peak. And the payment must be made upfront in advance of the peak year. The calculation rate is based upon the AQ MDS Rule 2702 and is consistent with working with the more and more conservative than the state's cap and trade calculation. Therefore, this mitigation was applied consistently and appropriately. Further, NCC is required to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions by reducing their onsite energy demand through installation of solar panels, energy efficient lighting and conducting energy audits. The opponents have argued that the scope of the analysis in the final year is not fully compliant with SICO in regards to traffic. A traffic impact study was performed as part of the EMR and no significant traffic impacts around the proposed project were determined. The appellants argue that traffic and air analysis only consider the impacts within the three miles of the project. However, that's not correct. The scope of the traffic analysis was designed to evaluate all intersections and roads that could be significantly impacted by traffic from the project. The traffic distribution for those intersections and along those roads reflects a review of previous NCC customers the location of known ready mix plants in the region, the potential market area for cement and probable travel routes of these customer trucks to and from the NCC facility. The traffic study methodology used was consistent with city of long beaches, traffic study policies and Metro's 2010 congestion management program, including and included examining locations near the project site and continuing out from there. And if no significant impacts are identified, no further analysis is needed because the number of traffic trips at any particular location decreases with distance from the project site as traffic disperses through the regional network impacts at locations more distant from the one studied in detail for the project, which are even less of an impact from project related trips. In this case, no significant impacts were identified at any intersection or in any road or freeway segments. Including the I7 ten. Although the traffic analysis was carried out to approximately three miles from the project site, that scope was based on the results of the analysis and was not selected arbitrarily. Further, and I think this is important to emphasize, the air impacts from the project were studied to the first point of rest or the base and boundary and were not limited to three miles. The air analysis for truck emissions specifically were estimated using a roundtrip distance of 60 miles based upon the anticipated destinations. Again. While the appellants are raising important issues about the use of advanced clean technologies, these are issues that the court is very engaged in with our Technology Advancement Program , and that will be addressing in our upcoming update to the Clean Air Action Plan. But the issue in front of the city council tonight is narrow regarding specifically the application of Sequoia for this project. The Board of Harbor Commissioners serves as the trustees over the portions of the Tidelands that comprise the port. And the Board's decisions regarding what activities may occur on port property are made after careful consideration and deliberation, and the Board has determined that the ER was prepared in compliance with CEQA. Tonight, the Harbor Department respectfully request that the City Council receive the supporting documentation into the record and adopt a resolution denying the two appeals and upholding the Board of Harbor Commissioners certification of the final IIR in accordance with the California Environmental Quality Act. And this concludes the Harbor Department's presentation for this time. Mitsubishi will be providing their presentation.
Speaker 0: Please continue.
Speaker 2: Good evening. My name is Bud Biggs, and I'm the project manager for Mitsubishi Cement on this project.
Speaker 7: Sorry. I'd like to thank the mayor.
Speaker 5: And the city council for listening to.
Speaker 2: Our comments tonight. I'd like to.
Speaker 7: Thank the port staff.
Speaker 5: For all their hard work on.
Speaker 2: This project and for the excellent job for responding to the applicants. I'd just like to state that. Shore power is definitely our preferred method of controlling emissions. And although the air says 66%, we plan to cold iron. Absolutely as much as we possibly can. Oh, yeah. One other one other comment I'd like to make is that we do have a manufacturing plant in Lucerne Valley in San Bernardino, and that plant ships them out to California, Nevada and Arizona. The facility here in Long Beach is very local and. Almost all of that cement goes into the L.A. Basin and some to San Diego. Thank you very much for listening to us tonight. I have all of our consultants and experts here tonight, and I'll reserve the rest of the time for them to do their rebuttal or. Whatever I'd like to say. Thank you.
Speaker 11: Good evening. I'm Jocelyn Thompson of Alston and Bird. I am assisting Mitsubishi Cement on the environmental permitting and the wood compliance in particular. And joining me today at the podium is Marcia Braverman from Environmental Audit.
Speaker 6: And I need technical consultant and has been working with with Mitsubishi on this project as well as doing the air permitting at the Air District.
Speaker 11: So we're going to try to cover an awful lot of territory in a very short period of time. It's very important, as the final decision makers here this evening that the city council appreciate that it's very hard to get into the detail in this forum, but there is a vast amount of detail that has been provided to you. And I know that, you know, the board's been diligent or the council has been diligent in exploring that and trying to master the topics. So I'm going to hit just a couple of the points, and then I'm going to turn it over to our technical expert, Ms.. Braverman, to speak to some of the issues as well. First SEC baseline. Appellant's counsel was, I think, good in her explanation that it's important to have a firm understanding of the starting point for Square Review. And then you have to ask, how is the project going to change the world? What is the world going to look like afterwards? What are the consequences of launching down this path? But I think she presented only half the law on baseline. There is another whole body of law that actually prohibits an agency from looking again at environmental impacts that have already been evaluated. And that's the situation that we have here. We have an existing terminal that has been through Complete Square Review on multiple occasions in the past. So Scala says the starting point is supposed to be the fully permitted, already evaluated facility that Ms.. Thomas described, that, you know, that would be the maximum permitted capacity of the facility and all the truck trips and ship visits that are associated with that. This was a subject of a lot of discussion early on in the review of this project, and the company acquiesced in the port's preference to use actual data from 26. It's true, 26 had more ships and trucks than today, but using 26 data actually deflates the baseline. It gives us a lower starting point, not a higher starting point than the law would allow. And very a lot of the analyzes flow from that. So it's a critical point. The second thing I want to address is raised in the letter that appellants filed today, which asks for recirculation. There is no information that was provided either in the port's filing to you or our filing to you last week. That would trigger recirculation. There's no information that reveals any new significant impact or more substantially severe impacts than what you already have in great detail in the air, including all the responses to comments. The third point I want to hit is cold ironing. Mr. Bigs already said that that is the company's preferred approach. It avoids the emissions associated with the auxiliary engines at birth. It's it's terrific. It can't be achieved 100% of the time. It's important that the board, the council appreciate that Mitsubishi has accomplished an extraordinary thing. They have indeed cold ironed a captive fleet, something that people said we wouldn't be able to do. It has been achieved with not with no modifications to a single ship, which is great because we rarely see a ship a second time, let alone a third or fourth or fifth. We deal with a worldwide fleet that we don't own, we don't control, we cannot modify. And to our knowledge, no one else in the port of Long Beach, the port of LA, any West Coast port or any port anywhere has actually achieved this. So it's an extraordinary accomplishment that your city, your port has already recognized through granting an award to the company for this. So there's been some discussion about should the condition be a minimum, 66% cold ironing or 80% cold ironing? If you look at the 26 data, all the ships, what was achieved in 2006 was 66% cold ironing. If you look at the ships, a smaller group, that was the group that we attempted to cold iron. You come up with the 80% number. But here's the thing. We have data of what we achieved. We do not have evidence that that can be achieved every year because we don't control the ships. There's a lot of evidence that we don't control the ships. We will strive to do the best, and we've done better than anybody else has ever done on this count. And that is terrific. And we think 66% is achievable on a year end, year in, year out basis. 80%, we cannot assure you we can do that because we can't control the ships. I should probably turn it over to you because you've got a lot of points to cover. Thank you. Thank you.
Speaker 1: If I can actually make this work. Thank you.
Speaker 6: I'd like to speak a little bit about efficiency. This project, Mitsubishi sees it as an efficiency project is to more efficiently handle material, have it available for trucks, will arrive at the facility and to offload it as quickly as possible from the ships. This project is to help. Prevent what occurred in 26 for our facility. The project the ships are. Are ordered months in advance. If you get behind in unloading the ship, the ships sit at anchor. In 2006 and 2007 combined, more than 7000 hours of anchor time occurred and the hoteling emissions associated that with that occurred. This project is trying to eliminate the need to go to anchor by having a ship show up when this ship at berth is not yet unloaded. By reducing the amount of at anchor time, we can reduce some of the emissions that occurred in 2006. There were 25 tons of SOX emissions, there were 12 tons of NOx emissions and there were one and a quarter tons of PM10 emissions. The shore power system that Mitsubishi installed uses the drydock breaker on the ship. It's because we don't own the ships and the ships are designed elsewhere. We can't control the amount of power that can be put through the drydock breaker. The port discussed this somewhat and as well as Mr. Thomson. So the cold ironing condition is that we've achieved 80%, but we can't necessarily commit to being able to do that all the time. The unloading process includes includes the use of what we call a pay loader. It's a piece of construction equipment to get it into the hold. It has to be lifted with the cranes. And the drydock breakers are not designed to handle enough power to power the cranes on the ship. And that's when the auxiliary system that we had designed would be employed.
Speaker 2: The.
Speaker 6: The pay loaders that that Mitsubishi uses are the current tier required, which would be tier four when operations resume. The only equipment that we have been able to locate is a hybrid certified tier four piece of equipment that has a larger engine than the pay loaders that the facility requires. Using Tier four equipment, the proper size for our facility will reduce the emissions over a Tier four hybrid that has a bigger engine. You don't want to overpower your case. Mitsubishi is subject to air district permits and they hold a number of permits, including a permit for unloading and they comply with Rule 43, which has to do with fugitive dust emissions from the facility. The air includes a mitigation measure that outlines the fugitive dust emission controls. Mitsubishi uses. A pneumatic on loader which creates a negative draft into the hold and acts as mission control as well as all of the equipment at the facility that handles the cement, has permits and operates emission control devices . The entire process is done through pneumatic moving material, through pipes. It does not use open conveyors. It does not move material into hold. It moves it out of the hold.
Speaker 11: So before we get off this slide, I'm going to interrupt Ms.. Braverman, just for a moment to say to translate that into layperson's terms. This is a giant vacuum. It's a giant vacuum. We vacuum out the hold so we're not disturbing it with conveyor belts and all sorts of things. Giant vacuum. It controls its own emissions.
Speaker 6: The dock system that was designed for Mitsubishi was designed specifically to meet the needs of our air district permits and our project. Its fundamental use is to be secondary to cold irony. It's suited to our facility because it can be relocated as needed because it's on wheels. And it uses proven technology. Emission control technology. For NOx, control is selective catalytic reduction. That technology has been proven in many facilities throughout the basin. And there is nothing unproven about that technology. The. Project. At its inception, the sulfur content in fuel was quite high. And somewhere in the neighborhood of 2.7% on average. Since this project started, the regulations have reduced that number 2.1%. Today, because of that, the availability of being able to do particulate control is much more feasible. And the project has a mitigation measure to put a particulate filter demonstration in which, given the sulfur content, we hope will work
Speaker 1: . With our diversified fleet. The project.
Speaker 6: The air found our project to have very localized, significant air quality impacts, primarily for a one hour NOx standard.
Speaker 1: That the air district has that the federal government actually has.
Speaker 6: And PM ten and PM 2.5. Those impacts.
Speaker 1: Were very adequately.
Speaker 6: Defined by the modeling done by the port that showed that it does not go outside the port and actually stays on Pier Avenue, very local to the facility. The the analysis done in the air is done in a number of ways. There are. Pound threshold a day. There modeling their health risk models. They're all done slightly differently. And by just defining the area of significance, significant impacts. There is no need to go farther out because as Heather said.
Speaker 1: The farther out you go.
Speaker 6: The more dispersed the impacts are and the lower they are. There were no impacts out in residents, significant impacts found in residential areas, and it was all very localized to the facility.
Speaker 1: The.
Speaker 0: Truck measure is real quick. You have 5 minutes left for your including your rebuttal. So if you want to have 5 minutes for rebuttal, you're can have to wrap up pretty quickly, just so you know that. Right. You put the whole 30 on there. Right. Okay. So please continue. It's up to you guys.
Speaker 11: So this is our last slide and we were at about 15 seconds to explain it.
Speaker 0: Okay. Continue. Continue.
Speaker 1: Sorry.
Speaker 6: I lost my train of thought. The truck measure was explained by the port that it's an ever renewing five year truck fleet. So it won't be 90% of the trucks will be.
Speaker 1: Five years.
Speaker 6: And newer. And so that's been misunderstood in understanding the project. And for us in regards to zero emission trucks. We have yet to find one that has been approved for use to haul the weight load that Mitsubishi uses, which is just about 40 tons. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Okay, thank you. We are.
Speaker 11: Of course, available for questions.
Speaker 0: Thank you. And now we're going to go back to the appellant. The appellant had, I believe it was 9 minutes and. 10 seconds. Okay. So they're able to take a. The remainder of that or what they would like to make any rebuttal.
Speaker 10: Thank you. Can I ask a procedural question first? Sure thing. I wanted to clarify. I mean, as a parent, my understanding is that we would get the last word, that our rebuttal, which would conclude the presentation portion. And I wanted to. Perhaps the rules are.
Speaker 0: Let me let me double check on that. Can you give me 1/2? Okay. Okay. I'm going to let the city attorney explain that this piece.
Speaker 7: Go ahead. Thank you, Mayor. Members of the city council, the speaker somewhat correct. The memo that was sent out didn't identify a rebuttal period per say for the applicants or city staff. But the but allowing them to rebut is not prejudicial because you have not exceeded the overall 30 minutes that was allocated to each side. And moreover, in these types of situations, it's really since you are hearing this as a new hearing body, it's really incumbent upon the applicant to demonstrate to you that the IIR is sufficient. And so it is appropriate for, in this case, the applicant and the court to have the last 5 minutes, but not to exceed the overall 30.
Speaker 10: I mean, I think that I would have I would say that I think it is prejudicial not to give the appellant, the public, the communities of concern that have raised this to the fore. The last word, then, I think that there's the time is what it is. And that certainly gives the applicant and the port the time to make their case. But I think that nevertheless, I will do my best to rebut and hopefully, you know, you can keep in your mind, notwithstanding what's what's left of the last 5 minutes in your mind, to the point I'm going to make. So I guess we can thank you.
Speaker 0: So we have 9 minutes and 10 seconds, I believe, or whatever the last number was. Okay. Thank you. Please go ahead.
Speaker 10: Okay. So I just wanted to remind everyone why we're here. We're talking about secure. And we're talking about the purpose of we're trying to ensure that what's happened here meets the purpose and legal requirements of secure and. Really the statute is written in in and I and I said this before, but this is the opportunity now for the council to to ask the port and to ask the project applicant to do the best job it possibly can on behalf of your constituents to control pollution and not just to control it within what the law may or may require of it in terms of basic standards, but to do as much as possible and we're talking about a project that has been identified as significantly impacting an already unsustainable air pollution scenario. So we have significant impacts to the job under seek ways to mitigate that down to zero or below significance. And they haven't done that. What we have in this is an admission that they cannot mitigate the significant impacts back down to zero. So what you have is a project that's coming in and that's that is in fact, putting burdens on the public on these especially harbor area communities that have already been disproportionately impacted. So really, in considering whether Square has applied, it's imperative that we do the best possible job. If there's any doubt in your mind whether Square has been done properly here, the law requires that you protect the public. Square is intended to protect the public. And again, we're adding burdens and the project applicant admits in its it cannot remove those burdens down to zero, even though that is the goal of square. So what we're left with is a question of how does the public does the council understand the impacts the way it wants to. Is there a question in your mind about what the impacts are? And and. Because, as I have asserted, we do not understand the impacts. And I address the baseline question in a minute. Is the public taking on more pollution than it even knows it is than has even been disclosed? And does that mean that the project applicant and the port is getting out from under its duty to be responsible for that pollution? Is it shifting the burden which that square requires is on the project applicant over to the public? And that's what we're trying to avoid. So with that said, I think there are some legal arguments about baseline and there's legal arguments about feasibility of mitigation. And I'm not going to to to go into that except to say that there is very clear law in this circumstance. And and I agree that there's also law, as FCC counsel said, about baseline and about already having analyzed project impacts in earlier iterations. But what we have here is not a continual timeline of activity that's been analyzed that we're adding to. What we have here is a complete drop off. And so what the baseline currently is in this FBAR is historic only. And and so that's the concern. Are we are we cherry picking. The impacts, again, to hurt the public. And and that's what's happening here. We're cherry picking the best scenario for the project applicant when what we should be doing is looking at the the scenario for the public and assessing the impacts for the public. And again, the impacts to the public. Asthma, pain when breathing weakened immune systems, inflammation of the lungs, pulmonary disease, cancer, even premature death. We're talking these are real impacts. So I want to keep everyone's mind on on on that when we're talking about air pollution. The. There's a dispute about whether we understand the impacts in the Empire States. And I will quote it The analysis of emissions from proposed truck trips focused on roadway systems within roughly three miles of the project terminal rather than an entire trip distance between the terminal and facilities up to 30 or 30 miles away. So they only look at 10% of the trip. Three miles, not 30 miles. That's all those extra miles. Who's who's shouldering that? Is that being mitigated? No, it's not. That's the public burden. That's a that's a prejudicial issue in the air. That's one reason you guys should send. We ask and request the council to send this back for clarification, if for nothing else, for disclosure. I address the baseline issue. We can't cherry pick the baseline. And I will say too about short the shoreside power. I mean, she cares about disclosure. We just heard that. Well, maybe we can do 80. We're not sure. None of that is in the air. Another reason why we should go back. We should put that discussion in there. We should involve the public in the Shoreside power question. What the public was told was 66%. That's it. But now we're hearing that 80% is possible. Well, that was news to me as of Friday, certainly news to my clients and the community as of Friday. That's not how secret process works. You have to disclose it. You have to disclose that in the air. And it wasn't. And this might seem like a procedural hiccup. But the public deserves the time it takes to do it right. Because once we send the secret approval out, those emissions are coming. Those 100,000, 66, 166,400 trucks are coming. The ships are coming. And we will lose our chance to identify our best ways to bring the project impacts down. I think the final point. It's really. I have already said and I think I said this is the beginning, that the council has done a good job of identifying the air pollution issues. Now we all know there are serious air pollution issues surrounding the port. Notwithstanding the good work and that our job isn't done yet. And I also credited the companies that do business with the port and the port for its work to reduce the emissions. And I think that is an excellent effort. And yet the law requires us to do more to keep working on this. This air is still unsafe to breathe, and that's why we're here. So. When we talk about Mitsubishi and its awards and I mean I give it credit for the sheer power technology that I identified in 2006, ten years ago almost. But but that's not that's that's a distraction from what we're here to discuss. We're talking specifically about this project, and we're talking about significant impacts that should not be erased that are associated with this project. We're talking about adding pollution to already overburdened area region communities. And we're talking about disproportionately impacted communities that have been shouldering these these burdens for far too long. And they're neighbors of the port. They are workers in the port. We just heard from the MTC Council that the particulate matter, this is tiny little particles that build up in your lungs. That these are very localized impacts. Well, what we didn't hear from them as that. We've got port workers who are breathing that in every day. We've got human health issues. We've got very burdened communities. And. Mitsubishi's awards aside, focus on the size of the project. And what still needs to be done in the environmental review to honor the protection the public deserves. I think I will conclude, and I thank you again for your time and your consideration of my client's concerns on this matter.
Speaker 0: Thank you very much. We're going to go and let the port conclude their last. I think it was a little bit under 5 minutes or so. You have the time. Okay. So if the, if the port wants to conclude or the, uh, the port and the applicant let them do that, she can set the timer. It's ready to go. Take it away.
Speaker 9: Right. Thank you very much. We've covered a lot of topics in the rebuttal and the presentations. What we wanted to emphasize were a few points before we go to the discussion with City Council. First, Mitsubishi did make the point, well, that shore power is the number one priority for this project. We did a conservative analysis on this project looking at a minimum of 66% of the vessels calling it the facility would use shore power. The intent is that Mitsubishi will do much more than that in actuality, but 66% was what they were able to achieve previously when they were using their shore power and to be conservative in the analysis. We didn't want to assume more than that, but we did want to provide that as a baseline that we weren't going below. But there will be all of the emissions from all of the ships that will be captured and treated, either through a combination of shore power or the use of the dock system. And we will be doing the demonstration of the max and the demonstration of the diesel particulate filter on the dock system. The in addition, the the analysis for the baseline, we believe is conservative. We could have used a higher baseline than we did using the permitted through throughput limits for the facility. But to be conservative, we use the actual activity that occurred in 2006 addressing the three mile analysis. The traffic analysis was focused within three miles, and that's different than the error modeling that was done for criteria air pollutants. The modeling did go out to 30 miles from the port or 60 miles roundtrip. But I do want to identify specifically the air dispersion modeling that was used for the health risk assessment. Does look at the area where there's the greatest concentration of impacts. And that was in the area that was closer to the port three miles. That's the area related to the health risk assessment that will result in the higher impacts. And so for the traffic analysis and the health risk analysis that was more concentrated closer to the port, but for the criteria, air pollutant analysis, that did go further to 30 nautical miles. I also want to identify that the port has a strong commitment to advanced technologies and continuing progress, and the port will remain committed to addressing air quality impacts and other environmental impacts from all port operations. And we will continue to do that through our efforts like the Technology Advancement Program and the Clean Air Action Plan. And through those processes, we hope to identify new technologies into the future that can be applied to projects like Mitsubishi through our Periodic Technology Review and other projects that we work with going forward. We remain committed to addressing the impacts from port operations and the health risk impacts to the local communities, and we will continue to implement those programs going forward. Thank you very much.
Speaker 0: Okay. Is that. Are you guys concluding or are you going to take any more time?
Speaker 11: May I take the last 59 seconds? I just want to speak to one more item, which is the idea of whether there should be one or many options for stack exhaust treatment from ships. We believe that the emphasis that the Port of Long Beach and Sister Port of L.A. has been focusing on clean air in the port , has done just an amazing job of prompting innovation. And we think it is better to have options so that there are a variety of technologies available and each tenant of the port can have a menu to choose from to pick the one that is best suited to its installation. And here we have bear no ill will toward the developer of any other technology. We think that is fabulous. We know that the port, the city, the South Coast Air District, many have invested in the advancement of these technologies. And that's terrific. We just know that this project has selected the right one for this installation. And the question for the council is whether the effect is adequate, I think for this project.
Speaker 0: Time's up. I so.
Speaker 11: Great. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you very much. Okay. So we have completed that portion of the hearing. We're now going to go to public comment. And as a reminder, this is public comment for members of the public that are not the appellant or the applicant, the port. So if you have public comment, please come forward. Okay. Well, I'll give you 1/2. Let me let it kind of line up here so I can. Okay. We're going to before we before we get started. So just as an RFI, we have about in counting everyone, we probably have about an hour of public comment here. So we've obviously heard a lot of a lot of interest and a lot of back and forth and some really good information from both sides. And so you had your 3 minutes. You're welcome to take it. But if we can be a little expeditious, we would appreciate that as well, because we do have a lot of public comment. We want to get to the council because they have a lot of questions and so we want to get to that part as well. So please.
Speaker 6: Great. Good evening. My name is Morgan Wian. I'm an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, the NRDC. And we were really involved in the public comment phase of the secret process, but not part of the appeal. I just want to emphasize about the baseline issue here. Counsel for Earthjustice was 100% correct. The court, unfortunately, got the baseline issue wrong in this situation. They did. The wrong baseline cycle requires that the.
Speaker 9: Baseline for the.
Speaker 6: Environmental analysis is, quote, the existing physical conditions. Courts have ruled that this cannot be interpreted to mean what the conditions could have been or should have been. The baseline is supposed to be what was actually going on right before the project here. The port did not that they did the wrong thing. They used the level of activity that could have been. They took the last year of major operations 2006 and applied 2015 emission standards. So they took the 2006 operation levels and said what the emissions would have been if we pretend those emissions happened in 2015 to make it worse. 26 operations were not representative of what has actually been going on at the terminal for the past almost ten years. This is the exact wrong analysis to do under Sequoia and what Teco requires. Yes. As other counsel have said today, there is flexibility for the lead agency, the port, to identify their baseline. That is true. But there are situations that courts have said that a baseline analysis is not correct. And this is one of those things the port did. One of the kinds of approaches the courts have already said is incorrect or the port should have done is use a year. That shows what was really going on when the sequel process started, such as 2011, when the port issued the notice of preparation, kicking off the whole secret process. So please send this back to the port to fix this very important part of their analysis. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 2: Evening, Mayor. City Council Staff Jeremy Harris, senior vice president, Long Beach Area Chamber of Commerce. And before of the Chamber, we wholly support Mitsubishi and its project. We also respectfully request the Council adopt the resolution tonight in the appeals and uphold the Harbor Commission's certificate of final year interest of time. Because I know you've got a lot of speakers here. I just like to go on record to note that, you know, we're joining various other organizations that support this project. So included in your agenda pack and your materials for you to review, of course. And in fact, in some of these organizations at times, they're also supporting this project. We at times as a chamber have been on opposite sides. So today we join with Labor, specifically the building trades to support this project, uphold the Harbor Commissioner's decision and request denial of appeals. Thanks for your opportunity for entering this record.
Speaker 0: Thank you. The Chamber and Labor together. Just think.
Speaker 2: Jeremy Skinner All right, next speaker Oops.
Speaker 12: Good evening. Good evening, Mayor. Vice Mayor and councilmembers. My name is Elizabeth Warren. I'm the executive director of Future Ports. And we are very proud to to make a note that we have four labor groups as members of future port. So business and labor does work closely together often and on half of future ports. I'm here to express our strong support for this project and request the Council to deny the appeal and uphold the the port. The Port's Decision. This project will ensure that there's an adequate supply of cement to fulfill the demands of four regional building and infrastructure projects. Cement is a critical component of concrete, and that's one of the main materials used by the construction industry for the building of infrastructure projects such as the Gerald Desmond Bridge Replacement Project and many others, Mitsubishi and and leading our own industry analysts predict that the demand for cement in California will exceed supply as early as 2016. Over the next decade, over $10 billion is proposed to be invested in and around the San Pedro Bay ports on bridges, rail yards, piers, freeways and other construction projects. The Port of Long Beach is going to be spending $4.5 billion during this time to facilitate the efficient movement of cargo during this period in order to stay competitive in a global market. These projects also support tens of thousands of good construction jobs in and around the San Pedro ports. With the expanded Panama Canal in 2016, Gulf and East Coast ports are aggressively pursuing opportunities to attract cargo away from the San Pedro Bay ports. And completing this project signals that the Port of Long Beach is committed to remaining a part of North America's premier gateway for efficient and environmentally sustainable cargo handling. So we urge you to support this project, and thank you very much for your time this evening and the opportunity to speak.
Speaker 0: Thank you so much. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 2: Good evening. My name is Howard Kroll, and I'm an attorney with Tucker Ellis. We represent Advanced Clean Up Technologies Inc as their intellectual property counsel. I'm here for two reasons. One is to clarify the misstatements made by the counsel for Mitsubishi in their submission to you all on Friday, specifically when they stated that activities patent is invalid . That is actually a misstatement. They also made a statement that, in fact, our appeal of this issue was meritless, which is somewhat surprising since we haven't even filed our appellate brief. Second reason I'm here is, I believe, a letter that I have submitted to you all has been emailed. I have extra copies for hand delivery, and I am. And that's all I'd like to say. Thank you, sir. Who should I hand? The clerk right over there. Thank you very.
Speaker 0: Much. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And City Council, for allowing me to speak. My name is John Cruickshank, and I'm the immediate past president of the Harbor Association, Industry and Commerce. I also run a small business engineering business that does quite a bit of work in the ports. Usually as a sub consultant to other engineering companies. Anyhow, the reason I'm in support of the Mitsubishi project and I hope that the appeals are denied, is that we are going to be in desperate need of cheaper concrete materials as our economy starts to turn around, which it is. Having less expensive construction material means that the public dollars and the private dollars go much further in regards to construction projects. So the more dollars you have, the more projects that go on. That means more people are working, more engineering companies are busy, and we're able to keep the economy moving. So as a small business owner, I would hope that the City Council can support the Mitsubishi project. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you very much. Next speaker.
Speaker 6: Good evening, Mr. Mayor and council members. My name is Sylvia Betancur. I work with the Long Beach Alliance for Children with Asthma. And I'm here to share with you the health choice. While you've heard much conversation about the technology and emissions and numbers. I want to speak to you about what that really what that lived experience is like for many children who live close to the ports. And for many of the children that we work with, they live right on the fence line of many of these industrial facilities, and they suffer asthma and other respiratory problems that keep them awake at night, keep them out of school.
Speaker 1: Keep their parents out of out of work.
Speaker 6: And this is a very serious problem. And and this is a responsibility that is yours to to protect their health. Much of the studies that have come out recently, U.S., for example, showed that with the improvement in air quality has shown an improvement in children's health. And as you take as you make decisions to to continue to improve on the air quality, that the port impacts that responsibility to continue to make decisions that would improve our air quality and and help to improve children's health and our public health. That responsibility lies with you today. So I'm here to to support the appeal. And I ask that you review that final E.R. and review the project. Thank you for your time tonight.
Speaker 0: Thank you very much. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 2: Good evening, Mr. Mayor. Council Members. I'm Captain Dick McKenna, president of the International Seafarers Center and former executive director for the Marine Exchange of Southern California. I wish to declare my wholehearted support to the Mr. Bush Summit Corporation Modernization Project, the NCC Marine Input Terminal. Import Terminal is an outstanding, important component of the Port of Long Beach and its contributions to Greater Southern California and the Southwest, at a time when local production of cement will no longer support the growing needs of the region. Import of this vital building material has never been more critical. Mitsubishi Cement Corp. has proven itself to be a responsible tenant living up to the standards of the Green Port, supporting Clean Air Action Plan, winning environmental and community awards along the way. Their proposed modernization will only serve to greater improved terminal environmental standards. It also improve the efficiency of ship turnaround times. Plus the another. Plus for the environment. If we are interested in improving port environment, this project should be supported. If we are interested in improving the economy through jobs and responsible growth. This project should be supported. If we are interested in demonstrating support by rewarding a responsible port partner in this project should be approved. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you, sir. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 6: Hi. Good evening, Mr. Mayor. City council members. My name is Tamara Harris. I'm with the Harbor Association of Industry and Commerce as well. And Lee and his group are a small business that works in construction, transportation and goods movement. The council tonight has an opportunity to show that Long Beach can be a leader in both environmental responsibility and job creation. Many of the men and women who spoke here tonight on other items at all work at all faces of the construction industry, from architects to engineers to those in the building trades. I'm proud to work alongside them as a small business. These men and women in their communities here in Long Beach and throughout the region are just now working their way back from the recession. The construction industry is a key driver in that recovery. This project helps to support our industry's growth. It provides a much needed mechanism for meeting the skyrocketing need for cement, which grows as our unemployment numbers fall. By moving forward with this project. The port in the city will be allowing the regional economy to continue growing. Port staff and commissioners have held Marc's feet to the fire in terms of ensuring that the best available technology to mitigate air quality and other environmental impacts are taken advantage of. Their hard work has made it possible to not have to choose between jobs in our environment. The Long Beach of today does not need to adhere to those false dichotomies. We're asking you tonight to stand with support, to stand up for our economy and stand up for the communities and families that depend on the construction industries continued growth. Thank you for your time.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker.
Speaker 2: Hi. My name is Mike Ariana. Thank you. Tonight I also represent the Harbor Association of Industry and Commerce. I'm the president this year. Two points I'd like to make is that you've heard a lot of testimony tonight in your you have a lot of people to have people's testimony to consider. Really, the question I think for you is who are you going to trust the most? And it should be your own staff. They've done the evaluation. It was very well spoken. Many of the other speakers who came up were a little around in some of their comments. The other point is, if you didn't approve the project, what would happen? And it doesn't mean that Mitsubishi wouldn't continue to do business and still have environmental impacts. They're actually doing a project that will increase the and reduce the environmental impacts that will occur. So one thing to really consider is while the environmental analysis has to be done to meet certain baselines, really what's what is for the good of the community and is to approve the project so that it makes it more efficient for less impacts things.
Speaker 0: Q Next speaker, please.
Speaker 2: Mr. Mayor and members of the council.
Speaker 5: My name is Stan TOMSIC. I'm executive director of Port Tech.
Speaker 2: Which is a commercialization center and incubation program, which is dedicated to creating sustainable technologies for ports worldwide. The organization brings together entrepreneurs, strategic partners and investors to accelerate innovation, advance clean technologies and create economic opportunities for tech, promotes facility, and facilitates.
Speaker 5: The.
Speaker 2: Development of technologies that enable enterprises to meet their environmental, energy, safety, security, transportation and logistics goals.
Speaker 5: We applaud Mitsubishi.
Speaker 2: Cement Corporation on its effort to its continued commitment to improving efficiency while meeting the highest standards of environmental protection through the implementation of shore to ship power emission control systems for ship auxiliary generators and reduced idle wait times for trucks and ships. Port Tech looks forward to assisting Mitsubishi Cement.
Speaker 5: With its efforts to identify, review and implement with its efforts.
Speaker 2: And where feasible, new emission control technologies, including zero emissions and near zero emissions vehicles and equipment such as cement delivery trucks and cement handling equipment. We encourage the full support of this project. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 1: Good evening. My name is Jan Hauer and I'm the board president for Long Beach Camerata Singers, and I'm here tonight to support the Mitsubishi project. We know at Camerata that Mitsubishi is a good community citizen through their support for the arts, and we believe that that same good citizenship has extended to their job in preparing for this project. And so we would like you to support it. Thank you very much.
Speaker 0: Thank you. And before the next speaker, I'm going to cut off the speakers list. So we have the gentleman in the back there. Sure. You'll be the you'll be the last person and there's someone else. Okay. Well, you got to get in line. So please take those gentlemen in the back. Speaker's list is now officially closed. Gentleman with the jacket. You're the last speaker. Yes, sir.
Speaker 5: Okay. Mayor Garcia, council members. My name is Ron Cheek. I'm a resident of downtown Long Beach, and I'm I'm an engineer. I my company has been in control for 25 years, so I know a little bit about that. I'm a member of the Chamber of Commerce, but my interest here is is personal, not professional. I don't represent any organization or I don't represent the appellant or the or m cc. But Port of Long Beach is a major asset for Long Beach. Thousands of people work there and thousands more are in the associated trade industry that the port spans and Mitsubishi. I have followed this. They've been working for five years to comply with everything that they need to comply with and all the rules. And they basically do what you do in a port. And so I would ask you to support the council that you supported and and approve this and deny the appeal. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 5: Good evening.
Speaker 2: My name's John Schaefer and the business manager, Paul Dyer is bridge dock and Work Builders Level 2375 in Wilmington, California. I'm also a third generation harbor resident and a third generation pile driver. What I really want to talk about in particular, I need just to try to put it into simple terms. First of all, infrastructure. Cement is critical for building infrastructure and infrastructure. This is not about jobs. I mean, not about jobs or business or whatever else.
Speaker 5: It's also for environmental safety.
Speaker 2: And concerns for the community. In addition to from solar projects to water resource management, whether it be from desalination or updating water lines to light rail to subway to high speed rail. All of these projects which will help improve the environment and allow us to move smoother and.
Speaker 5: Faster, are going to be critical.
Speaker 2: On cement. You know, and having that local. Access is critical to that kind of development. Secondly, building infrastructure. I know from experience we use heavy equipment. And lots of times that heavy equipment, particularly when it first get started, has difficulty and you test it over and over again. You get newer models to improve it. For example, the Naples Project, they use the machines which are now able to dry those sheet pile fairly quietly and smoothly. But for years, they kept breaking down in all these other jobs. When you say you want to go to L.A. on cement trucks or anything else, the reason they aren't out right now is by analogy. But the latest electric things is because they can't handle the capacity for an infrastructure job. And finally, it's very, very important as somebody who is former community redevelopment agency commissioner. The third thing is, what are you going to do with the existing structure? What's happening in the Panama Canal or even in Nicaragua.
Speaker 5: Is you say, hey, let's build.
Speaker 2: Another city, let's build another canal, let's.
Speaker 5: Do something else.
Speaker 2: Let's not deal with the existing structure. And that's what happened a lot of times with downtowns and inner cities.
Speaker 5: They said, let's.
Speaker 2: Just start over somewhere else. You have good bones in this port. You have good, good bones in the Southern California area. And you need to modernize the rail systems, the port and everything else that protects the environment. I seriously hope that you continue. Do not support that appeal. Continue forward the Mitsubishi project. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 1: Good evening, city Mayor Garcia and city council members. My name is Julius Clarkson. I am a fourth year student at Cal State Long Beach studying health care administration. I also reside in the seventh District and I'm also here with Eastside Communities for Environmental Justice. I urge the City Council to prioritize the community's health and hold businesses and companies accountable and to ensure that they meet this goal when developing new projects as key decision leaders of the city. The City Council should choose the best project that is green, environmentally friendly and will not negatively impact the health of myself, my family, my friends, and, most importantly, the Long Beach community. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Speaker, please.
Speaker 1: That evening, Mayor and city council members I'm a constituent of the seventh District, and I'm here to voice my concern about the air pollution and also that we have children and even adults suffering from asthma and other related respiratory problems. So I'm also here with East York Communities for Environmental Justice, and I'm hoping that in following through on this project that. That they'll be mindful of the people who are here and they need help with their health problems. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 5: Good evening, Mayor.
Speaker 3: City Council. My name is David Walker.
Speaker 0: And I reside in the eighth district.
Speaker 4: And I'm here tonight.
Speaker 0: Representing the Boys and Girls.
Speaker 5: Clubs of Long Beach in.
Speaker 2: Support of the Mitsubishi.
Speaker 4: Cement Company.
Speaker 3: On this project. First of all, they're absolutely a fantastic corporate citizen. And I want you to know that I also believe that we have one of the best staff and with our port of Long Beach and the commissioners, I asked that you would support them. They've helped make this community a lot greener and in our air a lot better. And I'm looking forward to Mitsubishi coming into town and bringing more, more jobs to our community and ask that you would support them. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening to.
Speaker 4: Mayor Garcia and fellow council city staff and and port staff that here and the commissioners that's here today in public. My name is Tommy five. I represent International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 11. And we are here in full support of the Mitsubishi project moving forward. We urge the City Council to deny the appeal to move forward with the final year so we can create these good construction jobs, at least 100 plus construction jobs that will be created out of this. I would I would close with this that the port has been a good steward in the city of Long Beach. They have moved on and good environmental projects and good projects that make sense to business and the community.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Nick. Speaker, please.
Speaker 2: Good evening, Mayor and Council. I was a mechanic there at lead mechanic at Mitsubishi Cement for 14 years. I work for PCMC, which is a well-known mechanical that works out quite a bit of the other terminals there. We take care of equipment and stuff and I hope you guys go ahead with this with the project. Okay. To Mitsubishi. And like I said, I was there for 14 years. I've been a mechanic in the harbor for 22 years. I also am a local member of the, uh, local 13 ILWU. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you, sir. Nick Speaker.
Speaker 2: Good evening. Hello, Mayor and Council. I'd like to touch upon two facets that may aid in your decision upon the appeal. I just moved here to Long Beach about a month ago. I moved from a city that has just had terrible bicycling infrastructure. I had to drive everywhere. I never got to walk anywhere. It's the first time in my life as a 23 year old. I can walk to the grocery store, I can bike to the beach. And that's really changed my outlook on how I view my life. And so the city is well known for that. It's a it's a famous for its the most walkable city in America and one of the top ranking on the I know you what is walking somewhere I mean what is cycling somewhere mean if you the air you're breathing is toxic. What if you just don't want to go out and do it anymore? All that infrastructure, all that work at the city of Long Beach has committed to would be diluted. And so with respect to that, I would recommend that the city approve the appeal. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 4: Evening. Good evening. Can you hear me okay? Yeah. My name is Ron that. I have been a resident of Long Beach for 36 years. I grew up in Los Angeles, so I grew up the pollution was horrendous. You know, my brother and I were kids. We'd, you know, get sore chest from coughing and run burning eyes. And I think overall, since then, air quality seems to improve. I live on the west side of Winward Village Mobile Home Park, and with few of my friends here and I invite our council representative to come and visit us there and you to Mr. Mayor sometime and see we have problems there too. And we also have the rail right by us. Noisy, very noisy. I know we have pollution. And I believe some of these cars, the coal cars, I think are still coming by. And there is the asthma we have on the west side of Long Beach. And we I think we're underrepresented. We're not visited enough. We don't have a bank. We don't have a supermarket. We don't have any kind of, you know, the assets that people on the east side or other parts of Long Beach might have. But I do want to put in a complimentary to Councilmember Leonard Gonzalez, who sponsored a job fair, which I think this city, the economy is not as great as you might hear, is it is not that great? I mean, I think the construction, that's fine. But not everybody wants to work in construction. I think people need support jobs like clerical office or warehouse.
Speaker 0: I try to keep the comment to the to the.
Speaker 4: Hearing, please. Okay. Okay. All right. So, um, sorry about that. It's okay. I wanted to compliment her on sponsoring this job fair. It was a very good turnout. And I went and I made three contacts. Thank you very much. And so I'm I'm with friends with East Yards, so I'm for environmental and green alternatives. Absolutely. So thank you very much.
Speaker 0: Thank you very much. Next, our last speaker, please.
Speaker 2: Good evening. Mayor Garcia Councilmembers T.L. Garrett.
Speaker 4: I'm with the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association.
Speaker 2: We represent the terminal operators and ocean carriers on the West Coast of the United States. I'm here in support of the project, asking.
Speaker 4: You to deny the appeals into affirm the decision made by the harbor commissioners on May 11th staff. The port staff did an outstanding job here. This is a thorough, comprehensive and I believe very conservative assessment of the environmental impacts of this project and just the benefits of modernizing, improving the ship loader and and the storage capacity to decrease the time of the vessels at berth alone justifies this project. But when you throw in the cold ironing the extension of the vessel speed reduction and AQ six, which is this annual periodic review of available technologies, you've got a real winner here. This is a small part of the overall picture, but it's an important part in that it demonstrates the type of progress that can be made. So I'm hoping that you will affirm the prior decision by the harbor.
Speaker 2: Commissioners, thank you very much.
Speaker 0: Thank you. I'm going to go ahead now and close the hearing and have the counsel do the deliberation and action. So first up, I have Councilmember Andrews.
Speaker 4: Yes. Thank you, Mayor. I want to thank everyone for coming out tonight and listening to this very robust, you know, type of, you know, information that we got. Because I thought it was very informal, but it was very factual. And I think that was good for all of us. You know, but as I read over the you know, and hear the report that I have received, you know, I see some substantial changes is being made by the tenants and to lower the emissions for this project. You know, so I, I also understand that the project will bring in nearly 200 full time construction jobs as well. And I always happy to see that good jobs come to the city of Long Beach. You know, so with that, I would like to make the motion to deny and to deny the appeal and adopt the resolution
Speaker 0: . There's been emotion. And I mean, Vice Mayor Lowenthal, you're the second on that motion.
Speaker 8: I am a second on the motion.
Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you. Vice Mayor Lowenthal.
Speaker 8: I wanted to add thank you, Councilmember Andrews, for those comments. I wanted to thank everyone that came here to speak today. I know that we look at these hearings in the appeal process as an opportunity to ask for the various things that we feel we need to to do right by the community. And certainly the last speaker, second to the last speaker that mentioned that he had moved here for the livability, I interpreted that to mean the livability of our city. That's very important to us today. What I had heard earlier from those screens are awful. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: Who wants to see themselves that big? Do you do okay. I'm sorry.
Speaker 8: Easily distracted. What I had heard from the city attorney earlier today was that our our scope was limited to determine whether the air has complied with secure. And Mr. City Attorney, could you re clarify that for me?
Speaker 7: Yes, that's correct. And like appeals from planning commission decisions, the Board of Harbor Commissioners has the authority to actually approve or not approve a project within the port district, and they've done that. In this case, the role of the city council on this appeal is quite limited. As you indicated, it is to determine whether or not the secret document document serves as an adequate informational document for the city council to determine whether or not all of the impacts have been analyzed that should be analyzed and whether or not all feasible mitigation measures have been opposed, imposed, excuse me. And obviously you've heard both sides of those issues. And so that is the narrow decision that you are confronted with.
Speaker 8: Okay. I appreciate that. And I think I think the council understands that that is our our narrow scope this evening. However, it does not mean that we are not sensitive to the different requests that may have been mentioned or asked. And I know that the port had taken action to consider some additional mitigation measures at a separate time. And President Drummond, if I might ask you to come up briefly or ask your designee that could answer to that.
Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely. We're going to do as much as we can environmentally. We consider that Long Beach really is a green port. I've lived here my whole life. I've never seen cleaner air than we have today. And it's going to get better. It's in our DNA now, and we want Long Beach to be a wonderful city, and we want all the neighborhoods to be happy and healthy.
Speaker 8: Okay. Thank you. And I know that Commissioner Gorski has spoken on it previously. If I could ask her to repeat those statements, I think for the benefit of the council, that would be helpful.
Speaker 1: Thank you. President Drummond, the mayor, honorable council members and Vice Mayor Lowenthal. Subsequent to the motion, the motions that certified the air by the Harbor Commission, the harbor commissioners made two motions. As you know, Zika is somewhat limited and the harbor commissioners were very compelled by testimony. And in response there were two motions made. The first one was that we have asked staff to consider additional requirements when the lease negotiations come before them and are subsequently presented to us. Those subsequent requirements are dual in nature. We would request that the lease complies with the green port policy. And secondly, we would have directed that the best available technology is considered at that time. The second motion is was also passed and the second motion is referencing the mitigation requirements. And that has not been a subject of the hearing this evening. So I won't go into further detail unless you would request that.
Speaker 8: No, thank you. I appreciate that. And thank you, President Drummond. Mr. Mayor, would that would that? I'd like to be the second year of the motion and also thank the port for acknowledging that the community has come forward with some very compelling requests that have to do with the livability of our entire community, which I have full faith and trust that the port will honor and do its best to ensure and keep aligned with and on track with its green port policy. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Just because it's related to the last comment, the lease portion, when is that actually going to be before the Board of Harbor Commissioners? Since I know that part of this discussion is going to continue, then there's a question that staff can answer. Or.
Speaker 2: Mr. Mayor, we weren't able to start those negotiations until after this consideration of the appeal on the air. After that, I'm sure that our real estate division and others at the port will begin the initial negotiations.
Speaker 0: Correct? It would be sometimes I'm saying this year or in the next. Correct. Right. Okay. That's. So from a timeline perspective, you think in the next within the next six months, this lease negotiation process will have begun? Is that.
Speaker 2: I would I would guess that it would start within the next month or so. And then the link to that could vary between, you know, 3 to 9 months depending on how the negotiations go.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Okay. Vice Mayor Lowenthal. Okay. Councilmember Ringo.
Speaker 7: Thank you, Mayor. First of all, I, too, want to thank everybody for being here today from both sides Mitsubishi, Samantha's, Earthjustice, the Coalition for Safe Environment. Of course, it's always great to see our harbor commissioners here supporting this project because it's very important that you support the city and we support you in your efforts, in what you're doing. I also want to make a note that I to support the port. I think it's a wonderful economic engine for the city. It's provided jobs. Certainly we're looking at a project here that is looking at creating jobs. Having said all that, I also have a responsibility to my community and my community in the West Long Beach area as well, which is going to be most affected by this project. So I have a couple of questions here on page six of the document that we received to the mayor and addressed to the city council as well. There's a contribution of $333,220 that the port will make in greenhouse gas emission reduction program. I understood the formula and how that you came up with that number. However, I think that's exceedingly low, and I don't think that it really addresses those areas that are strictly very specifically affected by and that would be districts one and seven, which are the most impacted by my any kind of construction or project that takes place in the harbor, especially when it related to this one. So I would I would want to see an increase in that to at least 500,000 and specifically targeted towards areas districts one and seven. Having said that, I'm not too clear on page eight. There's there's a paragraph there, and I'm going to read the specific sentence here. So just so that I can get clarification on what it actually states. We talked about the A.Q. Hamdi being involved in giving a permit. We talked about the there was some discussion about the docks and some discussion about the Amex. The port has determined that the Amex technology is not feasible at this time, but yet the docks is something that you can work with. But there's a sense here, it says if for any reason the S.A., the CAQ indeed does not issue a permit to construct the docks, then the project would not proceed unless FCC receives approval from the harbor department for a modification to the project, which would require an additional evaluation under sequel. In short, the DOCKS is at the core of the project and must be permitted by SCA. Q And in order for MTC to implement the project. Do we have a docs? Constructed right now. And is it is it permitted by sc aq in the.
Speaker 9: The AQ, M.D. will rely upon the IIR to complete their permit. They I know that Mitsubishi has been in discussions with AQ, M.D. they have a current permit which requires shore power and they were proposing through the hearing board process with AQ, M.D. to use this doc system. They have been in discussions with them over the years as we were going through this air process. But AQ, M.D. will not issue a permit for the use of the docs until after the IIR is certified because they'll be relying upon this document to move forward their permitting process.
Speaker 7: So if I understand it, they were putting the horse before the cart. You can't have a permit unless you have a sequel. And if you don't and if they don't permit it, then you have to go back and have another secure document done. Is that correct?
Speaker 9: The to to clarify, the AQ, M.D. will will need the EIA to be certified before they can move forward with the permit. I think the comment that we were making in the staff report was in response to the appellant's concerns about whether or not the docs could be permitted or not. I think that the point that we were making is if for any reason the AQ, M.D. decides not to move forward and approved the DOC system, then the project, as it's been proposed by Mitsubishi, is not a valid project and they'll need to go back through the process again.
Speaker 7: Also in in some of the discussion that came forward, there's apparently some litigation pending or an appeal of a CARB decision regarding some other technology that's out there. Is that is there any effect on that, on the on the current project in terms of the Docs versus Nomex, for example?
Speaker 9: No, this the docs system goes through a different process than the other systems that are being tested and evaluated. And and I'll try to explain the reasons why. The doc system is something that Mitsubishi is purchasing and will be using under compliance with their AQ EMD permit for vessels that call it their facility specifically. There are other technologies that are being developed. AMAX has been one that we've discussed today. There's also a technology by cleaner engineering. These technologies are being developed so that they can apply more broadly to a wider variety of different vessels at multiple different facilities. And so to be approved, to be used under that kind of process, they need to go through an approval process with the California Air Resources Board, specifically those technologies. Right now, we're going through the process to be applicable, to use on container vessels as alternatives to the shore power requirement that's being implemented under a regulation by the California Air Resources Board. And so the California Air Resources Board needs to approve those technologies as equivalents to be used as alternatives for the short power requirement that is not applicable in this case, where where Mitsubishi is proposing the use of this technology, specifically at their facility for their vessels, and it will be subject to the requirements of the AQ and permit.
Speaker 7: So having said that, would it be? Correct. You say that the docks at this time is the best available control technology to be used.
Speaker 9: The the docks was proposed by Mitsubishi as a part of their project. It was a fundamental element of the part of their of their project. There are no other feasible technologies that can be applied for that same purpose. And we've we are looking at through mitigation, at other things that can be added to the docs, the use of a diesel particulate filter in a demonstration of that to also address the particulate emissions from from the vessels that they're facility and also demonstration and other alternative technologies. But at this point, this is the technology that was proposed as part of the project, and there are no other feasible technologies that can further reduce emissions.
Speaker 7: Okay. Well, in regards to. The docs and the and the amount that is going to be offered for litigation. You know, I can't really support this at this time because I think it would be I'd be shortchanging my community out there in regards to not only the amount that's available to the community, but also not ensuring that we have actually the best available technology control technology out there. Um.
Speaker 9: One thing I want to clear. I'm sorry.
Speaker 7: I'd like to ask. Well, go ahead.
Speaker 9: One thing I wanted to clarify is that the primary emission reduction control for vessels calling at the facility will be the use of shore power. And we've put in that a minimum of 66% of the vessels will be using shore power. The intent is that they'll go further than that to be but to be conservative in the analysis which we kept to, the analysis focused on 66%. The use of the docks system will only be used when shore power cannot be used. So best available control control technology will will be the use of shore power. And then the dock system will supplement that to ensure that all vessels calling at the facility will be controlled.
Speaker 7: But that raises another concern of mine in regards to the 66% being the baseline which was set back, what, 2006 or 2009, whatever that date was. So I'm concerned about that because here we are in 2015 and and that's very old baseline to use. We know that there's going to be an effect on the environment regarding this project. So I'm not sure that that having that number is is feasible at this time. But I was going to ask the city attorney if because of pending litigation or whatever is is out there in regards to and the possible changes that I want to have or I want to have included in in this document, the increase in and specifically in the increase in the mitigation of funds for the for the community. What would be the effect of, say, proposing a 60 day delay and reviewing this project? And I'm pushing this forward.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Mr. Mason. Can you answer that question, please?
Speaker 7: In a situation like this, school cases are designed to move quickly through the system. There's a 60 day requirement to set the matter for hearing which was met in this case. I think we're very close to the end of the 60 day period. There would have to be good cause demonstrated in order to continue it and something would have to be articulated that there was a need to continue it. Otherwise the city would potentially be subject to litigation by the applicant if we unduly delayed the project. So we'd have to hear some good cause to do it. Well, I think trying to protect my community is a good cause when it comes down to it. I'm not I'm not going to be voting to grant the appeal to I'm going to be voting to grant the appeal because I want to see these two items specifically addressed. And if it will require an additional review, I think that we should do it. Like I say, it's not about anti-jobs or anti Mitsubishi or A.A. support. It's about wanting to address the concerns of my community as it as it addresses the environmental issues and having the best possible technology out there that is currently available. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilwoman Gonzales.
Speaker 6: I want to think the port. I want to thank e-cards. I want to thank everyone for being here and speaking on both issues, both sides of the issue, I should say. I have a couple questions that I would like answered and maybe clarification. There was a lot of information and I just wanted to make sure that I'm getting everything correct in reference to Amex. Can. I didn't hear specifically on one with this when this would be commercial, commercially feasible. I know you said in about five years it may be, but maybe I'm getting that incorrect.
Speaker 9: Yeah. For for the Amex specifically, I have actually been involved with that technology and the demonstrations that we've done in the ports since 2006. We've been working with them on evaluating, evaluating the application of their technology. It's gone through different phases of of treatment technologies installed on the system. Most recently, they've gone through some extensive testing on container ships there. Their primary focus has been on getting their technology approved with the barge based system for application on container ships to use as an alternate alternative to shore power through the card regulation. They have not yet started the demonstration of the the current configuration of their technology on other vessel types, which should include the bulk vessels that call at the Mitsubishi facility. The port recently approved around $2 million for a demonstration of that technology to apply to other vessel types so that bulk vessels, tankers, car carriers and other vessels . That demonstration has not yet begun. We would need to go through the demonstration and emissions testing of that technology and then go through the CARB approval process before that it could be approved for use. That that process, we're hoping that we can initiate it fairly soon here, but it will it will take some time to go through all of that and make sure that everything is is underway. What we've done with the five years specifically is the Periodic Technology Review. So even though the Amex is not a feasible technology today and we don't know how it performs compared to other technologies, the hope is that when we enter into the lease with Mitsubishi, we won't lose the opportunity to capture further emission reductions in the future. And so we've applied this periodic technology review. So every five years we'll sit down with Mitsubishi and do an evaluation of the different technologies that are available. And if better technologies are available that are feasible and can be implemented into their operations, that gives the port the opportunity to require those on Mitsubishi going forward so that we don't miss an opportunity in the future when those technologies become available.
Speaker 6: Okay. So two follow up questions from what I understand. So we don't have a clear picture of Amex and when that could be commercially feasible. We don't have a timeframe.
Speaker 9: We don't have a defined schedule at this point.
Speaker 6: That's correct. And then as far as the review, the tech review, what is the basis for the five years? Because I do know, as we all know, technology rapidly changes. So what would be the basis for the five year mark?
Speaker 9: The port already has a five year reopen are to discuss financial terms. This is a standard part of our lease process, ongoing long term lease process. So as we sit down with the tenants and this is a requirement that we've been putting into leases over the last several years, so this isn't new and unique to Mitsubishi. This is something that we've done for all of our new leases that have come about in the last several years as a part of our green port policy. But what this does is it gives us an opportunity when we sit down to discuss and renegotiate financial terms, we will also discuss environmental conditions.
Speaker 6: Okay. And I know we went over the GHG emission. I too am not very happy with the amount $300,000 if you calculate it based on the construction projected construction, $80 million, it's less than 1% of mitigation that would be back to the community. So I too also have a responsibility to my, my residents and uh, absolutely completely supportive of our port and what they've done with port, with, with the emission reduction and with the green port policy, as well as businesses that do strive to get there. But, you know, I understand this is narrow. This is secure. And although this may be the case, I still don't agree with the bare minimum and the sufficiency of and the standards of the mitigation. So I too will not be supporting this. Uh, I will actually be supportive of granting the appeal, but not supportive of the project. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker is Councilor Brosnan.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'll be very brief. I just wanted to get some clarification. We heard in testimony from from both sides that the last time that this facility was in full operation was prior to the economic downturn in 2006. And I also heard that potential from the appellants that it would be potential 166,000 additional truck trips. The question I have, I guess, for anybody who can ask answer this question is how many truck trips were there in 2006? Estimate it.
Speaker 2: Councilmember, if you give us 2 seconds, we could probably find that answer for you. It's part of the baseline, and I believe our council's looking for it right now. Okay.
Speaker 0: Dr. Rosner, there may be other questions.
Speaker 3: You have no doubt that they can get back to me when they can't help you.
Speaker 0: Why don't we move on to the next couple of questions and we'll go back to this, as I said. Okay. Okay. Okay. Thank you, Councilmember. Next up I have is Councilmember Richardson.
Speaker 13: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So I want to thank both sides for coming out and educating me on this on this issue. I want to thank our harbor commissioners for taking the time to not only come to my field office to talk to me personally about it, but to have three harbor commissioners here carries a lot of weight with me. I just a couple questions and then some some thoughts after hearing this issue. So in terms of the baseline, as I understand it, they use the 26 levels, which is nine years ago and it does seem like a long time ago, but it seems like it makes sense since I heard that there was an air prior to that that covered those things that all the impacts prior to 2006, is that correct?
Speaker 9: That's correct. There was a secure evaluation for the existing facility.
Speaker 13: So by evaluating 26 levels and beyond, we're looking at everything above and beyond prior mitigation.
Speaker 9: We're looking at the proposed new project, which would be new.
Speaker 13: Okay. I'm okay with that because it seems like it seems like it seems unfair to me to penalize a future project for the past project if those things have already been evaluated in terms of the next thing docks versus Amex. And I've had the opportunity to learn about HMX and I've learned recently about docks, and they seem very similar. I'm sure there are some differences, but can can you simply articulate the difference in terms of capturing emissions between docks and Amex?
Speaker 9: I may need to rely on Mitsubishi's technical expert to get into some of the nuances, but I can try to provide a description of it. The treatment technology itself is actually very similar. Both of them use selective catalytic reduction to treat nitrogen oxide emissions. The difference with the DAX is that it was proposed by Mitsubishi as it did not include a diesel particulate control. So that's why we did apply the mitigation through the project, which would require them to use a diesel particulate filter to demonstrate its effectiveness to treating diesel emissions. That is the same type of technology that's also applicable to the AMEX. One of the specific differences between the technologies is the Amex is barge mounted and it can move around between different facilities. It can treat vessels at anchor and also at different berths. The Mitsubishi facility will be while it will be on wheels and can move back and forth, it will be located specifically at their facility to connect to vessels that call it their facility. But the treatment technologies themselves are very similar.
Speaker 13: So the treatment is similar, but Mitsubishi prefers docs because it's built custom to their facility.
Speaker 9: And they need it to move forward with purchasing something to address their AMD permit requirements and that was what was available to them. Okay.
Speaker 13: I have a question for the. I have a question for the Earth Justice folks. And so I see a slide here. And it didn't show up on the screen, but it came here. And on the third page there, there's a thing that says Mates for study, and there's a few quotes here and one stood out. And I want you to elaborate. Explain to me what you mean. It says, Among the monitored areas, the highest simulated risk was estimated for West Long Beach, followed by Central Los Angeles, Huntington Park, North Long Beach and Compton. What is that?
Speaker 10: So this is a study that's done by the about studying the regional air base and the impacts. And it's been done four times. And the risks are the health risks associated with, as I described succinctly earlier, that the health risks from the air pollution. So cancer risks.
Speaker 2: Pulmonary risks so.
Speaker 13: In general is in general that the air is bad in those areas. Yes. This isn't just.
Speaker 10: The most disproportionately. Yeah, that's right. That's right. And if you. If you look at the numbers, these are the communities that are the hardest hit.
Speaker 13: I get it. I get it. Thanks for clarifying. I was unsure whether there was a particular study or evaluation that connected this project to North Long Beach. I have been saying it for a long time that North Long Beach is impacted by things that may happen outside of 33 miles away. But I don't. I get where you're going. Thank you so much. That's my only question for you. Next. So. So I guess so. I heard someone mention 200 jobs. I heard somebody say 100 jobs. Is there an estimate? An estimate on what the construction job impact versus the operating ongoing job impact going to be with this project?
Speaker 9: I would like to ask Mitsubishi to respond to that.
Speaker 1: Actually, I'm motivated.
Speaker 6: With environmental audit. I actually did try to calculate that information. We talked to all of our design staff to figure out where we're at today and what the estimated jobs for construction will be. And it's actually around 100. The project at its peak is expected to have 80 construction workers operating at the facility. That's what was analyzed for peak day. The total number of construction jobs is in the neighborhood of 100.
Speaker 13: So I guess my follow up question is the ongoing jobs. Is there a plan for local are you going to hire local folks for those positions? Because it's expanding. These are people who don't currently work there. Right.
Speaker 1: Those are construction jobs.
Speaker 13: No. Operating?
Speaker 6: No. But the 100 is is I instruction. The operations of the facility vary and it will be. It normally operates between 50 and 30 to 45 people, depending upon which activity is going on at the facility. And those historically have been ILWU jobs.
Speaker 13: I got it. There are jobs. Okay, that makes sense. Thank you. So next I heard I heard the discussion about the 66%, you know, on cold ironing and they potentially could do 80, 80%. What is the what? So what is the overall sort of percentage port wide like not just this facility, but how how are all the tenants knowing.
Speaker 9: For sure power specifically there's a regulatory requirement at the state that specific to container vessels, cruise vessels and reefer. So in the port of Long Beach, we do have the container vessels. On the city side, we have the crews. The requirement currently is for 50% of the the fleet emissions to be controlled. So basically 50% of the container ships and container ships are roughly about 50% of the calls that we receive at Port of Long Beach. That requirement is going to step up in the future. Up to 80% of the the emissions will need to be controlled at berth from those particular vessel types container ships, cruise ships and reefer bulk vessels like call it Mitsubishi, don't have a requirement currently at the state level or at the port to use shore power. This facility is unique and goes beyond what other bulk terminals are doing right now, and they're subject to this requirement because of their permit with Hamdi.
Speaker 13: So container vessels have a 50% requirement. So everyone's operating. Are we meeting that requirement of 50%?
Speaker 9: I believe that's a regulatory requirement with the state.
Speaker 13: And does that include both the on dot electric as well as the, you know, the cold wiring as well as the Emacs type systems? All of that can make up the 50 50%. We're just plugging in.
Speaker 9: That would be the theory. The Amex technology is not currently approved as an alternative to shore power, cleaner engineering technology. It was just recently approved. But but it's the combination of all of those to control emissions from vessels at berth.
Speaker 13: So that makes me feel better that this is at 66%. So it's higher than what is required. I am concerned that the it's going to step up to 80%, but it doesn't include this type of operation. So I want to see that there's maybe through the green port policy or some other mechanism that this can maintain at the same level or above the same level of the port wide standard in, you know, in the years to come. Next, it does seem to me that the mitigation just seems low. But at the same time, you know, the ninth edition was cut out of cut out of the environmental mitigation grants last time, and we didn't see very much of that money. So I would you know, I know we had a conversation in the past about, you know, taking another look at the way we administer things strategically about combining all these projects that keep coming to city council about a more comprehensive mitigation approach. Because the fact is, everything north of Market Street wasn't eligible for the trees. We were ranked the lower ranked when we applied for for those mitigate mitigation dollars. So I think this is sort of a larger issue for me. So I'm not going to penalize this particular project for that issue that I think is a larger policy issue for our council and our harbor commission. So hopefully with new harbor, new new harbor commission and new council, we can engage in that discussion again.
Speaker 2: Council Member Richardson Also on the May 11th Board of Harbor Commissioners hearing, there was there was a motion made by our Board of the Harbor Commission in direction of staff to actually come back within 60 days. We're actually a little beyond that. We're going to be in early August having a study session. Our board has asked us to relook at those programs pursuant to what you just referred to and what you would like to see. And so that would be at the agenda meeting. And we will be reevaluating all those programs.
Speaker 13: I feel I feel I'm I'm glad that you folks have heard us and you're going to take that on, and I'm going to pay attention to that that coming council meeting. So finally, the other thing that stood out to me, I'll let you got a response.
Speaker 10: I just wanted to make one point because I note your disappointment about the amount of money that you're receiving and the amount of money you're receiving is linked to the amount of impacts that's identified in the report. So if you identify the impacts more accurately, you'll get you'll see more money. It's linked, right? And that's why we really think the analysis of the.
Speaker 13: Impacts right now, we get none of the money.
Speaker 2: So what's that?
Speaker 13: Right now we get 000. So so next. So finally, I did hear a few times tonight the conversation about the backlog and that we're modernizing to get rid of that backlog. And I know that our port has a great reputation across the country. I serve as chair of our Federal Legislation Committee, but I have been privy to conversations in Washington, DC around, you know, the efforts of other ports to sort of diminish our ability to be competitive in terms of utilizing labor disputes or inefficiencies to say that we can't move cargo as fast. And I actually appreciate that Mitsubishi is stepping up and modernizing their operation to get rid of a backlog so that they're not contributing to a backlog, but rather helping to be a leader and get rid of a backlog. And so so, you know, I want to I want to I want to encourage that. I think we should be encouraging our tenants and operators to modernize, to make sure that they they value our needs to remain competitive, but also our our, you know, our commitment to the green port policy. My so I guess my question with that is, was that evaluated like the impact of. The ships idling per se the backlog of ships was that evaluated in this year and it.
Speaker 0: This is good stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Um.
Speaker 9: All of their operations were evaluated in this. We looked at the number of calls that come the the typical time at birth. All of and and time and anchor. It did provide a comprehensive evaluation of the vessel activities and the future vessel activities that would be associated with this additional storage capacity at their facility.
Speaker 13: So will this help clear up the back load?
Speaker 9: That's the intent. That was one of the objectives for Mitsubishi proposing. This project is building the additional storage capacity at their facility will allow them to more efficiently move through the cement that they have at the facility and make sure that they've got the adequate storage capacity so that vessels can offload.
Speaker 13: Okay. So so again, I want to thank everyone for for coming out and, you know, into the community members. I want to say that I think there are, you know, maybe we should have a broader conversation about how to be strategic, about multiple projects and and make sure that the council and everyone understands the long term strategy here. I want to be supportive of making sure that our Long Beach remains on the forefront in terms of providing the standard across the country for what is available in terms of technology. I think that there needs to be some education here around what is available and what isn't, because all the experts have said this is what the status is in terms of what's available in the community, saying that this is what's available. And I think we just need to have a conversation outside of the hearing to start like really like bring city council members to see that see see this technology. Let's talk about it. So that said, I'll be voting in support. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. And last, I'm going to go back to Councilman Austin so he can have this question answered.
Speaker 9: Yes. Thank you very much. We actually did get the number. So the 26 baseline truck trips were 53,056. And that's compared to the new capacity for the proposed project of 166,000. Roughly over 166,000.
Speaker 3: And so what does that mean in terms of total Trump truck troops from the Port of Long Beach? In terms of additional percentage, it would estimate that.
Speaker 1: Would be a.
Speaker 9: Very small percent of the total truck trips from the port. I don't have the total number.
Speaker 2: In terms of the activity just from our container terminals. Uh, in the, if you look at the complex as a whole, you have to add the Port of Los Angeles in to that. When you're talking about truck ships that come over the Geraldton Bridge on July seven, ten, 60% of those truck trips come from the Port of Los Angeles. You're probably looking at 1% at best of an increase and I would I would hesitate to use that number. I'm just kind of guessing just based upon the other activity, the port.
Speaker 3: And in terms of emissions. Would you say the the idling of the vessels would probably produce more NOx than than the the the trucks that are burning with cleaner trucks under the Clean Air Program.
Speaker 2: Um, once again, I mean, it's, I mean, if you look at it from an idling ship versus a truck idling. Yeah, but that wasn't the type of analysis we did in the environmental document. I want to be clear about that. But yes, I mean, theoretically, if you're able to have less ships at anchor idling on their auxiliary engines and at berth or moving forward faster and more efficient manner, you're going to have probably a better emission profile than idling trucks. Yes.
Speaker 3: Hey, thank you.
Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you. We're going to go and go now to the vote. This is the motion by Councilmember Andrews. The motion he had made was to deny the appeal and adopt the resolution as presented by the Port of Long Beach and the second with Vice Mayor Lowenthal. So please cast your vote on Council for Andrew's motion.
Speaker 1: Motion carries six two.
Speaker 0: Thank you very much. I'm going to make a quick comment and then I want to take a quick break. I just want to make sure that the harbor commissioners are here, as well as support staff, had a chance to really hear what the councilors had to say when it comes to the mitigation concerns. And I only repeat those just because we've talked about those at the briefing that we had last week. I know that all of you were showed concern at your meeting as to the number as well. And I'm hopeful that in the least conversations that are that are upcoming, you'll be able to hopefully partner with Mitsubishi and have a conversation about what really is the expectation from the community and the council. In addition to that, I would just also encourage the harbor commissioners that are here to really take heart of what the council said when it comes to the larger picture of mitigation and how those the formulas that we're currently using, you've already heard from me and how you've heard from them. We don't really need to be looked at from a community point of view. So think you all think the port staff. Think the community. Everyone that came out. We really appreciate you coming out for this very long. But but important hearing. Thank you. We're going to take a 3 to 5 minute recess to the council and take a break and we'll come back to start our council meeting. Okay. We're starting the council meeting back up. So if I can have a roll call, please. Council meeting? Starting back up.
Speaker 1: Councilwoman Gonzales. Vice Mayor. Longtime Councilwoman Price. Councilmember, Supernova Councilwoman Mongo. Councilman Andrews. Councilmember Ringa. Councilman Austin. Councilmember Richardson. Mayor Garcia. Here we have a quorum.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 0: I am here. And I want to make. I want to go and make it fucking everyone's attention, please. I want to go and make a just an announcement, and then we're gonna go and get started to with the rest of the of the meeting. I do want to announce. Just real briefly, even though he's going to be embarrassed that I'm doing this, but before he leaves, this is actually Eric Bradley that our first children reporters last meeting covering the Long Beach City Council. And for those for those that for those that do not know the Pete's loss is the city's gain, because the Port of Long Beach has actually hired Eric to be a senior writer at the Port of Long Beach. And so while I know he's not enjoying this, I just thought, you know, this is his last meeting. He's been covering the city of Long Beach and City Hall for a long time. He's going to enter a new phase in his career. It was made official by the port, I think, last week. And I think your last days tomorrow, Eric, or Friday.
Speaker 2: It's like.
Speaker 0: Okay, he's he won't respond, but that's okay. Friday. Okay. His last day with the president is Friday. And we know he will be he will be actively covering, covering, covering us until Friday. So sorry if I embarrass you, Eric, but it is his last day. So let's give counsel let's give Eric our reporter a round of applause. So thank you for all the good and the bad stories. We appreciate it. Okay. So moving on to that, we're going to go ahead and go to the next item, Madam Clerk. | Resolution | Recommendation to respectfully request City Council to: (1) receive supporting documentation into the record and conduct a public hearing on two appeals of the Board of Harbor Commissioners' certification of the Final Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the MCC Cement Facility Modification Project filed pursuant to Long Beach Municipal Code Section 21.21.507 by the Coalition for a Safe Environment, et al. and Earthjustice on behalf of East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice and the Coalition for a Safe Environment; and (2) adopt resolution denying the appeals and upholding the Board of Harbor Commissioners' certification of the Final EIR for the Project. | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_07072015_15-0598 | Speaker 5: Hearing item two is a report from Development Services recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record. Conclude the public hearing and declare the ordinance amending Title 21 of the Long Beach Municipal Code to remove all conditional use permit exemption except for restaurants with alcoholic beverage service with meals only Flores with assessed resale of alcohol and existing legal non-conforming uses. Read the first time and lead over to the next regular meeting of the City Council for Final Reading and Adopt Resolution to submit the amendment to Title 21 to the California Coastal Commission for their review and certification and accept the categorical exemption. S.E. Dash 15 Dash 051 City.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Mr. Modica.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Members of the Council. The staff report will be done by anybody. The Director of Development Services.
Speaker 1: Mr. Mayor. Members of the City Council.
Speaker 6: Back in April, the City Council asked for a.
Speaker 1: Short term moratorium.
Speaker 6: For us to look at the process, for.
Speaker 1: Us to issue conditional use permit exemptions for very specific uses that allowed alcohol sales. Those uses were essentially restaurants with alcohol, beverage service with meals, florists with accessory sale of alcohol, existing legal nonconforming uses in certain grocery stores if they were of a certain size. Since that time, we have done some research on what other cities have have in place for their issuance of conditional use permit exemptions and are suggesting that we come back to you tonight with a one change that would not allow us to provide any more exemptions for grocery stores of 20,000 square feet or more. That category seemed to provide the most room for interpretation, since there are a number of other retailers out there that may not be classically defined as a grocery store, but do carry grocery and HomeGoods components. So with that, we are suggesting that we still have the ability to continue to to issue conditional use permit exemptions for restaurant with alcohol beverage service related to meals that we would still issue them for florists that we would still issue them for legal nonconforming uses that may be in place, but that we not allow grocery stores to receive these exemptions. I can give you any more details. The Planning Commission also reviewed this and supported this. And so we are here presenting their recommendation to you as well. That concludes my staff report.
Speaker 0: Thank you. I have a motion by Councilman Richardson. Do you have any comment? Sure.
Speaker 8: Thank you. I just want to take a moment to thank our city staff, particularly Amy Burdick and Development Services and our city attorney's office. A few months ago, we did come with a recommendation to tighten up those exemptions so that major operators would have to go through some project to limit their impact on local neighborhoods. And they've done just that with a very tight timeline. I believe we gave them three months to get it done. So I want to say thank you for this, and I'll be urging my colleagues to vote in support of this.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilwoman Gonzalez.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to thank staff as well. I know this is, you know, gone through its second hearing now and I'm just very excited to see this moving forward and I think Councilmember Richardson for bringing this forward as well.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilman. And yes, I also would like to thank.
Speaker 7: Our staff and Councilman Richardson for bringing this forward. And first of all, I want to take I want to thank the staff for bringing this back to the council, because.
Speaker 0: I believe in the change of the cups you process will minimize any potential impact, you know, and the properties and the residents.
Speaker 7: And I'm truly in favor of this.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Mr. City. Attorney.
Speaker 2: Mayor. Thank you. We need two separate votes on this hearing, item one on the ordinance, and then a second on the resolution. Thank you.
Speaker 0: And the first motion is on the ordinance. We'll have the resolution. Second, any public comment on and we can take public comment, I'm assuming, for both. Mr.. So any public comment on hearing him to. KC Nunn. So let's take the first vote. There's been a motion and a second. Please cast your votes.
Speaker 5: California councilman. Bush and Kerry nine zero.
Speaker 0: Thank you. And let's go ahead and take the they can get a motion in a second for the second part of the. The motion. The resolution has been in motion. And a second, please. Gordon Castro votes. | Ordinance | Recommendation to declare ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code by amending Table 32-1 and Table 32-1A, all relating to removal of Conditional Use Permit Exemptions for alcoholic beverage sales, read and adopted as read. (Citywide) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_07072015_15-0600 | Speaker 5: Item three is a report from City to City recommendation to authorize City Manager to execute a First Amendment to agreement with the firm of Rocktenn and Tucker LLP for legal services related to labor negotiations.
Speaker 3: There's been a motion and a second. Is there any member of the public that wishes to address this item? Councilmember Austin.
Speaker 11: Yes. Thank you. And before we proceed forward, I pulled this item because I a little bit of concern with the the contract. This is a contract with the attorneys who are negotiating a labor agreement with the IAM. And the original contract was for $200,000.
Speaker 2: That's correct.
Speaker 11: And the request here is for an additional $200,000. Is that correct?
Speaker 2: That is correct for a total of 400.
Speaker 11: So when do we begin our negotiations? When did we retain the attorney?
Speaker 2: We began the negotiation, I believe, eight or nine months ago. And we retained their attorneys. Approximately at the time we began negotiation October 14.
Speaker 11: And I know for for a lot of reasons, there are no there's no way of really knowing when the negotiations will end. However, I think we should incentivize our legal counsel to to to motivate them to get something done. And so I'd like to amend this, if possible, to the 75,000 as opposed to $200,000.
Speaker 2: That would be fine. We would just if the concludes if the 200,000 were to be approved, obviously we would only spend what we need to conclude negotiations. If we need to come back, we will certainly come back and put another item on the agenda for counsel's consideration.
Speaker 11: And if we spend less than $75,000.
Speaker 2: That's correct.
Speaker 11: To is and that's my motion. I believe I have a second on that.
Speaker 0: What was that?
Speaker 11: So I repeat this. What? What's before us is to extend the contract for the legal services for an additional $200,000. There's no time certain. And what I'm saying is that I'd like to to motivate our legal team and send a message that we want to see our negotiations wrapped up sooner than later and lower that amount to $75,000. And by all means, if you know it goes longer than necessary, the city attorney can come back and get more authorization for more money. Thank you, ma'am.
Speaker 3: Councilmember Urunga, would you like to address the motion?
Speaker 4: I. I agree with my colleague, Councilmember Austin. I think that these negotiations have gone on for far too long. We need to get something going. If it's a matter of money, let's not make money. The issue with in terms of our of our contract with the negotiators. I think we need to. House could say something inappropriate. But let me let me just say that there needs to be and they need to be incentivized to get going. Let's get a contract and let's get it now.
Speaker 3: Councilmember Richardson.
Speaker 8: Thank you. I would say this is yeah, this is a welcome motion, a welcome alternative if if I just heard it correctly. How many months? Seven, eight months. Nine months.
Speaker 2: Since October of.
Speaker 8: 14. So if it were nine months for $200,000, we send the signal that we want this to go on. We're okay with this going on for another nine months and I personally am not so. Thank you, Councilmember Austin, for his motion. I'll be in support of it.
Speaker 3: Councilmember Andrews.
Speaker 0: I was just in agreement to second that motion.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Okay. Councilwoman Pryce.
Speaker 1: I have a couple questions for the city attorney on this. First of all, we're. This motion. And the second is being made with the, I guess, implication that if we approve a shorter dollar amount, that somehow the attorneys will be motivated to resolve any ongoing discussions. That's what I'm hearing, is the implication. But my question to you, really, you don't have to comment on that. But my question to you really is, do you have any concerns with shortening or reducing the amount that's approved? Is that any concern in terms of our contract or our agreement or understanding with the firm?
Speaker 2: Vice Mayor, members of the Council? No, I think that we would just may come back to you again if this doesn't ramp up. We obviously have no way of knowing when this will conclude and the process it will take and how long that will take. So the thought was we would renew it for an additional 200,000 at the same as the original amount. But we would certainly if council would like us to come back more often, we will do so.
Speaker 3: Councilmember Mongo.
Speaker 6: I guess my concern is that. I don't want there to be any delay in the continuing negotiations necessary to reach a resolution. And I don't want there to be a point where money is stopping us from being at the table, where we would not be able to provide the feedback that our negotiating partner is requesting, provide additional information. And if coming back here is a delay, I mean, I don't know how long how much takes to be absorbed. I know that at points during this negotiation, we have been meeting several times a week for up to ten hour days. So I'm just not clear on. How quickly we could go through this and then leave our partners at the table with no one.
Speaker 2: Councilmember rego will be ensured that we would not let that happen and we would come back in in a timely manner.
Speaker 3: Okay. Councilmember Austin.
Speaker 11: Yes. And just finally, I'd just like to say that this is I brought this forward in and in an effort to be fiscally responsible with taxpayer dollars and to be sure that we're sending the right message not only to the attorneys, but to the bargaining unit here, that we want to see this this whole process come to an end. Thanks.
Speaker 3: Okay. There's been a motion and a second. Is there any member of the public that wish to address Council on item three? Can we? Okay. Thank you.
Speaker 7: Very good. You can see if this is the same group that is responsible for giving the middle finger to the members of the the idea. I think the easy side. I agree action needs to be taken. And what needs to be taken is it immediately? Tonight and the current contract. Go out and find somebody new. Give them strict marching orders and have them come back within 60 days with a a solution that is in keeping with the marching orders that you've given them, period. This has dragged on too long, and the information that was imparted from it here, I think is shocking. I certainly didn't realize how how much how big a shift you were giving the people, period. It just doesn't make any sense. So. You the motion. Having to end the contract tonight. Enter into a new one with a credible. Dynamic that is well-trained and well-seasoned in doing this. Thank you. And that isn't it hasn't contributed to any of your campaigns. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Mr. Goodyear. Mr. City Attorney, I have a question. What do you have remaining in the contract? Do you have anything remaining in the existing contract?
Speaker 2: Currently, we do not have the last couple of months invoices, but we've expended $155,000 of the 200,000.
Speaker 3: Okay. All right, members, there's been a motion in a second. Please cast your vote.
Speaker 5: Why spill over, though?
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 5: The motion carried nine zero. Sorry.
Speaker 3: I'm signed. Incorrect. Okay. Thank you. So that is the consent. By default, that is the concert calendar we are item 12.
Speaker 4: Epic title 12.
Speaker 3: Oh, of course we filled both item 12. | Agenda Item | Recommendation to authorize City Manager to execute a First Amendment to Agreement No. 33765 with the firm of Rutan & Tucker, LLP for legal services related to labor negotiations. | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_07072015_15-0609 | Speaker 5: Item 12 is a report from Parks, Recreation and Marine recommendation to enter into an agreement with Long Beach Unified School District to allow the Department of Parks, Recreation and Marine to provide staffing and other services to conduct a summer swim program at the Cabrillo High School and increase appropriations in the General Fund in the Parks and Recreation and Marine Department by $22,402 at District seven.
Speaker 3: Councilmember Urunga.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Vice Mayor. I just want to pull this out to notice that it's a wonderful relationship that we're developing now with the Long Beach Unified School District in sharing facilities. I think this program will offer an increase to provide swimming facilities, especially in the in the West Long Beach area, and will increase swimming and water safety skills for all our young people who want one. And that all young people to older people to who want to go learn to swim. And I'm glad to see that this is happening.
Speaker 3: Councilwoman Mongeau, would you like to address the motion?
Speaker 6: I also am very pleased of the partnerships between our schools and our community, and I think that this is very welcomed.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Councilwoman Gonzales.
Speaker 1: Now, these are the types of projects I love to see. Of course, it's on the West Side, but we often hear from our residents that there's not enough activities, especially swimming on the west side. So a big thank you to our parks and RECs department and to the Long Beach Unified School District. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Is there any member of the public that wishes to address Council on Item 12? Seeing nonmembers cast your vote.
Speaker 5: Motion carry nine zero.
Speaker 3: So any sign out?
Speaker 0: Thank you. I want to make sure before we get to the next item, do we still have some folks that are outside? Do we know, Madam Kirk? And we're going to transition to item the airport item, which is 17, we just finished consent. But I want to make sure that if there's anyone that's outside and there are some open seats, if they're able to come in. And it's not just so there are a few open seats if there's anyone outside. So before we we move on to the item. Okay. I'm going to now move on. Madam Court, can you read the next item? | Contract | Recommendation to authorize City Manager to execute all documents necessary to enter into an agreement with the Long Beach Unified School District of Los Angeles County, to allow the Department of Parks, Recreation and Marine to provide staffing and other services to conduct a summer swim program at the Cabrillo High School pool for a term of one year, with five one-year renewal options at the discretion of the City Manager, or his designee; and
Increase appropriations in the General Fund (GF) in the Parks, Recreation and Marine Department (PR) by $22,402. (District 7) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_07072015_15-0616 | Speaker 5: Item 15 is communication for Mayor Robert Garcia. Recommendation two requires city attorney to draft a resolution changing the membership requirements and size of the Pacific Gateway Workforce Investment Board to conform with the provision of the Federal Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act of 2015 and rescind resolution number. Arias dash oh seven dash over 149.
Speaker 0: Thank you. I'm actually going to ask Nick Schulz to give me a short staff report. This is something that we're being federally mandated to do by some regulations for our Pacific Gateway Board. And so, Mr. Schulz, do you want to kind of go over this? Mr. Schultz. I think Nick's not here. Oh, I just saw him worried. Maybe he's not back from his break. Okay, well, I can do the. I can. I can. I can do it. Tommy, look in the back, just in case, okay? I mean, here in a nutshell, the federal government has put out new guidelines for all wigs nationally. And as far as the makeup and the percentage of what the makeup looks like of Webb's. And so we're essentially changing our Webb to meet those federal requirements. And it's got to be a council action, essentially what what Mr. Schultz has brought forward as a change. And that's the motion. There's a there's a motion and a second. Can I get any there any public comment on the item? Saying Non, please cast your votes.
Speaker 5: Councilmember Richardson. Motion carry nine zero 16. Item six is communication from Vice Mayor Lowenthal, Councilwoman Gonzalez and Council Member Richardson. Recommendation to join with cities across the nation in formally recognizing August as National Breastfeeding Awareness Month and request editorially to drive a resolution recognizing National Breastfeeding Awareness Month. | Agenda Item | Recommendation to request City Attorney to draft a resolution changing the membership requirements and size of the Pacific Gateway Workforce Investment Board to conform with the provisions of the federal Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act of 2015 and rescind Resolution No. RES-07-0149. | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_07072015_15-0615 | Speaker 5: Councilmember Richardson. Motion carry nine zero 16. Item six is communication from Vice Mayor Lowenthal, Councilwoman Gonzalez and Council Member Richardson. Recommendation to join with cities across the nation in formally recognizing August as National Breastfeeding Awareness Month and request editorially to drive a resolution recognizing National Breastfeeding Awareness Month.
Speaker 0: Vice Mayor Alonzo.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I wanted to thank our resident, Marcela de Vera, co-founder of Long Beach Breastfeeds. Marcella is home with sick children tonight. I think their entire family is has caught the bug but will be here on the 21st to help celebrate this resolution. Should it pass, this resolution will help raise awareness of all benefits associated with breastfeeding, highlight the need for increased education, and help make more connected the breastfeeding community in our city. I would also like to ask the city attorney, I think on the item we had mentioned that they have 900 members. It's actually up to 1100. It's not a material difference. But if that could be changed, great. If not, that's fine. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. The second of the motion was Councilman Gonzales.
Speaker 1: I just want to thank Vice Mayor Lowenthal for bringing this forward to have a five month old at home who certainly, you know, has has the nutritional value of breastfeeding and formula feeding. And so I really appreciate bringing this forward to the city council and that we will be able to support this.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilman Richardson.
Speaker 8: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And thank you, Vice Mayor Lowenthal, for bringing this forward. Similar to Lina, I've been educated most recently on on a lot of the benefits to best breastfeeding and the cultural challenges there are to to that. And I just want to say that my Maricel is doing a great job at Long Beach Breastfeeds. She hosts a monthly support group at my field office in the ninth District. I try not to attend myself. I just my you know, my wife is a member, but I sort of leave it to them and my staff just because it's still a little uncomfortable for me. But I'm learning it. But but thanks a lot. And I'm in full support.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Any public comment on the item? Saying None. Please cast your votes.
Speaker 5: Councilman Andrews, Councilmember Ranka. Motion carries seven zero.
Speaker 0: Item 80. | Agenda Item | Recommendation to respectfully request the Mayor and City Council to join with cities across the nation in formally recognizing August as National Breastfeeding Awareness Month; and
Request City Attorney to draft a resolution recognizing National Breastfeeding Awareness Month. | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_06232015_15-0580 | Speaker 1: Communication from Vice Mayor Lowenthal, Councilwoman Gonzalez, Council Councilmember Superman and Councilman Andrews. Recommendation to request the city attorney to bring an ordinance within 30 days to amend Title six of the city's municipal code.
Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you. I'm going to turn this over first to up to Vice Mayor Lowenthal, and there may be some staff comments as well. So Vice Mayor Lowenthal.
Speaker 6: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I wanted to thank everyone that has provided comment and sent in emails. I'm curious, Mr. Mayor, do you want to do our comments first or public comment? What do you think?
Speaker 0: If you wanted to yell, if you wanted to, at least make your motion. Make the motion, and then we can. Yeah.
Speaker 6: Let me go ahead and make the motion first to go ahead and approve staff recommendation. And we have a second. So I do want to thank everyone that's provided their emails. I've received comments from friends in the animal care community who are passionate about the humane treatment of animals. I've also received concerns from residents worried about the impact of these animals upon their neighbors and the burden of enforcement. And of course, we've received support from residents who already own or wish they could own these animals for a variety of reasons. I believe that everyone's hearts are in the right place about animals. There are a number of reasons why my colleagues and I wish to reconsider this issue. And when I say reconsider, we have taken this up. I don't know how many years ago, but certainly it's been several years. So we have brought this forward for several reasons. Two, for reconsideration. One, it fits into our healthy and sustainable lifestyle city goals. It's a social justice issue, which I know Councilmember Gonzalez will touch upon. There's great interest from residents wishing to be closer to their food source. When we look at the trends across not just our country, but if we just focus on our country, we are less and less trusting of of where our food is sourced. And so to provide residents an opportunity to source their own foods is something that's also very fitting in with our culture here in Long Beach. And frankly, I don't see any major difference in the responsibility from that we currently expect from our domestic animals, such as dogs and cats. And we have an expectation of those owners that we will continue to have in our series of expectations from owners of any other type of animal. It is worth reminding everyone that our municipal code allows residents to own up to four large breed dogs in any size lot with no setbacks. We expect owners to clean up after their cats and dogs whose waste is arguably more impactful than chickens and goats. And we will have that same expectation. We expect owners to feed and maintain their animals. That's not just the Long Beach way. That's just the humane way when we enter into pet ownership. And why should owning chickens or goats be any different? And these are questions that we're getting from residents challenging, adding these animals to our ordinance. And I think what we'd like us to all consider is why would it be any different? We already have enforcement codes in place for irresponsible animal owners. You'll hear from our staff later this evening to share with you the intense level of research and work they've done on this issue. Looking at what other cities are doing, not just in in Southern California, but across the country. We should expect the same type of responsibility from owners of any pets, whether they be dogs, cats, chickens, goats, be owners. And if they don't, they should be reported to animal care services for enforcement. And I think you see that our animal care services staff is very responsive. We've also heard that because there are bad dog owners or bad cat owners out there, we shouldn't allow residents to own chickens, goats and bees. And I think that's a very unfair, broad brush that we cast across across the canvas and one that I think we should be careful not to do. That's those two can be mutually exclusive. The attached ordinance reflects best practices that protect neighbors, animals and personal property, while providing residents with appropriate sized properties and facilities. The opportunity to pursue a particular lifestyle. A lifestyle that's in keeping with our city's efforts to encourage healthier eating, active living and sustainable practices. I think if you look at all of the progress we've made in our city over the last decade, one thing that we can all say that is a theme about the efforts that we've made is one toward healthier eating, active living and sustainable practices. So I have a few slides that I'd like to share with you on what the proposed changes are for each animal. The first one is the slide on the current what we have currently for chickens. And as you can see with the current ordinance, you can have up to 20, up to 20, maybe kept at least 50 feet away, 50 feet from one in two family residences or 100 feet from multi-family residences, which are with three or more or hotels. One chicken may be kept as a pet at least 20 feet from any dwelling, and there's no permit or inspection required. If we advance to the next slide, you'll see what's being current, what's being proposed in this ordinance. So the proposal is that up to four, maybe kept ten feet from neighboring residents. No inspection or permit required five to. And maybe kept at least 35 feet from neighboring residents requiring permit and pre inspection. 11 to 20 may be kept at least 50 feet from neighboring residents residences, requiring permit and pre inspection and a proposed permit fee of $20. One time pre inspection cost would be approximately $63, and that's one hour worth of an officer's time. The chicken shall be adequately fenced within an outdoor enclosure to contain the chickens on the property to prevent, escape and provided with a shelter to protect from weather and predators. Outdoor enclosure must be a minimum of ten square feet of permeable land per chicken. For goats. If we see what the current is, we do allow one. No more than one may be kept at least 100 feet from neighboring residences. They may not be kept south of Anaheim Street. And no permits required. With the proposal, what we have is that you may have to only may be kept ten feet from neighboring residences. Must be permitted annually by annual animal care services. And must be microchipped. Food products are for personal consumption only. Male goats must be neutered. Decent. Scented. And enclosure must be a minimum size of 250 square feet of permeable land for two miniature goats or 500 square feet of permeable land for any other combination of miniature and non miniature goats. Adequate shelter must be provided within the enclosure to protect the goats from predators and the elements. And then we would be removing the location restrictions. We'd be removing the restriction that we currently have. Which states? South of Anaheim Street only. And here's how the setbacks for the dwellings would look. And Mr. City Manager Which staff member do you have? Pat Westwood Staff Member Do you have that might address any of the questions?
Speaker 3: We have Ted Stevens and George Chapman could address anything.
Speaker 6: Okay. I just wanted them to be seated in case there were any questions either from us or for the public. So when you look at the dwellings, you can see where the clearance from the adjacent dwellings must be and where the boundaries are. When we look at the allowances for up to four chickens or goats, which is ten feet, 5 to 10 chickens, 35 feet, and then 11 to 20, and that's 50 feet. For bees. What we have currently is that hives must be kept at least a hundred feet from neighboring residences and public ways, streets and alleys. And they must be kept ten feet above the ground. Under the proposed ordinance. What we have is of up to four hives may be capped at least ten feet from the property line. There'll be no city permit requirements, however. Any person desiring to keep bees must provide the city's Animal Care Services Bureau with proof of their registration with the County of Los Angeles and the hive entrances need to face away from or parallel to the nearest property line, and hives must be either screened so that the bees must fly over a six feet barrier, which may be vegetative before leaving the property or be placed at least eight feet above the adjacent ground level. And a water source for bees shall be provided at all times on the property where the bees are kept to discourage bee visitation at swimming pools, hose bibs and other water sources on adjacent public property. Public or private property. And before I close, I wanted to I'd like to ask my co-sponsors to add two friendly amendments. One is to remove the D horning requirement from the goat section and add the food products or for personal consumption only to the chicken section as well. And with that, Mr. Mayer, those are my comments for right now, and I thank my colleagues for their consideration.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Vice Mayor Lowenthal and Councilmember Darrell now.
Speaker 3: Okay. Thank you. And we accept those. All right. Accept those amendments. And what I'd like to do is.
Speaker 11: Just defer to my other.
Speaker 3: Colleagues. I originally brought this proposal forward as a member of the Sustainable City Commission, and I think the year was 2011. But in those days, our job was to advise the Environmental Committee.
Speaker 11: I think.
Speaker 0: Now they advised directly.
Speaker 3: To city council. So I don't think there's anyone who's heard more testimony on this than myself, possibly Vice Mayor Lowenthal. So I'm well versed on on the topic, but I'd like to hear.
Speaker 12: From the other.
Speaker 3: Council colleagues at this time. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. And actually, the council member, you actually probably want anybody here has more more experience and have heard testimony on this issue. As chair of the Sustainability Commission before coming to the council. So thank you for that. And Councilwoman Munger.
Speaker 2: Yes. I have really enjoyed getting to hear some of the stories from our neighbors in the fifth District who currently host chickens, and then also working with the members of our community garden and others who have neighborhood gardens who really understand the need for more bees in our community. I've been really impressed with the beekeepers of Long Beach during my time here as a council member and previously as a neighborhood leader. And the strong work that you've done to preserve the beehives that are available because the extermination of bees has been very difficult. So very difficult on our environment and very difficult on our agriculture as a state. And so I look forward to moving the city forward in a direction of urban agriculture.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Council member Andrews.
Speaker 3: Yes, thank you.
Speaker 4: Mayor. First of all, I'd like to thank the vice mayor for asking me to sign on to this item. You know, I think that this is a small number of people that have actually got the idea of the urban farm. And these individuals have been very responsible. You know, on the social, economic standpoint, you know, it's really hard for you know, it's really hard for families to even keep food, you know, on their tables, in their opportunity for this family to have fresh and affordable food. So I think an item like this could really help all of us if you really choose to get behind it and see what we're trying to do. Because fresh food, you're talking about your health, you're talking about everything and what would be better way to do it than grow it yourself. So I really want to thank you, Vice Mayor, for allowing me to sign on with this item.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilmember Durango.
Speaker 9: Thank you, Mayor. Originally, I had a whole ton of concerns about this item here because there were a lot of questions I had regarding licensing and and the number of animals that could be kept in one location. And those have been those are being addressed. I'm glad to see that. But I still have a few, if you don't mind my asking, in regards to those that require inspections or inspections, I know they're going to be inspections in terms of the facilities where they're being kept. But are there going to be inspections regarding public health issues, such as checking that the animals that are there aren't carrying some kind of disease or other kinds of airborne pathogens that might infect other animals? And then we have a crisis in our hands. So is there a a an item in there that addresses the public health concerns that that this is this may arise?
Speaker 0: Vice Mayor, did you want to add to that?
Speaker 6: I wanted to I wanted to thank the councilmember for raising that issue. I failed to make in my remarks when discussing staff and and their enforcement that public health aspect, just as we would with whether it's a dog owner or a cat owner, that is part of the inspection. We have Mr. Nelson Cur here, city manager, is that correct, as well as Ted Stevens?
Speaker 11: Yes.
Speaker 6: To answer the specifics of that question and Mr. Mayor, if I may also add one more thing, which there is the setback slide. If staff could also address after answering Councilmember your longest question, which I think also speaks to your earlier comment. This looks like it's easy to accomplish in terms of setbacks. And if you could articulate how very difficult it is to find many, many properties that would actually qualify under certain setbacks, 35 feet doesn't sound like a lot, or 50 feet doesn't sound like a lot, but it really is when we're talking about setbacks from other properties and if staff could work that into their response, I'd appreciate that.
Speaker 9: Well, it's like I said, they're airborne pathogens. They're going to it's going to happen or they do happen. I agree with the setbacks. I mean, I have no issue with that. I the the the threshold for people to meet these requirements is is very high. I can see that still, there's the concerns about noise due to concerns about the the the possibilities of one or two animals getting contracted to something and then taking it elsewhere. And then might while we wait for staff or staff's going to respond to it, you know, there's waste that comes with this and there's a concern, you know, there's there's there there might be some biohazards as a result of having these animals. I mean, there's waste that's created from that. Is there a disposal concern there in terms of how we get rid of goat waste and chicken waste and those types of other ways that that would be caused by having, you know, animals or these kinds of farm animals in in neighborhoods.
Speaker 0: I can I can go ahead and answer part of that mentioned the silver to answer the the larger part of the question. Maybe our animal care team can can weigh in just to address one piece of that. I think that from the it's my understanding that there this would work very there'd be very similar inspection process. In fact, I think more stringent in this case as to how the animals would be permitted, particularly if you have larger amounts for they would go through an inspection process. The county does that with there's a process for bees in the county of Los Angeles, and we would have something similar here for whether it was goats or whether it was chickens. It's my understanding, too, that from a waste perspective, these animals actually produce usually less, less toxic and less damaging waste than would in our dogs and cats that we have. And certainly from a. And so certainly I think from a waste perspective, I think that's also that could be addressed. But those are about very valid concerns. I want to make sure that staff answers the councilmembers larger question about that, things about inspections and waste and. Theft.
Speaker 9: Who wants to go first?
Speaker 11: Well, for as far as the animal care services, the health aspect of it would really wouldn't be something that we would enforce on our own. We would be more concerned about the setbacks. And I think the way we did the setbacks were the more animals you had, the more potential impact. That's why we increased the setbacks, especially for, like, the chickens. And so if you just wanted to have a handful of chickens, we wanted to make it easy for people to have a small number of chickens, assuming with the assumption that there'd be less impact, less issues. And then if you wanted to have larger numbers of chickens, we would require the inspection. And during our inspection we would be checking mostly the shelter, making sure that the shelters adequate, making sure that the enclosure is adequate, making sure that there's enough land, permeable land and enough setback. We've Nelson can talk about the health issues.
Speaker 3: I think there's there's basic sanitation issues that are in the ordinance. If they if they comply with the ordinance, I think we're going to avoid most of the problems. Having said that, your health department routinely tracks on any types of diseases that may be impacting food or may be impacting animals. And the health officer has broad authority under state law to address those issues. So if we need to address those issues, we could address those. But we have not seen that issue here.
Speaker 9: Okay. Thank you for that response. Also, there was an item in there saying that it's for personal use. Is there something that you know, in case there we have these owners that want to sell their product or want to share their product with neighbors or anyone else and perhaps taking their products to a farmer's market, for example . Is there any item in there enforcement about that appearance of taking their products to market? We were sharing it in a restaurant.
Speaker 11: Yeah. The the ordinance that was proposed did have a requirement that the goat's milk or anything produced from the goats was for personal consumption only. But that was limited to the goat section. There was there was no restriction on the honey or the eggs from the chickens.
Speaker 9: Okay. And I have one more one more item that I want to add. You know, just like we have with rabbits, you know, all the time around Easter, we have a of an overflow of rabbits that people take home to the kids. They find out they're are too expensive to to support. And then they end up being abandoned, i.e. Lonely City College with their rabbit rabbits. Or they they take them back to the to the animal shelter. Is there going to be an additional cost or additional cages that might be needed to to support the influx of, let's say , an overpopulation of goats where a an owner might have over bred goats or chickens or whatever other animal that might be out there. Are we prepared? Do we have a plan?
Speaker 3: Staff.
Speaker 11: What? We. We haven't had any issues with any goats coming in. Not. Not yet. We do have resources. We do have some rescues that we work with now. We do get we get a handful of chickens and roosters every year. Not a lot. It's it's around in like the thirties or forties a year now. And we have no trouble getting those replaced in in farms, in areas out in the Inland Empire and areas like that. So we have resources for what we have coming in now. And I imagine if we had some goats come in, we could probably call on those resources for that as well. Okay.
Speaker 9: That's all ahead. Mary, thank you.
Speaker 11: Oh, council member.
Speaker 3: Urunga. I'm sorry. I just wanted to make clear regarding the goats and the products from the goats, the milk and the cheese is strictly.
Speaker 11: Prohibited from being distributed.
Speaker 3: Outside of the home or outside of the personal use. They are it's clear that they are not to distribute that, whether giving it away, selling.
Speaker 11: It at a farmers market.
Speaker 3: Or any of the above. So that's that was our concern and that's in the ordinance.
Speaker 0: Thank you.
Speaker 3: Thank you. And I believe that one of the amendments by the vice mayor added that chicken products would be prohibited except for personal consumption. So the way I understand that amendment, it would read similar to the amendment for the gold products that you would not be allowed to sell it, donated or otherwise distributed to any other person
Speaker 6: . Yes.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next up is Councilwoman Price.
Speaker 5: Thank you. I have a few questions as well to staff or is somebody able to provide any sort of background on the historical justification that was provided for the north of Anaheim language? How did that come to be? Okay. Council councilman super not is willing to offer a historical perspective if staff isn't prepared for that.
Speaker 0: Sure, Mr. West.
Speaker 9: Larry Rich will be here for that one.
Speaker 5: By the way, when you get called to do a historical perspective, it doesn't mean you're old and knowledgeable.
Speaker 14: Mayor Members of the City Council. I was actually we were all very curious about that Anaheim boundary, and I did some research on it and found that that boundary changed over time. About 100 years ago, it was actually at Fourth Street, and then it went to Seventh Street and then to Anaheim. And this is for different animals, but chickens. The the boundary dropped, but for goats it was retained. So we think that it was a means of estimating the more urbanized areas of the city. So it's kind of an old figure.
Speaker 5: And I guess that's what I'm curious about. Is there something about goats that are unique to this? Urban agriculture that makes that would justify. Some sort of separate treatment based on geographic location. Is it a noise issue? Is it a waste issue? Is what what what would it be about goats?
Speaker 14: I feel like in the past it was considered more of a straight farm type animal and needed to be outside of the more urbanized areas. But that perception has changed, particularly with the keeping a miniature goats, which you know are the size of a small dog. And so I think miniature goats didn't really exist in the city 50 or 100 years ago when when, you know, those perceptions were dominant.
Speaker 5: In regards to the to the setbacks. I know Vice Mayor Lowenthal touched on that briefly, and I think staff was attempting to are there different areas of the city where we think the setback, limitation or regulation would make it difficult for folks to engage in urban agriculture? For example, in some parts of the city, it's very densely populated, like in Belmont Shore. I can't imagine that we would have a property. It would be very rare to see a property that would have the sufficient setback because it's from the coop to the residents. The adjacent residents, correct.
Speaker 11: Yeah. Or the actual enclosure, the. And the coop.
Speaker 5: To.
Speaker 11: The residents.
Speaker 5: Okay. And so have you done any sort of analysis to see whether or not there are parts of the city that lend themselves more to the space that would be required to have urban agriculture with these setbacks in mind?
Speaker 14: So Councilmember, I did that sort of research using the city's G.I.s early on in this process. And it's true, and it's what you would expect that, you know, small areas of the city with smaller lot sizes, for example, Belmont Shore and Naples are much, much in larger built out houses, leave much less area remaining on that lot to make these situations allowable. So in truth, there will still be cities where it'll be difficult, if not impossible, to meet the distance requirements. But I think the feeling was the 50 foot distance for chickens across the board that exists makes it difficult to keep chickens almost anywhere in the city except for where there are larger lots . So we were trying to level that a little bit.
Speaker 5: Is there any sort of analysis that's been done in regards to the range of property that an individual would have to have in order to allow the operation of either the goats or the chickens with the setback requirements like the number of square feet that would be required as far as yard space.
Speaker 14: Sure. The the minimum requirement for an for the enclosure of ten feet per ten square feet per chicken. That's an easy calculation to make then. So, you know, for to keep four chickens, you would need 40 square feet of enclosure. So, you know, whatever those dimensions are, they may or may not fit in your yard within those setback areas. And so obviously a larger number of chickens, in addition to the required setbacks, also require a larger enclosure area. And so, you know, there's a balance in there that needs to be met.
Speaker 5: So the setback requirement changes based on the number of the animal. Is that right?
Speaker 14: Correct. So there's a three set back distances based on the three, you know, 1 to 4 or 5 to 10 or 11 to 20. Okay. But then there's an additional sort of floating calculation based on the maximum number of chickens you could keep in your enclosure based on that ten square feet per chicken.
Speaker 5: Okay. In regards to the question that Councilman Urunga raised, which I think is a really good one, do we have any sort of legal definition for personal consumption? And you know what? What are our concerns, if any, that, for example, if one were to consume it in the home and offer it to a guest, let's say, and it was contaminated or something was wrong with it. What what sort of safeguards do we have? I mean, is the legislative intent behind this that personal consumption is limited to the owner of the animal and or his his or her immediate family members.
Speaker 3: Or vice mayor members of the council. The the current prohibition allows for food product produced by live goats shall be for personal consumption only by members of the Permittees household. So if you had guests that's clearly covered under this it's it's meant to prohibit distribution of the product in this case from the goats and or now the chickens to you can't sell it. You can't give it away, you can't donate it or any other use for it except at home.
Speaker 5: There's no proposed change to that. Then.
Speaker 3: As the only proposed changes, the addition of chickens to the prohibition.
Speaker 5: Okay. I want to talk about bees. Again, I'm sure staff has done the research and you're the experts on this. This is really unchartered territory for me. So I'm looking for some education here. The the biggest. One of the biggest. Set of emails or email categories that our office has received over the last week has been a fear of bee stings. Can you talk to that at all in regards to a hive being in an adjacent property? I'm sure there's all sorts of research and and data that talks about bee patterns and their flight patterns and such
Speaker 14: . Councilmember. So I looked into this quite a bit early on as well. And so the first thing to understand is that the bees are already out there, meaning our city is full of both wild hives and domestic hives. And bees visit any property that has flowers where, you know, so whether or not your neighbor has a bee hive, if you've got things the bees went, they'll be on your property. So having a bee hive next door doesn't necessarily increase the chance of a negative interaction with bees, particularly if you're following the guidelines that are set as part of the ordinance language that directs their flight away from the nearest property line.
Speaker 5: Okay. In terms of the can you explain to me the justification for the height requirement of the bee hives? What's the scientific purpose for that? Do they not fly down or.
Speaker 14: Well, so the original the existing ordinance that talks about beehives needing to be ten feet above the ground. That was initially a little bit of a mystery about why that would be the case. But we think that it was because since bees have a pretty lengthy range for the size of insect that they are, they can go 2 to 3 miles away from their hive to to get what they need in terms of forage. They fly up and fly a far distance at a higher altitude. So the idea is to get them to, immediately upon leaving the hive, fly at least six feet above ground, and then they don't come back down again until they're at the place where they want to forage. So that keeps, you know, bee interactions with people at a minimum because they're, you know, start off at a higher altitude, if that makes sense.
Speaker 5: And in some ways that would provide a safeguard to the adjacent property because they're probably not going to exit the hive and take a nosedive down.
Speaker 14: And that's correct.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 5: What other cities are you aware of in the region that have this type of ordinance? And are any of the ordinances in nearby cities comparable to ours in terms of setbacks and number of animals, etc.?
Speaker 14: So we did a lot of that research, too, although it's a couple of years old at this point. There's a little bit of everything out there. There's very permissive cities. There's very restrictive cities. Long Beach kind of fell even with its existing rules kind of in the middle. But some recent some examples that immediately come to mind is the city of Los Angeles actually allows a number, unlimited number of chickens with only a 20 foot setback from the neighboring home, which was really surprising and even to the point that Los Angeles, the city of Los Angeles, by right, allows one rooster per lot, which is not even part of our roosters, are prohibited in Long Beach now and would continue to be so. So that's an example of a nearby city, a very large city that has very, you know, relaxed chicken keeping rules, you know, and it varies from these different three animals are in the bees where, you know, many cities just outright prohibit. Bees are silent on them. There's been some recent efforts by other neighboring cities, Santa monica being one of them. And actually the city of Los Angeles just recently has legalized bees, if you will, or that's going through that process. So at various cities, at various points in the last four years, a lot of relaxations of these rules have occurred. One of the ones that we looked at most closely and was most recent was the City of San Diego. That actually a lot of our proposed ordinance language is drawn from what happened, what was enacted in the city of San Diego in 2012. And I recently checked in with them just to see if they made any changes to it, what they'd enacted based on issues. And they said they hadn't, that things are pretty quiet out there in terms of there being problems or enforcement problems.
Speaker 5: In regards to the costs associated with enforcement, if any, to staff, feel pretty confident that given the amount that is going to be charged for registration of the animals, that staff can recover whatever enforcement costs that it would need in order to enforce any against any complaints or allegations of of misuse of this ordinance by a neighbor against another neighbor.
Speaker 11: Yeah. I mean, we we currently and have always got in a very, very, very small percentage of calls for complaints for chickens, roosters, not very small. Number four, goats, two or three and very even less for bees. And most of those complaints are related to roosters which are illegal and will continue to be illegal. I don't I don't foresee, you know, our complaints rising to a significant level that would impact our operations significantly.
Speaker 5: And just out of curiosity, if if you do get a call from a complaining party regarding a rooster, what would you do if you went to the location and found a rooster?
Speaker 11: Well, what we do now is we will make contact with the animal owner, let them know that it's illegal, and then we generally give them a set amount of time to rehome the rooster, or if they need assistance, we can assist them with that. But generally they got it from somewhere or they have somewhere to take it. We haven't had any issues with having to impound a bunch of these roosters generally that people are able to find a new home for it.
Speaker 5: Okay. And then just going back to the north of Anaheim. Language that we it seems a little bit mysterious, a distaff feel that there's any. Based on the research that you've done, any sort of justification that would warrant maintaining that limitation to north of Anaheim? In terms of goats specifically.
Speaker 14: I didn't see when it was kind of a broad brush way of, just like I said, thinking that this portion of the city was a more urban area where farming activities was no longer appropriate. And we felt that it was arbitrary and that the more specific distance requirements covered the the true variety of different lot sizes and levels of urbanization that actually do exist south of Anaheim. So, you know, it's not as urban and homogeneous as, you know, it's completely apartment buildings. There's a lot of variation. So places that can meet the distance requirements that are south of Anaheim should be allowed to keep those animals.
Speaker 5: Now into another complaint or concern that we've received from residents and again, it's I worked at Isabel Patterson Child Development Center. I was a preschool teacher there back in the day, and we had goats. And I don't recall specifically other than the fact that they would eat our clothes while we were standing there. I don't recall anything specific regarding the waste or the the sounds that the goats made. But some of the concerns that we've gotten from residents over the last few days has been the concern that goats are louder than chickens, for example, or that their waste is potentially harmful. Can you speak to that?
Speaker 3: Know.
Speaker 14: My understanding of goat waste is that it is less likely to have odor since goats are vegetarians, you know, they eat everything, but they are not likely to eat meat. And so and their waste is directly able to be used as fertilizer. Same thing with chickens, you know, you put it in the compost. And so it's not something that needs to be thrown away. That could be an odor issue as long as it's not piling up and staying in one spot, which is something that good animal keeping practices would would prevent and address in terms of goats being louder than other animals. You know, I just want to share something from personal experience, which is in the neighborhood that I moved into in Los Altos. I would hear a sound at night that I wondered if it was a goat. And I tracked it down over the course of weeks. And it was turned out it was someone's cockatoo in a house for houses down. And it was making this very sort of goat like sound. And so, I don't know, that was an accepted thing in the neighborhood. I don't think that goats are any louder than that, which is something that apparently is allowed and it was actually in someone's home as opposed to, you know, in their yard. So, you know, there's videos that are out there about screaming goats and all this sort of thing. I don't think that a pair of goats, which is very intentional in these rules. And we drew this from the city of San Diego. Goats are social animals, so they they want to have a buddy with them. And that helps calm them and keeping, you know, keeps them from needing to to make noise. So I don't believe that they're any louder than a dog barking would be.
Speaker 5: So that might just be a myth. Regarding I mean.
Speaker 14: The myth that that goats are louder. I believe so, yes.
Speaker 5: In regards to can you explain to me a little bit and I think the vice mayor made a friendly that involved the horning or de horning. Could you explain that a little bit to me and educate me a little bit on what that is and what does that do to the goat?
Speaker 14: Meaning the previous requirement to de horn?
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 14: So I think that that was a pretty common goat keeping practice, particularly when you have more than one goat or you have goat interactions with other animals or kids, that goat horns can be potentially dangerous if they bite you with their horns. And so but there's a other side of that story, which is that Dee Horning is inhumane to the animal and unnecessary. And so, you know, while it had been a common practice in the past, it's, I think felt now that it's less necessary and it puts supposedly the owner of the goat at a little bit of risk that some injury could occur. And it puts more onus on them to keep careful track of their goats and what they're doing and who they might be butting. But again, it's a personal responsibility thing and it doesn't prohibit people from Dee Horning at their option. It just doesn't require them to do so.
Speaker 5: And so the amendment is to not require. All right. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Well, Councilmember Price, I would like to just point out that this ordinance doesn't necessarily cancel out the noise ordinance, which the health department we administer that that program, and we would respond to any.
Speaker 11: Excessive noise complaints and do an analysis on that and address those complaints still.
Speaker 5: Thank you. And you do a fantastic job of that in all other areas. So I appreciate that. I know our district calls upon you often. So thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilmember Richardson.
Speaker 12: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So I'm just I'm a bit biased on this particular item for a number of reasons. I spent a number of years in my childhood in Alabama, and it was either adjacent to a farm or on a farm. I remember spending time clearing fields for uncles or or helping to tend to cattle. And I can tell you there are tremendous educational benefits from living with nontraditional animals in the urban area. You can learn about, you know, how a egg turns into a chicken or so on and so forth. There are. But at the same time, I've also lived in sort of urban areas that it may be untraditional to have a garden. But I got to tell you, many people in apartment complexes, they wish they could they'd have the availability to actually have a garden. We've always found areas to plant something, whether it's a windowsill or a front yard patch, a patch of a lawn. We just figured out how to do it. So for me, this issue, it's about health and equity. I think all citizens deserve the right to choose what they want to eat and to develop that food themselves. I asked I asked my mom about this issue. And the first thing she said, I said, How do you think I should vote on this? So I supported issue, oppose it. She said, Well, what we buy in the stores is killing us. So you need to support.
Speaker 11: It as it was pretty.
Speaker 12: Pretty, pretty straightforward. But that doesn't that doesn't particularly mean there aren't there aren't like legitimate concerns. Like when my neighbor complains to me that my dogs barking too much, I take steps to make sure that my dog is more quiet. If I know that a car driving down the alley disturbs my dog, I bring my dog in at night so they don't disturb neighbors. That's my personal responsibility. And I can tell you, I've you know, my family's had chickens, aunts, grandmothers have ate chickens. And I can tell you, they're no louder than a dog, a chicken. Roosters. However, in North Long Beach, we do have our roosters. And we call we call noise abatement and code enforcement. We make and we we handle that. And I don't think that that issue is going to go away. Roosters in the community, we know how to address it. There are properties that are former ranch properties in the area that still have horses and we've learned how to adapt and how to address it. There is there are a couple of questions that I might have. So I know that last time this came up, there were significant questions and concerns that the council expressed and they weren't able to find consensus and move forward. I want to I want to know, like, has staff addressed those major concerns that the council brought up the last time this brought forward? Or are we simply because I wasn't on the council last time I was a staff person, but I don't quite know if we what measures we intentionally had taken to to improve those issues that were were addressed in terms of like noise abatement.
Speaker 0: Vice Mayor Lowenthal.
Speaker 6: Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and thank you, Councilmember Richardson. I think both all three staff members can address that. The concerns that were raised are ones that we're discussing right now. And I think what we have been able to do is through the staff's research and also commitment to code enforcement and reinforcement of existing municipal code. We've done a better job of instilling confidence in why this is the right evolution of this ordinance for our city today, which I don't know that we did such a great job in 2011. And then certainly when Council member Supernova was on on the on the Sustainability Commission, we learn. So I think what through Larry and Ted and Nelson's efforts, we were able to provide the assurance, as I said, that this because this is no different from any other animal that we would allow residents to have. Our enforcement would be no different in our expectations would be the same. And some of the other issues that came up were more fear based. And I think we've we've discussed that today. Larry, Mr. Rich pointed to the fact that whether there's a beehive next door or not, there are bees abundant in in our community. And thankfully so. Thankfully so. And that's why we have such an amazing landscape of flora and fauna. And and so I think we're doing a better job at sharing with the reality of life in our urban center is and it does include all of these amazing animals. And if if Mr. Rich would like to address that as well, if there's anything specific that came up or even the city attorney that we may have adjusted with this ordinance.
Speaker 14: I would just say I would agree that raising perception levels and putting more information out there was helpful because, you know, as staff people deeply researching this item, we felt like we were coming up with good policy that balanced everything. But upon hearing this stuff for the first time, you don't. It takes you a while to get there. So just having more opportunity to consider this and hear from constituents that are knowledgeable on these topics, I think helps.
Speaker 12: Thank you. That makes me a lot more comfortable supporting this. On another issue that that I'd like to just get some clarity on. So there's a story in my family about the pig pit, pig, blueberry and blueberry. My mom and her her brother would play with blueberry. And in one one, one day they came home and blueberry was for dinner. So. So. So my question is, what is our process for consuming our backyard animals, the chickens and particularly the goats? What is our specific steps that are in this ordinance?
Speaker 6: Mr. Mayor, may I not and I'm so sorry for its loss, but that can be very traumatic. And so what I wanted to ask the city attorney, which I didn't during my comments and Mr. Mayor, if you'll allow me, can we as we do in other ordinances, we refer to existing code that we have. So can we refer it within our ordinance, make a reference to backyard slaughtering and all those things that we have in place today. We have those things in place today. And a new ordinance is. There's nothing wrong with reminding us of that within this. Is that true, Mr. City Attorney That's correct.
Speaker 3: The problem becomes then if you change in one section and you miss it in the other, you create some confusion and the municipal code goes out of date. But as you stated, currently backyard slaughtering is prohibited except in areas where it's properly zoned and that's under 8.28. And roosters are prohibited in a different section in municipal code 6.20.050.
Speaker 12: So it's prohibited no backyard slot. Just to be clear, there's no backyard slaughtering. And then my final question is when if we were to adopt this tonight, when with this go into effect?
Speaker 3: Staff. The mayor members of council councilmen Richard. And the the motion tonight is to request the city attorney to come back within 30 days with an ordinance. So then you would come back, you'd have a first reading, a second reading, and then 31 days after it's signed by the mayor. The ordinance would go into effect.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next, we have Councilor Austin.
Speaker 11: Thank you. And I'm really looking forward to hearing from the public to. We were and thank thank you all for answering most of my questions that I have or asking them. I want to thank most of the urban ag advocates who are here. No, the the the council did not agree two years ago when this came before before us. I raise a lot of significant concerns, a lot of significant concerns that were or they have been addressed here today. And I asked the urban ag advocates, I said. The issue wasn't necessarily convincing the council at the time. It was convincing your neighbors and to to the beekeepers out there to Long Beach Fresh. To my good friend Kelly Johnson in the urban farm stand. I want to thank you all, because you have actually I've seen it over the last couple of years have been extremely active and engaged in at our Carlitos Green growing experience and First Fridays and many other events. You've been out there talking to the public, educating the public, and I can honestly say that the the response that I received prior to this issue coming before this council tonight has been mostly positive. And so I credit the ah advocates who are out here today. So thank you. I'm inclined to support this. I do still have concerns about our goats. I got to tell you, I'm not quite there yet. I'll tell you, I'm like Councilmember Richardson. I didn't grow up in the South, but I grew up in Detroit and most of our folks came from the South and we gardened. Everybody had grow their own greens, their own corn, their own squash and whatever else that we could, we could grow in our backyards. It was comment. My grandfather had a hat a lot full of garden, four foot with a full garden next door to him. And so that I think we need to get back to as a as a as a society, it makes us a lot healthier. I'm really concerned and I'm always concerned with our ability to enforce things. And so I do have a few questions for staff regarding the penalties for not following the ordinance. For example, what would be the penalty for not neutering your goat or not microchipping your goat or for backyard slaughtering? Still the mayor and council members. The the penalties would be the same as we are now. And we would. Go more towards education and getting them in compliance. So, you know, getting them getting the go microchipped, getting them in compliance. Otherwise the enforcement would be the same for anything in Title six, which, you know, $100, 200, $200 and $500. So we have the citation process, but obviously our goal would be education and just compliance. And of course, I'm not advocating to penalize anyone in our society but or our city. But if these these these laws are enacted, I would certainly hope there was there would be some some. So meaningful enforcement if necessary. It also states that that there is no running at large or no goats should be held in the front yards. Is that correct? Yes, that is correct. And the microchipping will help. That's why we wanted the microchip, because if the goat did get out and an animal control officer had to impound it, we would be able to scan it and get it back to the owner right away instead of bringing it back to the shelter. So hypothetically, if you found a goat running at large without a microchip, what would be the process? We would bring it back to our shelter, hold it for the couple of days that we would have to hold it and then we would find it at home. We probably a rescue or a farm would reach out to our resources that we have. Okay. And where would would one go to microchip? A goat? Is that a local veterinarian? They could probably have a done a veterinarian. They could do it at one of our vaccination clinics where we do microchipping. We could even offer it in at our at our shelter. Have we had any experience with microchipping a goats? I haven't, but I'm sure our veterinarians at our vets have. Okay. Just I have to ask these questions. It's important. And I do see this as this this whole issue of urban ag and this ordinance as a as a property rights or or an issue of expanding property rights for for our residents. I look forward to hearing from our public. Thanks.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Okay. I have a few more speakers and we're going to go to the public and take a vote. Councilmember Gonzalez.
Speaker 1: I know that this has gone through a few iterations and here we are now. It's a really good, healthy discussion I think, that we're having. I will be supporting this item. Of course I'm on the item. I think I want to thank Vice Mayor Lowenthal for her for her diligence in this. I know she's gone through this quite a few years, as well as Councilmember Supernova, who has gone through the process as well. And I will say to the urban agriculture advocates, it's been really great learning from you. Many of you are very educated in this far more than. And I think many of us will be here in the council. And so I thank you for all of your information, your emails, your outreach to your neighbors to ensure that this is a good ordinance for all of us and that it makes sense. And I certainly see this in many different areas. I see this in health and environment. As many of my council colleagues discuss. It is an option for our residents to have healthier food choices, especially in low income, high dense neighborhoods. Much of what I represent in the First District, education for families, but also for the owners to ensure that owners know the proper usage of the proper care for their animals, as well as the penalties and fines should they do something that is incorrect. But for families as well to know that this is an option that is available. But what are what are the nuances of the ordinance? And then lastly, animal rights, of course, and owner responsibility, as I mentioned. So I again want to thank Vice Mayor Lowenthal for including a reference to slaughtering, because I think that's really important. I know it's been discussed many times and so I just will will certainly support this and I think everyone for being here.
Speaker 0: Back to Councilman Price.
Speaker 5: Thank you. And I appreciate the patience of the audience. I'm sure you guys all know this, that many of you are in here and you're experts in this field, and that's wonderful. But we have a lot of residents who don't know much about this, and there's a lot of conclusions that people make that are misplaced. So sometimes we're asking questions that seem really super obvious to you, but we're doing it because tomorrow we're going to get calls. And some people might tune into the meeting tonight and reporters might write things and they'll say things like Goats don't make more noise than other animals because we ask the question. So I know it's a little bit, you know, frustrating because you guys know the answers, but you're here because you care about the item. There's a lot of people here who just make conclusions about it and they're not here. So please thank you for your patience and indulging us. On that note, one of the concerns that we've received in our office, because coyotes have been a major issue in our district, is that urban agriculture is going to encourage or attract coyotes to residential neighborhoods. So has staff looked at that? And is there anything you can do to address that issue in terms of any data or analysis that you've done?
Speaker 0: Staff.
Speaker 5: Sorry. That was a doozy. I know.
Speaker 14: Well, I can start off just by saying that it is a concern that these animals need to be protected from predators. And that's built into the ordinance language that the enclosures need to be predator proof. So, you know, there's separate discussions about what attracts coyotes to neighborhoods and, you know, has a lot to do with pet food being left out, pets being left out overnight, fallen fruit, all sorts of things that are already bringing them into neighborhoods. And we believe that a properly secured pen for goats or chickens isn't going to create an additional issue.
Speaker 5: And that's the key there, that we have a properly secured area for these animals to to be.
Speaker 14: I might add to that that it's not just coyotes that are predators for these animals, in particular chickens. It's all of the other sort of urban wildlife. Raccoons, possums, skunks. So it's it's vital. Otherwise, you will lose your chickens.
Speaker 5: Thank you. Thanks for indulging me by answering all those questions.
Speaker 0: Thank you. I'm going to go to public comment, but I want to make a few comments and we're going to go to the public and then go for a vote. I want to just first say that I'm a big, strong supporter of the ordinance in front of us today. I'm a big supporter of urban agriculture. I always have been voted for it when I was on the council. I talked about it at my state of the city as an important piece of food security, access to healthy foods, access for people that want to have a sustainable city. If you look at all the large cities that are really doing the right thing when it comes to sustainability, whether it's Austin, San Diego, Los Angeles, New York, Oakland, Saint Paul, Portland, Seattle, they all have one thing in common. They have strong support for urban AG. And I think that what I love seeing in our community is the dozens of community gardens, the urban farms, the the agriculture that's happening. And I think this is really one really nice step that we're taking forward to support what is a very reasonable ordinance, in my opinion. I want to thank all of the urban ag advocates because this would not be happening today if it wasn't for all of you. I have to particularly thank Donna and Long Beach and Long Beach Groves. I see her in the audience. I mean, you've been doing this as you know. You you have been a consistent advocate for this from day one. Back when I was running for city council, you were talking about it. And I just want to thank you for never letting up. And, you know, I know this is a big night for you. And I also want to thank all the other the farm owners and the supporters of of local growing of sharing food. You make our city a better place. And I'm really proud of of what this is. Where this we're at tonight with this. And I also want to thank everyone. It was a big thank you to Vice Mayor Lowenthal for being consistent and thorough and bringing this back. And I want to thank her for for that as well. So thank you all. Thank you for all the supporters. And we'll do public comment. I'm very excited about this. This week's.
Speaker 15: Hi there. I'm Gabrielle Weeks. I'm actually a second district resident, but I have spoken to many of you guys over the last few years about this issue. The Sierra Club supports it. We ask for your yes vote. We've heard a lot of good questions, a lot of great answers from staff. You guys are just like right there with the answers. So we know exactly what we're voting on and what will happen. The one thing I didn't hear brought up was the price of a goat. The cheapest goat that we were able to find recently looking around online is like $325. So people are going to keep track of their property. They're not going I mean, look at me. I'm carrying my laptop around because I don't want to lose that. So people aren't going to have like goats wandering the streets riding the city bus, although I found an adorable meme of a goat on a city bus. So but I ask for your yes vote. And thank you for all your support from from those of you that I've been talking to about this for years and staff that's done such a great job. Larry's got so many good answers to guide you guys.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Gabrielle. Next, speaker plate.
Speaker 4: Mayor John, Commerce City Council. I just have a few questions. Where can you buy a goat in chicken? Do they have, like, stores you can go to or I mean, you can. I just want to make sure that we don't have, like, goat puppy mills or puppy mills for chickens. And there's regulations on the.
Speaker 0: Absolutely, there's regulations.
Speaker 4: You can. Another question I have I mean, obviously, it's going to be an extra enforcement for animal control and staff. Have we thought about staff time adding additional bodies.
Speaker 0: That's been addressed know in the staff report but their staff doesn't believe there's going to be a major impact.
Speaker 4: Thank you, sir. And also one additional thing has animal control has been trained on how to lasso a goat if it gets out. I mean, I would like to make sure that we have some training on how to capture goat if it does get out.
Speaker 0: Thank you, sir.
Speaker 4: And one additional thing I just want to point out, we spent an hour and 15 minutes on goats, chickens and bees and only 3 minutes on our city employees. Have a great night.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 4: A couple of years ago, I think there was a federal law, federal law, federal bill called the Food Safety Act. And under under this federal ordinance, a person can't even give tomatoes away from his from his garden to his neighbor. And he definitely can't sell them. He can't even give them away. And so and so that that information needs to be on your website, above the forward. You know it a very. You know, very, very obvious, you know, remind people of the federal law and where they can get their chickens microchipped and all that.
Speaker 0: Thank you, sir. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 11: Good evening, Mayor Garcia and esteemed members of the council. My name is Demetrius and I'm a local resident of District two. I'm also the owner of Long Beach Farms, a decentralized urban farm here in Long Beach, with gardens across the city in council districts five, six, eight and growing. I also speak tonight on behalf of Long Beach Fresh, which is the local chapter of the California Food Policy Council. I'd like to express full support of the proposed amendments to Title six of the city's municipal code regarding urban agriculture, with the exception of the new amendment restricting owners ability to share or sell chicken products in a robust urban agricultural environment. The person with the chickens should be able to trade with the beekeeper, and that person should also be able to perhaps trade with the local farmer. I think that amendment seems a little arbitrary to my reading and unnecessary. We at Long Beach Farms believe in food sovereignty and the right of consumers to participate in their own food production, either by growing their own food or connecting directly with those who do. Through our partnerships with the Long Beach Alliance for Food and Fitness, Long Beach Fresh and other nonprofit and corporate groups, we aim to support neighborhoods most impacted by the lack of healthy food access, namely central, west and north Long Beach. As the Council asserted, urban agriculture helps to create sustainability in cities. It also reconnects individuals to their food and mitigates negative effects of urbanization on the environment. Urban agriculture provides local, healthier food choices, creates jobs, and allows us to grow food where the people are passing these amendments will further increase access to healthy, affordable food for Long Beach residents. I believe the amendments are generally well-crafted, with reasonable requirements regarding set back distance from dwellings and quantity limitations. Likewise, I believe that local innovation, social enterprise and promotion alongside meaningful policy changes are all necessary to bring about better access to fresh, healthy and culturally appropriate foods. Personally and professionally, I'm excited about the potential impacts of this policy. For one, it lowers the barrier of entry into the local food economy by promoting local residents right to grow their own food. In this case, we're talking about high value protein sources. And honey, as many as any who have been to supermarkets or farmer's markets know there is a premium charge for clean and trusted sources of eggs , milk and pure non contaminated honey. And. You know, I'll jump ahead on my comments for the time running out. I feel that if we're to grow and raise more of our own food here in Long Beach, we must foster a healthy respect for what we are eating and appreciate the effort it takes to grow it. We are informed in a way that can lead to better food choices in our community. To paraphrase. To paraphrase the great Maya Angelou. When we know better, we do better. This ordinance is based on our collective knowledge of the myriad benefits of local urban agricultural systems and expands our ability to learn more by doing more. Passage of this amendment will allow us to know better and do better. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you very much. And thank you. Long Beach Fresh guys are doing some great stuff. Next speaker.
Speaker 13: Hello. My name is Rebecca Bishop and thank you for your interest in this matter. I live in the third district. My kids go to school, primary school in the third district. I work as a professor of mathematics at CSU will be in the third district. True to my profession, I'm going to look at this quite logically. I wanted to discuss Mr. Jenkins issues with waste, overpopulation, noise, that type of thing. Mostly, firstly, waste. You go to those and you can buy chicken manure for $4 a square foot per cubic foot. Sorry, people actually pay for chicken manure. It's actually more expensive than cow manure and it claims to have ten times as much nutritional value as cow manure does. You certainly wouldn't go into Lowe's and buy a sack of dog manure or cat manure. So you're actually getting something beneficial out of the back end of your chicken that doesn't normally come out of your dog or cat. I also venture to guess that the same people who are going to raise chickens are the same people that have compost bins. And I'm going to put it in the compost bean, which is a glorified recycling bin, which will limit the amount of waste that actually goes out into the city yard for that. Secondly, my basic biology class, this kind of taught me, even though that's not my major, that we're going to have very little issues with overpopulation if we actually follow the guidelines set by it. No roosters means no unexpected chicks. And contrary to popular belief, hens lay eggs that are edible with or without a rooster on campus. Also, neutering of male goats will lead to no baby goats. Right. So I don't think there's going to be that type of issue going on. Noise issues, chickens actually put themselves away at dark and they make zero noise to the night as opposed to like a dog. And you can think of the 4th of July coming up. Right. So from that, there's little sound actually coming out at dark from a chicken. There's little bits of sound coming out when they're laying their egg in the daytime, but that's pretty minimal. Yeah. As an educator and a parent. I absolutely agree with Dr. Lowenthal statement. That this is an opportunity to get closer to and introduce my children to the true cycle of food. The chickens will eat the plants from my garden. The chickens will produce a simple food. They will also produce the manure that gives me a richer soil, that gives me fewer pests in my garden. Therefore, I have to use less chemicals in my garden. The bees will pollinate my garden and will make actually more food for my chickens to turn around and eat again. Thank you very much for your yes vote on this. I'm now going to release the microphone to Henry from the Long Beach Beekeepers.
Speaker 0: You know, that's great.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Hi, I'm Henry Kurland. I'm a beekeeper. I'm also president of the Long Beach Beekeepers Club. We have about 140 members, about half of which live in Long Beach. A good proportion of them already have hives. I brought with me a copy of the ordinance that the city of L.A. passed. 3 to 4 weeks ago permitting buyers in urban areas on. Home. Lot's five foot setback, not the ten foot we're talking about here. I also point out that since October, with help of Larry, we've maintained hives over here in the Civic Center. I don't know if you're aware of it. We have two hives here currently. In fact, I brought samples of your honey with me, and I have enough jars for the council members, if you're interested. These bees are very gentle, but they're from feral hives. Our club, a lot of our members to be rescues. We take bees from where they're not wanted and where they've been a nuisance. And we put them where they are wanted in a managed environment. So I encourage you, at least for the B part. And I'm also a chicken owner, not a goat owner, but chicken owner. And I encourage you to pass these amendment.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for all the education you do. All the great public education you do. Thank you. Next speaker.
Speaker 11: Please.
Speaker 7: Hi. My name is Barbara Sinclair. My information is on file. I'm a resident of the sixth District. But as a proud Rigley member, a resident, I count myself as a resident of both the seventh and the 66th District. As you can probably tell, I'm here for the bees. I'm a beekeeper. I've been a beekeeper for several years. And I got started because of my interest in the demise of the bees and the crisis that we're having with honey bees. And at one point, I decided if I really feel that way, I need to become more hands on. So with Henry and another person from the club as my mentor, I learned how to rescue bees. And I've been doing that as a volunteer free of charge for many years. And at some point, I decided to be a beekeeper myself. Because a lot of us in Long Beach, our bee bandit, we like to call ourselves. So I am very hopeful that you will pass this this change in the ordinance this evening. It takes a special kind of person to be a beekeeper. Most of most people think we're crazy, in fact. But what I can tell you about beekeepers, at least the 150 members of the club that Henry and I founded here in Long Beach is that we are responsible, we are knowledgeable, we are generous with our knowledge. We pass information on to everywhere we possibly can. We go to Wrigley barbecue events. We go to first Friday's. We go to third Friday's. We go to the Green Festival. We go everywhere where they will have us. And what we mainly do there is talk to children who start out deathly afraid of bees and end up being absolutely fascinated by bees. I would like to speak to two issues. One is, as Henry mentioned, there was a change in the language of this proposal from the five foot setback to a ten foot setback. And I have to tell you that bees don't care about setbacks. One foot would be enough for them. They fly truly. They really do. They fly straight up, straight up and then out over the roofs. If if that stopped even, you know, five prospective beekeepers to be able to keep bees, I would be sad. And I see my time is running out. So I want to talk a little bit about eggs. I haven't bought an egg probably in ten years from a grocery store. I buy my eggs from my friends who have chickens from pop up farms with women who have chickens and sell them. I trade my honey for four eggs. I think it would be a crying shame if that part of the motion passed that they were unable to pass those those along to other people. And with that, I thank you and thank you to staff for all the work and I fully support, as do most of the urban agriculture . People here are city workers. And I'm sorry you didn't get more time.
Speaker 0: Thank you. We have the time's up. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 11: Hi. My name's Elliott Gonzales. My information is on file. I'm here to speak in favor of everything that was mentioned. I actually wrote the speech, but everybody covered everything I wrote. So I guess I just want to take a really quick second to think everybody who's worked really hard on this over the years. This started grassroots on the ground several years ago by by a friend of mine, Donna, and her family. And we've seen this go through multiple, multiple meetings on the Sustainability Commission, the Environmental Committee. And so I'm really glad to see so much support on this council and in the community and the public at large in terms of education. I just want to let every council member know that everybody in the environmental community is here to serve you in any way that we can in providing information as to what what ways we can become more sustainable. So I want to thank everybody who who is in favor of this issue, and we're looking forward to passing the ordinance.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Elliot. Next speaker.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Wendy Aragon with Pet Assistance Foundation. We've been active in this community.
Speaker 7: Helping people with spay and neuter since 1955. Tonight, we want to go on record of opposing this ordinance for the reasons presented by.
Speaker 1: Peter and Judy Crumpton.
Speaker 7: Who has worked, who has voiced concerns about this since 2012 but could.
Speaker 5: Not be here tonight.
Speaker 7: What deeply concerns us is does animal care have the budget and staff? To issue the permits.
Speaker 1: Regulate and enforce the violations of this ordinance. We're afraid that it's a slap on the wrist, the educational approach.
Speaker 7: Okay, that has value. But we need to have I didn't hear tonight what what are the specific penalties for this?
Speaker 1: Are there citations like there is with companion animals? These are all issues that were not addressed properly. Abandonment of companion animals were thoroughly aware of. What makes you think this is not going to happen with farm animals? When people are evicted.
Speaker 7: They have to move for whatever reason.
Speaker 1: They get tired of the animal, whatever.
Speaker 7: The goats are of special concern to us.
Speaker 1: Because of their their needs, their their active, their climbers.
Speaker 7: The males. Okay. It's good that they.
Speaker 1: Have to be neutered, but the females have to be impregnated every two years, I understand, in order to provide milk and their offspring can stay on the premises for six months.
Speaker 7: What happens after that? This animal is.
Speaker 1: Nurtured. It's like a pet. It's like a puppy or kitten.
Speaker 7: It's microchipped. But then what happens? It's taken to a dark back alley slaughterhouse somewhere.
Speaker 1: Is somebody regulating where these animals go. Like we require a transfer permit for puppies and kittens.
Speaker 7: The rescue people are required that and so.
Speaker 1: Are the.
Speaker 7: People who breed these animals in the city, not cats we can't breed, but people.
Speaker 1: Who do get a permit for breeding dogs. These issues.
Speaker 5: Have not.
Speaker 1: Been addressed. We live in a diverse community every day on our hotlines, on our phones, everywhere.
Speaker 7: We see the abuse of animals.
Speaker 1: I dealt with it today in North Long Beach, where 20 cats had been abandoned because a man was evicted. Why is it so different?
Speaker 7: Why is it going to be so different for these poor farm animals? Is it because they're just farm animals that we're not going to have this special consideration.
Speaker 1: And the need for.
Speaker 7: The.
Speaker 1: Regulation.
Speaker 5: And.
Speaker 1: Enforcement that is of deep concern to us. Long Beach prides itself in being a safe and humane city for animals and people. Let's keep it this way. By voting against this ordinance, we should not just be thinking about sustainability here.
Speaker 7: I've heard that over and.
Speaker 5: Over again tonight.
Speaker 1: We do not need to open up.
Speaker 5: Pandora's.
Speaker 7: Box to more animal misery. Thank you very much.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 7: Good evening, Council. Good evening, Mayor. Council members. My name is Kathleen Irvine. I live at 539 Daisy in the first district. And I want to thank you all for your hard work on this ordinance. I really appreciate the focus and that it was brought back in front of the city council. And of course, I support it. I've sent a letter out to all of you. I'm sure you've seen it. I think, though, that what I want to talk about this evening is, first of all, that perhaps the chickens and goats and bees should not be looked upon as farm animals. They are not here for our slaughter. They're not here strictly for our use because of these small plots and these small amount of animals that are being kept there, really more pets. And to say that one pet is more valuable or one pet will be more mistreated than others is not really correct. There are always people who will mistreat animals and we are not going to stop that by not passing this regulation. The other thing I wanted to say was that I'm currently teaching elementary school children. They're very tiny. I'm in charge of a one acre nature center and garden, and educating them is really important because despite all the verbiage about the environment and everything else, these children are still afraid of things. And one of my favorite things that happened this last year was there were two little tiny boys, and they looked at the garden and there was a tomato plant with a picture of a tomato steak that had a picture. And one of them said to the other, Look, it's tomatoes. And the other little boy says, Well, where are they? And the first little boy says, Oh, they're underground. So there really is a disconnect between what we're telling our children and what they actually experience. And for them to experience bees in the garden of which there are thousands in my garden and to see chickens and all of that in person and relate to it, whatever we're telling them in words is so important. So I encourage you to support this. And thank you very much.
Speaker 0: Thank you. And Kathleen, I mean, some of the best eggs I've ever had you've given me from one of your chickens. So thank you, Jim.
Speaker 3: Good afternoon, council members. Mayor Garcia, please do not be swayed by the fear mongering. I'd like to invite each and every one of you council member Iran to please. You have not felt the joy it is to hold a hen in your lap and have little hen time in the afternoon. I'm telling you, it's great. Invite you to come out, check out the chicken condo. Our chickens are spoiled. I heard about a beehive that's close by. We've never been bothered by it again. Don't be swayed by the fear mongering. It's a great experience. I urge you to support the men amendment this before you. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Speaker, please.
Speaker 3: Hi.
Speaker 14: My name is Steven.
Speaker 3: Passmore and co-founder of Long Beach Grows, a resident of the second district. I'd like to address a few of the issues pertaining to goats. As far as abandonment goes. I took a quick look at.
Speaker 14: Petfinder before I came.
Speaker 3: The closest goat for adoption is in Arizona. It's just not an issue because they're also very quiet and their waste is. Not an issue.
Speaker 11: It's it's compost. It can go.
Speaker 3: Straight on your garden. Appreciate you taking this issue back up. And I urge a yes vote.
Speaker 11: Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 2: Good evening, Council. My name is Suzanne Stevens. I am a resident of the eighth district. I have called in and I spoke to one of Mr. Austin's office workers who was fantastic, had a great conversation with them. Same with you, Mr. Mayor. I am very, very thankful that this issue is up again. Being a resident of Long Beach, also a professional working in Long Beach, I had the great fortune of being able to teach at Wilson High School this year to.
Speaker 5: American government.
Speaker 2: Classes. And I always save local government for last because we always saved the best for last.
Speaker 5: Where in my household, I'm so.
Speaker 2: Grateful to see the.
Speaker 5: Progress and the information being abundantly.
Speaker 2: Shared and received.
Speaker 5: From everybody on both sides.
Speaker 2: It's also very.
Speaker 5: Encouraging to see the compromises that are.
Speaker 2: Also being made. I look forward to seeing.
Speaker 5: What's going to come.
Speaker 2: I, of course, urge you all to vote in favor for this.
Speaker 5: And if you do have any hesitancy and questions that are further and answered, the people who are.
Speaker 2: Involved in this movement are the most generous with their.
Speaker 5: Time and information.
Speaker 2: There's nothing more that we.
Speaker 5: Like doing than bragging.
Speaker 2: About our and I wouldn't say far medals. Once again, I call them pets.
Speaker 5: And yet, because.
Speaker 2: Most of them are.
Speaker 5: Raised from babies, they're just as beloved to us as our cats and dogs.
Speaker 2: Perhaps even more spoiled.
Speaker 5: Because they're the only pets that we have that make us breakfast in the morning. So they actually pay their rent and.
Speaker 2: Like the dogs. But both they give the best cuddles, both.
Speaker 5: Everyone gets along in harmony.
Speaker 2: Just to address one of the questions that Council member Urunga had about diseases, most chicks come from hatcheries already fully.
Speaker 5: Vaccinated against the most common diseases, especially ones that are sold in stores as well, such as Blacksmiths Corner. If your chickens are not.
Speaker 2: Vaccinated, they sell vaccines.
Speaker 1: There.
Speaker 5: That you can have administered. So there are built in protections for that before you even get them to your home.
Speaker 2: Goats and chickens are not a cheap prospect either. To do it on the cheap, it's usually going to cost you for a handful of hens approximately around.
Speaker 5: $500 to get the coop an enclosure built more if you're going to raise them from babies and put all that food into them and things.
Speaker 2: Like that. So this is not going to be an impulse purchase. I think these are not the sexy new pet to have.
Speaker 5: They are companion animals, they're beloved.
Speaker 2: The waste is.
Speaker 5: Really not an issue that I've ever been aware.
Speaker 1: Of.
Speaker 5: Aware of. Also, you know, I.
Speaker 2: Would also like to get involved in bees. I'm not currently just because I know I need more education and the bee community has been superlative in providing.
Speaker 5: That as well. And I personally cannot wait to write my check to the city of Long Beach to have inspections and to pay the.
Speaker 1: Registration.
Speaker 5: Just like I do every year for my dogs. I'm more than happy to write that check. I will write a smiley face on it. So I hope you continue to have.
Speaker 2: A good evening and I look forward to being able to speak with you in the future.
Speaker 0: Thank you so much. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 1: Yes, I'm Don Americus with Long Beach Groves and a resident of the second District are mostly up here just to say thank you for bringing this up and for hopefully your positive vote. And thank you, everybody in the audience who support urban agriculture and who have taken this has.
Speaker 13: Made this their issue.
Speaker 1: Um, so again, Sue just mentioned the fact that birds.
Speaker 2: Are vaccinated.
Speaker 1: When you get them. I have experience with chickens, goats, bees, dogs, cats. I've been bit by a dog. Luckily I didn't contract rabies, which is a serious, irreversible illness if you catch it. I mean, if if if you are bit and you don't know that you have rabies until the symptoms appear. I've been scratched by cats. Luckily, I didn't get cat scratch fever or toxoplasmosis, which are serious illnesses, infectious diseases caused by these animals that we allow in the city. Both dogs and cats are carnivores. These other animals that we're talking about, the chickens and goats are, for the most part, herbivores, except for the few bugs that the chickens eat. So that makes it makes their waste less harmful, less likely to cause some type of zoonotic illness that can transfer to us. And, you know, I can just personally say that of all the animals, the quietest ones are the goats. Um. Uh, you know, when we swarm, you can hear them, right? So the bees and the goats are the quietest. Um, the chickens make just a tiny bit of sound, just.
Speaker 2: Like a minute or so around when they're.
Speaker 1: Laying their egg. So I urge you to please vote for this so that us ordinary people who just want to connect with our food system can do so and teach our families about where food comes from.
Speaker 13: And stay healthy. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 1: Hello. I am Maya Passmore of Second District. Many of you might have heard me speak a couple of times before, and I have a lot of experience with this motion because I've been living with my parents who are really supporting it, and I have experience with goats, chickens, bees and a lot of other things. And I just want to say that. What's better to have something that you just pay for it and it feeds off all the money you give it like a dog. You have to pay for all that and you don't get anything in return but chickens, goats. And because you get something in return for all the money you put into. And since you have to put in so much money into those animals, why would you abandon it anyways? So it has no question about abandonment. They're pets in general, so that's one. And they're really good for family in general. So. I'm pro go and I vote.
Speaker 0: Thank you. And I'm going to go ahead. And after the. The lady in the back, I'm going to cut the speaker's list off. So I think we have three speakers, which I will cut off. Speakers. Let's close, sir.
Speaker 3: Hi, my name is Lynne Price and I'm from the eighth District.
Speaker 11: I would like to thank the Council for once again revisiting this issue. I would also urge you not to give in to the.
Speaker 3: Fear mongering that fortunately has subsided a bit, and there's only a.
Speaker 11: Few voices left in the miseducation.
Speaker 3: That comes out of their voices.
Speaker 11: About what it is to have. Goats, bees and chickens. First of all, as everybody has pointed out before, the the manure that comes out of both the goats and the chickens can be used in our gardens, which most of us do. But most of us who have these animals also have gardens. I would the only part of the legislation that's being put forward that I don't agree with is the sharing or bartering or trading of eggs. I can understand with the goats and the milk, with the processing that goes involved that there could be.
Speaker 3: Potential for contamination. However, the egg comes out of the chicken complete in its own little shell. And if we if you were to add that to the legislation.
Speaker 11: I would hate to see the mayor be guilty of illegally accepting.
Speaker 3: Chickens for his own.
Speaker 11: Consumption. So.
Speaker 3: Once again, I would urge you to.
Speaker 11: Yes, please move this forward.
Speaker 3: It's been three, four years now. I think the wheels of government turned very slowly, but I'm.
Speaker 11: Glad to see that once again, we are revisiting this.
Speaker 3: And one question that I.
Speaker 11: Did have for those of us who are grandfathered into this, I have had chickens for eight years. I read in part of the legislation that we're not able to keep them until we have a permit.
Speaker 3: I hope that you have some kind of.
Speaker 11: Provision for those of us who have been in compliance this whole.
Speaker 3: Time and take that into consideration.
Speaker 11: As.
Speaker 3: The law stands now. I am in perfect compliance and I just don't want to feel that.
Speaker 11: Now that this is going to change. Somehow now I have to.
Speaker 3: Get rid of my birds and then bring.
Speaker 11: Them back and it's just going to be a major inconvenience.
Speaker 3: So I hope you take that into consideration. Thank you very.
Speaker 0: Much. Thank you, sir. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 1: Hello.
Speaker 5: My name is Joan Scarcella and I'm in.
Speaker 1: The third.
Speaker 7: District.
Speaker 5: And I am.
Speaker 7: Opposed of keeping the goats, especially, however the.
Speaker 5: Chickens and the bees.
Speaker 7: Probably would be all right. But I grew up on a cattle ranch in Montana, and I have had experience.
Speaker 1: With all kinds of animals and a lot of people. I don't think they.
Speaker 7: Realize.
Speaker 1: That there is a lot of care. And to take care of all the animals.
Speaker 7: You have to. Be very, very, uh, you know.
Speaker 1: Have food, water.
Speaker 7: And treat them with respect at all times. And I just.
Speaker 1: Don't think that there is that.
Speaker 5: Many.
Speaker 7: Lots that big enough in Long Beach to.
Speaker 1: Comply with all of the rules. So I'm against.
Speaker 7: Especially.
Speaker 1: The goats and the chickens. However, it's great for bees and gardens. And I agree that any I have tomatoes and pots and everything else.
Speaker 7: And I think.
Speaker 1: It's good for gardening.
Speaker 7: But I'm opposed to the goats especially.
Speaker 0: Thank you very much. Thank you. Next in our last speaker, please.
Speaker 13: My name is Standridge Rainey. I live in the fifth District. Everybody's kind of covered everything that I would say to you otherwise. Except for the one issue on. Education and homeless chickens if people can't have them. I belong to a group called Los Angeles Urban Chicken Keepers Enthusiasts, and they are a group of more than 1700 people in Los Angeles and a few members from Orange County.
Speaker 1: They offer workshops.
Speaker 13: On what you need to do to be a chicken keeper. We've had multiple workshops taught by veterinarians from the state from.
Speaker 1: They've come out from San Bernardino and stuff and.
Speaker 13: They've educated us on keeping the animals healthy and avoiding diseases, avoiding things that they constantly give us updates on things like avian influenza. We were aware that there were problems up in Canada six months ago before it was in the news here. So lots of local chicken keeper enthusiasts were already being very proactive and practicing extra sanitation and biosecurity. We there's lots of education on how to sanitize and make sure you don't bring home something from a different flock. If you go to visit.
Speaker 1: A friend's house, in addition to that.
Speaker 13: Maybe once a month or so, somebody who's not a member finds our group and posts that they're having to relocate due to work. They have to sell their house because they're being foreclosed on and they will post that they have a flock of chickens that they.
Speaker 1: Need to find homes for.
Speaker 5: Within a matter of hours, if not.
Speaker 13: You know, a couple days, there's more than six or seven people within the group that step forward and post, hey, here's my phone number, here's my email, contact me. These chickens never stay available for more than a few days, so a homeless chicken is very, very rare. The only ones who might have a hard time finding a home is a rooster. But even then, we have lots of members who live within Los Angeles who would love to get a backyard pet chicken. So the homeless issue with chickens, in my opinion, is nonexistent, especially with groups like ours that educate people. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you so much. Thank you. I'm going to turn this back over to Vice Mayor Lowenthal.
Speaker 6: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I wanted to first of all, I wanted to thank everyone that came here today and those that could not be here. This I'm reminded that we started this back in 2011, and Larry had mentioned this as well as other staff members. We've learned a lot. We've learned a lot in how communities grow and evolve and how we can help people live in ways that they want to live, especially when it comes to healthy lifestyles in a way that doesn't harm others. I think that's that's where I've certainly learned quite a bit in this process. I'd like to especially give my heartfelt, sincere thank you to our city staff. There are a lot of issues they work on many years at a time. This is certainly one of them, and it's one where I've witnessed our staff go out and constantly engage the community not to hear the answers that they want to hear, but to really hear the community. And that's it's a very enriching process. And I want to thank each of you that's here today, as well as all of your colleagues that have put time and effort into this item. Because I know that what you want out of it is opportunity for an improved quality of life for our residents. And that speaks volumes to you. I'd like to thank my chief of staff for his efforts as well. I think he is now the resident expert on goats, chickens and bees. We thought we were urban district representatives, but we've learned a lot. And Brock has stuck with this issue for quite some time. And I would certainly like to thank my council members for considering the issue. And the mayor was very kind when he said, I've been very persistent and I want to thank my colleagues for tolerating my persistence and certainly, again, considering the issue, if I may ask our co-sponsors if they would consider removing the. The item. The second part of the amendment requiring the food products are for personal consumption, only to the chicken section in hearing staff. And I'm again constantly learning. No other city has that in their ordinance, and our city is no different. And so we know that. And I want to be sure that the mayor can continue to get his eggs. I really that's that's what I want to be sure.
Speaker 0: And that's you're all welcome to bring me some.
Speaker 6: So now you must bring some things. But if if you are amenable, I'd like to remove that part from from this from this motion. And what I'd also like to share, many of you, especially Councilmember Richardson, had offered that he is the child of farmers and farming family, and so am I. You know, we all find ourselves like migratory birds. We find ourselves in environments that really aren't necessarily inherent to our family heritage. But here we are. And I think what what I heard and was reminded of when Councilmember Richardson spoke is no matter how far away we come from our heritage, whether it's 100 years before us, 1000 years before us, it is still in us to be close to the earth, no matter where we live, Shanghai, Long Beach, wherever it is, as dense an environment as we might be. And there's a book called there's there's a ethno botany book called The Earth Knows Your Name. And this entire discussion over the last four years, I've never felt stronger about the true ism of that and the value of that. The Earth does know your name. And what I hear from residents over and over again is they would like to get a little bit closer to their food source. We don't all have to, but being able to is really important for how we live in our city. And so for that, I'm very grateful for the deep lessons you've shared with me and my staff, and I am very hopeful that we will pass this ordinance tonight. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
Speaker 0: Thank you very much, Vice Mayor. And with that, we have we have a motion on the floor by Vice Mayor Lowenthal and Councilmember Supernova. Please cast your.
Speaker 3: Votes, Mayor. Members of council, I assume that the amendment by the vice mayor was accepted by the second to remove the restriction on chicken. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Great. And so please cast your vote.
Speaker 1: Motion carries nine zero.
Speaker 0: Thank you all. Thank you and and congrats again to everybody. You guys all did a great job. Was great this year. By the way, some of you folks we've have known for a long time are some of the best one of the best things we have in Long Beach is, is this community and I really want to thank you for coming out. You guys are amazing. We're going to move on to to the next item. I'm going to move up and take item 24. | Agenda Item | Recommendation to request City Attorney to bring an ordinance within 30 days to amend Title 6 of the City’s Municipal Code based on previous draft language developed in consultation with members of the community, Department of Parks, Recreation and Marine, Office of Sustainability and City Attorney’s office. | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_06232015_15-0546 | Speaker 1: Report from please. Recommendation to receive the application of Starbucks for an original application of an ABC license at seven 565 Carson Boulevard. Submit a public notice of protest to ABC and direct the city manager to withdraw the protest if SC up is granted. District five.
Speaker 0: Mongo.
Speaker 2: Do we have a staff report?
Speaker 11: Honorable Mayor and City Council. The application in front of you is for the issuance of a Type 41 ABC license for the Starbucks at 7565 Carson Boulevard. This application will permit the on premise sale of beer and wine.
Speaker 3: And the application does require a.
Speaker 11: Copy that has not yet been applied for. And so a protest is in place. But the police department does not anticipate any adverse effects of the approval of the application.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilwoman Mongeau.
Speaker 2: Thank you. It's been a great pleasure to have some additional businesses join the fifth District this year and some of them are looking to expand. I hope that my colleagues will support me on this item.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Seconded by Councilor Andrew. I know if I can have everybody exiting, please, which is always we're still trying to run the meeting, so we just quiet down. Think you guys. Some renders any public comment on item number 23. Guys, please. Thank you. Any other public comment? Item 23 CNN, please cast your vote.
Speaker 1: Motion passes eight zero.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Item 13. | ABC License | Recommendation to receive the application of Coffee House Holdings, Incorporated, dba Starbucks No. 5578, for an original application of an Alcoholic Beverage Control License, at 7565 Carson Boulevard, submit a Public Notice of Protest to ABC, and direct City Manager to withdraw the protest if a Conditional Use Permit is granted. (District 5) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_06232015_15-0570 | Speaker 1: Report from Development Services. Recommendation to approve the fiscal year 2016 Action Plan and the second substantial amendment to the Fiscal Year 2015. Action Plan for the Expenditure of Community Development BLOCK Grant, Home Investment Partnership Grant and Emergency Solutions Grant Funds and execute all necessary documents with the Department of Housing and Urban Development to receive these funds citywide
Speaker 0: . Thank you. Can I get a motion, please? Oh, there's a motion and a second. Is there any public comment on this item? CNN. Let me start with Councilmember Richardson.
Speaker 12: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I want to thank staff for their hard work on this. I took a moment to just look through this item a bit on CDBG and a few things really just stood out to me. So I just have a couple of questions. So. So first, I see that there's a significant amount of documentation here around public outreach or public engagement, citizen engagement around this. Is that a mandate? Is that mandatory for us to track or to conduct public input on how these funds are allocated for these for this these funds?
Speaker 2: Yes, sir, it is.
Speaker 12: Okay. Are there any, like goals or benchmarks for how much engagement we should actually have?
Speaker 2: We actually have to do a five year action plan, and then every five years we update that action plan. But annually, we have to demonstrate that we are meeting the goals of that five year action plan. So it's an annual review of a five year action plan. And what's before you tonight is the fourth annual review of our action plan. We are required to have extensive community outreach. We are required to have two hearings. Those hearings were held by the Long Beach Community Investment Corporation, and we are required to do significant public outreach and demonstrate that we have done that outreach. We do translate this into different languages. We publish notices in different newspapers of different languages, and we hold community meetings and send out E notifies. So we do do quite a bit of extensive outreach when we do the five year action plan. Our outreach basically goes on steroids. And we we actually have surveys and try to reach thousands of people in our community outreach.
Speaker 12: Thank you. So just based on that, it sounds like, you know, every five years there's significant outreach and there's a little bit of outreach for each of the updates. What really stood out to me when we say substantial outreach or intense levels of outreach was looking at Appendix A where it says the there was a public hearing meeting with no public comments. There was a meeting at MacArthur Park with no public comments, a Washington neighborhood meeting with no public comments. It'll be CIC with no public comments. And when I look at this, you know, it's a significant amount of money. And I think we do a good job of budgeting it. But I think the city council is really set to set a standard now for how we engage and how we move forward and budget budget money and actually get input. Like for as a as an example, we did a pilot project for participatory budgeting. I know a number of other districts did as well. And to compare what we were able to do in a few months around a much smaller amount of money, I think this is millions of dollars. And what we did was, you know, for $250,000 for engagement, you know, while actually applying rules and all the standards to it, I think this is this this just shows us that we can just do more. So so I want to thank you for the hard work that that's taking place with this over over the years. But I, you know, next year, I'd like to see us do something a little more significant as it relates to HUD funds. And and, you know, I'm sure Fed legend, the federal government has actually said that that they'd like to see a city take on a participatory budgeting process for for CDBG. That's something I'm interested in exploring. I just wanted to chime in and make that comment.
Speaker 2: Understood. Thank you.
Speaker 6: Thank you, Councilwoman Pryce.
Speaker 5: Thank you. I would just echo what Councilman Richardson said in terms of public outreach. I think that is a really good point. It's he he really led the way on council for the PB process. I know District three and District one followed suit and the community engagement that we received and we were dealing with $75,000 in three , but we had, you know, close to 800 votes in a very short period of time and lots of people being engaged in the process. So anything that we can do to to help promote public engagement and public outreach, I think that's really important. And I think Councilman Richardson raises a good point that, you know, with the new leadership on. Council. We have a very strong focus on making sure that the public is involved in everything that we do and that they're along for the ride. I know that's very, very important to me. And so if we can get that that spirit moving, not that that staff's not already doing that, but we can improve upon it and perhaps use some of the energy of the new council in terms of outreach and getting people involved in allocating funds. I think that would be a great direction to take. Thank you.
Speaker 2: I would suggest this is probably very appropriate for when we update the five year action plan. But when we're in the fifth year of a five year action plan next year, we're really trying to meet our goals and objectives of the first plan. So if I may suggest that that's something that we would look at definitely for when we implement the five year action plan.
Speaker 0: Next. I have Councilwoman Gonzales.
Speaker 1: I know you just answer that, but I would just have to concur with the colleagues. I think participatory budgeting really opened up our eyes as to what was possible and in reaching a different group. You know, we have Washington neighborhood had group in the first district. But a lot of those, you know, they're not as organized. So with the participatory budgeting, we were able to get a lot more residents that normally aren't part of the process. So I would just have to include that as well.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Thank you, Amy.
Speaker 0: Thank you. See no other public comments? You no other comment on public comment on the item?
Speaker 2: Mr. Mayor, may I just add one item at the request of our city attorney for the housing development company.
Speaker 6: The excuse.
Speaker 2: Me, the Long Beach Community Investment Company that recommended action for designating the city manager to execute all necessary documents. That does include the request to actually expend the funds per the action plan.
Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you. Please cast your votes.
Speaker 1: Motion carries eight zero 14. Report from Human Resources recommendation to purchase through an excess municipal liability insurance, airport liability insurance and aircraft liability and hull insurance for police helicopters. The total cost of all renewal premiums will not exceed $1,378,000 citywide. | Contract | Recommendation to approve the Fiscal Year 2016 Action Plan and the Second Substantial Amendment to the Fiscal Year 2015 Action Plan for the expenditure of Community Development Block Grant, Home Investment Partnership Grant, and Emergency Solutions Grant Funds; and
Authorize City Manager, or his designee, to execute all necessary documents with the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development to receive these funds, and execute agreements necessary to implement and comply with related federal regulations. (Citywide) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_06232015_15-0578 | Speaker 1: Report from please? Recommendation to determine the application serves the public convenience and necessity and receive and file the application of Wal-Mart Supercenter for a premise to premise transfer of an ABC license at 3705e South Street District nine.
Speaker 0: Can I get the motion in a second?
Speaker 12: Councilmember Richardson just wanted to take a moment and just acknowledge staff on this item. You know, this has been a very sensitive issue in my district for the last year, the discussion on the Wal Mart on Downey. This was one of the cases where we found that a liquor license required no cup and we fixed it moving forward. But city staff was creative enough to figure out how to give us the tools we needed to limit the sale of ammunition and guns in North Long Beach and a number of other uses that were community concerns. So I'm particularly proud that city staff found the solution for me. So I want to say thank you to Amy Bodak and City Manager Pat West for sir for finding the means for us to make this happen today.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Public comment staying on. Please cast your vote.
Speaker 1: Motion carries seven zero.
Speaker 0: Next item, please. | ABC License | Recommendation to determine the application serves the public convenience and necessity, and receive and file the application of Walmart Stores, Incorporated dba Walmart Supercenter 2609, for a premise-to-premise transfer of an Alcoholic Beverage Control License, at 3705 East South Street. (District 9) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_06232015_15-0492 | Speaker 1: Communication from City Attorney Recommendation to declare ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code by adding Chapter 18.30. Establishing a proactive rental housing inspection program. Read an adopted as read citywide.
Speaker 0: Thank you. There's a motion and a second. Any public comment? See? None. Please cast your vote. And also, Madam Clerk, Councilman Richardson has been cleared from the last few speaking slots, as we know. So cash votes.
Speaker 1: Both Alonzo. Motion carries eight zero.
Speaker 0: Okay. Now we are going to item 20. Five. And Councilwoman Gonzalez. Well, before we got to 1825. Go ahead.
Speaker 1: Just have to recuse myself. I'm a full time employee with Microsoft.
Speaker 4: Okay, I'll just move it.
Speaker 0: Oh, okay. Item 25. Do you want to read the item? | Ordinance | Recommendation to declare ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code by adding Chapter 18.30 establishing a Proactive Rental Housing Inspection Program, read and adopted as read. (Citywide) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_06232015_15-0586 | Speaker 1: Sure. Report from City Manager Recommendation to authorize the city manager to enter into a 24 month agreement with Microsoft Corporation to host Free Digital Alliance events citywide.
Speaker 0: Okay, I'm actually going to have staff briefly touch touch on this. This is actually a really big deal, which is kind of has is at the end of our agenda today. But I just want to make sure everyone realize we've been working on this for a very long time. I've been out to the Microsoft headquarters to talk about this. This is very exciting for the city of Long Beach is going to be a big announcement tomorrow. So I I'm to turn this over to Mr. West to just kind of fill in what this means.
Speaker 3: Mr. Mayor, council members, this truly is a great program. I'm going to turn this over to our new tech innovation director, Brian Stokes, and also to Rachel Tanner. So I don't know which one's going first.
Speaker 1: Good evening, Mayor and City Council.
Speaker 2: This is a very exciting opportunity. Microsoft and the city are preparing up to do as it says, a digital alliance, which includes.
Speaker 1: Three types of events. One is a digital camp did two camps, one for boys, one for girls. Those will each.
Speaker 2: Serve up to two up to 100 young.
Speaker 1: People each. And then a big spark event which is geared towards entrepreneurs and really showing them how technology can increase their business, help them perform.
Speaker 2: Routine tasks and really ultimately enhance their bottom line and grow the economy here in Long Beach.
Speaker 1: Microsoft does not engage often with cities in.
Speaker 2: These partnerships, so it's a pretty unique alliance, and we're lucky to be.
Speaker 5: One of the cities they've selected to.
Speaker 1: Work with in the coming year. So we're very, very excited and I'm open for any questions.
Speaker 0: Thank you. This and by the way, this falls right in line with all of our tech and innovation kind of initiatives in the city. There's like Miss Tanner said, this is a they go through a process of select cities and we're very, very happy to be a partner with with Microsoft on this. And so this is the beginning of a very hopefully extensive partnership in a variety of other ways as well. And so we're excited about that. Johnson Richardson.
Speaker 12: I think this is great. So I want to be the first to say I want one in North Long Beach.
Speaker 4: Right. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 0: Okay. And is there any public comment on the item? Seeing nonmembers, please cast your votes.
Speaker 7: Everybody.
Speaker 1: Motion carries seven zero.
Speaker 0: Okay, now we're on to announcements. But before we do that, let's do as there's a second opportunity for public comment. If anyone can speak on any ideas for the agenda, please come forward. Just identify yourself. For the record. | Contract | Recommendation to authorize City Manager to enter into a 24-month agreement with Microsoft Corporation to host free Digital Alliance events located in and conducted in collaboration with the City of Long Beach. (Citywide) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_06162015_15-0544 | Speaker 1: Report from the City Manager recommendation to adopt a resolution of intention to establish the Midtown Business Improvement District and set the date of Tuesday, August 11, 2015, for a public hearing District four and six.
Speaker 0: I know that I think city staff is going to make a few comments first, and then I might turn this over to Councilman Andrews. Mr. WEST. What I'm like, if I could just have everyone. I know it's hard to. To keep quiet as we exit.
Speaker 3: Many council members, as you know, as a city and.
Speaker 2: As a city team, we really, really value our business improvement districts. We love when they create a business improvement district, gives us an opportunity.
Speaker 3: To deal with the executive board and an executor.
Speaker 2: That helps us interact with neighborhoods better and corridors better. So we're well.
Speaker 3: On our way to a midtown bid. And Mike Comrie.
Speaker 2: Is going to give us a quick update on it. Thank you, Mayor. Members, City Council. The petitions that were received from all the property owners within the bid indicate nearly 55% in support of moving forward on this bid. So we request Council's approval to set a hearing date of August 11th and issue the ballots to be counted during the August 11th public meeting.
Speaker 0: Thank you. I'm going to turn this over now for a motion by Councilman Andrews.
Speaker 3: Yes. Thank you, Mayor. You know, first, I want to thank my colleagues, you know, and Jim Fisk for the city project managers, you know, for Business Improvement District, for all their work on this project. You know, I've been working on this project for many years, and I see that this process is going. One of our city mayors business and the corridor is being enhanced to its full potential. So that brings its new businesses, new commercial and new commerce and a new plus to the area, which I think everyone is looking forward to, because this is something that I think we all talk about when we talk about midtown. You know, the central area we're talking about is going to make the central area look a lot like. Vermont. Sure. So, you guys, I want you to stay with this, be behind this, and keep working with this. Thank you again. My.
Speaker 0: Thank you. The second was by Vice Mayor Lowenthal.
Speaker 4: I'm in support of this and thank Council member Andrews for his work.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Any public comment on item 11 saying none. Please cast your vote.
Speaker 1: Motion carries seven zero.
Speaker 0: Thank you. I see we have some midtown bid friends in the audience. That's. That's great. It's going to be a this is gonna be a big deal for the city. So very transformative for for central Long Beach. So or Midtown as well as call it. I'm going to I know we have a group of folks here that are here for item 16, so I'm going to move that up next because I've been another request to move that up. So. Item 16, Madam Clerk. | Resolution | Recommendation to adopt Resolution of Intention to establish the Midtown Business Improvement District; set the date of Tuesday,
August 11, 2015 at 5:00 p.m. for a Public Hearing; receive petitions; return the City’s Ballot; and designate the Administrative Board.
(Districts 4,6) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_06162015_15-0492 | Speaker 1: Communication from City Attorney Recommendation to declare ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code relating to the proactive rental housing inspection program read for the first time and laid over to the next regular meeting of the City Council for Final Reading Citywide.
Speaker 0: I have a motion in a second by Gonzalez and Austin. Is there any public comment on the item? Okay. Please come forward, Mr. Shelton.
Speaker 3: All right. Good afternoon again. Gary Shelton, I guess it's evening now. I'm in support of the motion, but I thought you might appreciate hearing some public comment as to why. I don't imagine that it's not going to pass, but it's been a long time coming. You'll reading the back up material. The SB two was initially enacted in 2007, and that's a state law. It was known then as the anti NIMBY law and SB two is mentioned a number of times in the backup material related to this. In terms of it, the it demands in a sense that every city or jurisdiction that has a housing element include a number of items that had probably never been included before. And one of them as things wound down. What the city council back then decided to do in terms of the housing element was to actually not comply with SB two, to let it go on to another housing element sometime in the future. That was the 27 to 2013 version of the housing element. They have more detailed numbers, but that's what I call it, and that's what it was known by then. SB To ordained that there be by rights the possibility of building homeless shelters in every city and all the city had to do is determine what zone that would be allowed in, that there would not have to be a copy process. The city council actually put those sites in the port and in the villages at Cabrillo, and neither of those has proved to be an adequate. And now what I'm hoping that this event or this issue coming up before you today is opening the door for what at their review of the housing element, I believe it was in January or February earlier this year, staff said that they would work on that adjustment to the city's zoning ordinances to allow by right. Homeless shelters in certain industrial zones. That's a possible good fix for this. But I wanted to play a little bit of the groundwork about that and underscore the fact the city at that time couldn't manage compliance. Then the next housing element came along the 2013 to 2021 housing element in which we're working right now, and they still couldn't comply. So this motion that you're about to pass this evening is designed to, beyond the siting of homeless shelters, accommodate the siting of single resident or single room occupancy dwellings. And if you look at the R and R for R for an hour, for HD, an hour for you zoning areas. And I'll wrap this up in just a moment. Mr. Mayor.
Speaker 0: We actually got to wrap it up now.
Speaker 3: Okay. You'll see that there are areas in town where with a C up process, Saros can be built. That's brand new and good.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman Gonzales.
Speaker 1: Yes. I want to reiterate my gratitude for everyone again, coming together to make this a a really, in my opinion, good ordinance, a step in the right direction for, uh, proactive rental housing inspection. I have a quick question as to number three in our recommendation from the previous council meeting. It seems broad, it says, to increase the frequency of administrative citations. I know we had suggested to come back or to increase the frequency of fines after 30 days and then thereafter 15 days. Is that language we can add in in section three?
Speaker 0: Just to make sure we're on item 16, not on 15. Just I want to make sure I, I don't know if Mr. Shelton was talking to 15, but.
Speaker 4: Mr. Mayor, members of the City Council, we are looking at the annotated version of the ordinance that was provided by the city attorney's office. And I do believe that we did increase the frequency of inspections. Uh.
Speaker 2: Charlie Mayor, members of the Council on adding subsection F Administration Citation Schedule. It does. If the owner fails to abate the violation within 30 days, the city inspector may issue an administrative citation every 15 days for each continuing violation. So I believe we did address your concern.
Speaker 1: Apologies. I may have missed it. There it is. Okay, great. I swear I read this like three times and I may have missed it. Second question in relation to number three as well is I know we've also discussed accelerating the issue if it is an imminent danger to life or safety or health to the city prosecutor's office . Maybe I'm missing it again. Is there language that specifically mentions that?
Speaker 4: Yes, ma'am. It's actually in that same paragraph that if it is noted that the violation poses an imminent threat to the health and safety of the occupants, the city inspector will notify the owner of the violation and will notify the city prosecutor's office of the violation within 24 hours of the inspection, as we did include that simultaneously as well.
Speaker 1: Great. Thank you. And then I just want to make sure we're still on track. I know we had talked about 60 days coming back on three on a few things. So the duplexes triplexes information as well as publicizing the the bad landlords the worst of the worst list that we have put together of about ten landlords, is that correct?
Speaker 5: That's correct. We did talk about 60 days.
Speaker 4: I had asked for 90 days, and I thought that the council had agreed to that. So we were hoping it would be 90 days. If it's 60, we can we can endeavor to get that as well.
Speaker 1: Can we come back in 60 days? If needed more time, then go from there? Sure.
Speaker 4: We can certainly do that. Yep.
Speaker 1: And also the $75,000 as well. Was that going to be included in that 60 day report?
Speaker 4: It will be, yes.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you. There is a motion in a second. We've done more public comment. Okay. We closed public comment on this item. You're for 16, not for 15. Correct. Okay. Come forward. We have to do a public comment at once. Typically so. Go ahead.
Speaker 3: Thank you very much for letting us have a chance to talk to you about this. My name is Sanford Simmons and we own some property in Long Beach. And I believe I've been owning property here for about 45, 50 years. And we always comply with inspectors. Inspectors come by and he says, a little paint chip over here and there's a screen here that's got a little crack in it and this and that. Or if a tenant doesn't want to pay their rent, they call the city and complain. And we take care of all the issues and meet with the inspector. I think we already have enough rules on the books. I don't know what the problem is. Do you have another problem here? That there's somebody here is not the landlords aren't doing what they're supposed to do. There's not enough already things on the books to enforce it. What is this going on? And then I read a little bit here, there that you guys want. Whoever you guys are, want to have the tenant put the money into it like an escrow account where the tenant has control, you know, or whatever. The city has control. The landlord doesn't have the money to do what they have to do to do to pay their bills. Something's wrong here. I was over in India and over in India. The buildings are all rundown and dilapidated. Why? They have what's called rent control there. Yes, they have rent control there and the landlord doesn't have any money to do anything. The people inside the very well because we have a very low rent. I don't want to see this city going to rent control. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Next speaker, please.
Speaker 3: Hi, my name is Matthew Simmons, and I just wanted to reiterate the comments that were just made. It's I think we do have enough rules on the books and it's just a matter of enforcing what we have. I think it's a very slippery slope as soon as you know, soon as it just seems that the momentum and a lot of property owners and are concerned that Long Beach is moving in the direction of rent control. And this is not.
Speaker 2: The last stop. This is the first stop.
Speaker 3: And and I just feel that if we continue in this direction, it actually we're going to have the opposite effect. We're going to have unintended consequences. And I know the intentions are good, but ultimately, if landlords are if the funds are kept from the landlords, ultimately they're not going to have the ability to to make the property nicer. In fact, I just had some tenants who are in a property that who lived there before purchased the property and and there are gang members. There were I was getting calls from employers saying you need to, you know, get rid of these tenants. And I was able to give them a 30 day notice or actually a 60 day notice. And and they moved along their way. And if there's if landlords do not have the same rights over their property to do what they need to do to help people move on, if they're not treating the property nicely, then it's going to have the opposite effect. So just want to I think it's in everybody's best interest to keep, you know, property is a is a fundamental right and and I and it makes sense for landlords to keep their properties nice because they earn more money. So the slumlords, you know, nobody's for them. And, and, and I think we have the laws in place to have them move along their way. But I also feel that 90% or 99% of the people who will be affected by this are not the slumlords. It's everybody who's trying to do a good job trying to provide nice housing to the community. And I think those are the people who will be adversely affected. So thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Your next speaker, please.
Speaker 2: Good evening, mayor and council members. I wasn't planning on speaking tonight, but I did want to reiterate that on behalf of the Apartment Association.
Speaker 3: It's a pleasure for us to work with.
Speaker 2: You, Mayor, and the council members meeting with you and having an open dialog. We're very supportive of the ordinance, were supportive of future endeavors where we can collaborate together with housing Long Beach if the opportunity arises and Josh and everybody else can get along with me and everybody else in the apartment association side. But I think the open dialog that we've at least initiated is a first start. I want to commend Councilwoman Lina Gonzales for adding the motions that she did. I think strengthen the ordinance is very important. The apartment association's behind that 100%. We don't want to have slumlords in our city. I don't think anybody else does either. So I appreciate what you all are doing and concur that we move his audience forward tonight. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 2: Josh Butler, executive director of housing Long Beach. And in a rare moment here, I'm going to just concur with Mr. Murchison and say that we look forward to working with him and the apartment association as well, and thank the council for strengthening this ordinance. I think we have work to do, but this is a really good start and thank you all very much.
Speaker 0: That is a very rare moment, but I like these moments. Okay. I'm going to go back to Councilman Gonzales and we're going to go for a vote. Public speaking is closed. Councilman Gonzales.
Speaker 1: I just want to clarify where this is, proactive rental housing inspection. And so I know we took up discussing rent escrow. So city staff. Real quick, just to clarify, can you go over that just a bit as to just real quickly as to what we're doing now versus what was mentioned with. Few Councils Council meetings back.
Speaker 5: So we provided an.
Speaker 4: Analysis of a program and what.
Speaker 5: Other cities do in terms.
Speaker 4: Of proactive code enforcement. And it was our conclusion that most cities in the state of California, with the exception of Los Angeles, rely on the proactive rental housing inspection programs to resolve the majority of their issues. We did do a cost analysis of the cost of a rent escrow account, and staff felt that it was very prohibitive . We presented to the City Council just the proactive rental housing inspection program to codify our existing requirements under state law and then actually to augment those state requirements with local mandates that you, as the City Council directed us and approved a couple of weeks ago. Do you want to go into more of this?
Speaker 1: Thank you. And I just want to clarify, you know, this ordinance that we're taking up as its first hearing is a proactive, proactive rental housing inspection. And so the added amendments will be for the worst of the worst landlords. And I think we can all agree here, we don't want slumlords in our in our city. And so both the apartment association housing Long Beach many other on the renter side on the property owners side we all want the same thing and I'll continue reiterating that is that these protections are after, I should say these amendments are for the worst of the worst. And so I just need to say that once again so we can really understand that. So thank you very much.
Speaker 4: Yes, ma'am. You are correct. As I said, this codifies state law. But but locally we are adding to the basic standards under state law to reflect the local needs. And so we do believe it goes far beyond what state law requires. You're correct.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilmember Andrews.
Speaker 3: Yes, thank you. I'm here. I also like to echo that sentiments with that councilwoman. But also, Mr. Murchison, I really want to thank you for working with us and your organization, because we know that the percentage of the slumlords are very, very, you know, few because we have so many other, you know, land owners, you know, and they they are working to make sure that we live in a safe and clean environment. And I really want to applaud every one of you, you know, home owners, land owners, to let people know that they do have that right. And this is why I think that you do such a good job. But those ones, you really have that compassion for the ones who stand in your on your property. Thank you, all of you, again, for working with us.
Speaker 0: Thank you. We have a motion and a second. Please cast your votes.
Speaker 1: Motion carry seven zero.
Speaker 0: Thank you. We're now going to go ahead and go back to the regular agenda. So I think we're on item 12. | Ordinance | Recommendation to declare ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code by adding Chapter 18.30 establishing a Proactive Rental Housing Inspection Program, read and adopted as read. (Citywide) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_06162015_15-0546 | Speaker 1: Report from the Police Department recommendation to receive the application of Starbucks for an original app. For an original application of an ABC license at 7565 Carson Boulevard. Submit a public notice of protest and direct the city manager to withdraw the protest if a copy is granted. District five.
Speaker 0: Okay. This is we're on item number 13. Is there a is there a staff report?
Speaker 2: There is no staff report. This will be held over when Councilmember Mungo returns. Okay.
Speaker 0: So I didn't. Perfect. I didn't. 14. I didn't hear. I didn't have that note. Did you have that notation?
Speaker 2: We would need a motion. We're going to.
Speaker 0: Move forward then. Okay. Okay. So I don't know why people are saying we're holding it over. That's right.
Speaker 4: But no, no, no.
Speaker 0: Oh, someone's going to do the motion. Perfect. Vice Lowenthal.
Speaker 4: Thank you. I just sorry for the confusion. I wanted to make the motion to continue the item. Item 13 to the regularly scheduled June 23rd, 2015 Council meeting. In light of the fact that this concerns Council District five and Councilmember Mongeau would like to be present. Thank you.
Speaker 0: There's a second. Any public comment on holding this over saying please cast your votes?
Speaker 1: Motion carry seven zero 14. Report from Public Works Recommendation to execute a public walkways occupancy occupancy permit with an extension parklet for sidewalk dining at his My Vegan Kitchen located at 34 zero East Fourth Street. District one. | ABC License | Recommendation to receive the application of Coffee House Holdings, Incorporated, dba Starbucks No. 5578, for an original application of an Alcoholic Beverage Control License, at 7565 Carson Boulevard, submit a Public Notice of Protest to ABC, and direct City Manager to withdraw the protest if a Conditional Use Permit is granted. (District 5) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_06092015_15-0506 | Speaker 1: Motion carries. Are we on to conserve? I'm sorry. We're in stone. Hearing item number one Adopt resolution to submit the amendment to Title 21 to the California Coastal Commission for their review and certification and accept the categorical exemption. S.E. 14 DASH 135 citywide.
Speaker 8: There's been a motion and a second. So any member of the public that wished to address councilmember your anger.
Speaker 10: Just inside, I'm sure that we'll get a positive vote. And, of course, the commission.
Speaker 8: We hope so. So any member of the public that wishes to address council on hearing this this motion on hearing item one seeing nonmembers cast your vote.
Speaker 1: Motion carries nine zero.
Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you very much. We did the hearing. Now we're moving on to public comment. So we all know public comment is limited to 3 minutes. A speaker. I have five members of the public. I'm going to call the first three to the podium. | Resolution | Adopt resolution directing the Director of Development Services to submit the amendment to Title 21 (Zoning) of the Long Beach Municipal Code related to transitional and supportive housing to the California Coastal Commission for their review and certification; and
Accept the Categorical Exemption (CE 14-135). (Citywide) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_06092015_15-0519 | Speaker 8: Item 17.
Speaker 1: Item number 17 Report from Financial Management and Develop and Development Services Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record regarding the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act. Public Hearing and adopt resolution approving the issuance of relevant revenue bonds to benefit Springdale West Preservation Limited Partnership in an amount not to exceed $80 million. District seven.
Speaker 8: There's been a motion and a second councilmember your UNGA or Austin would you like to.
Speaker 10: Thank you, Mayor. First of all, I want to thank city staff for preparing the team, for hearing today's vote, especially important because it will allow us to continue to offer affordable housing at Springdale, West and west Long Beach, while bringing property upgrades to the residents such as landscaping, new kitchen appliances, countertops, canned cabinets, fencing, painting, water heaters . All of these are very important to raise the quality of life in the Springdale housing area, and I would really want to encourage your support of this.
Speaker 8: Council member, Austin.
Speaker 9: I think that Motion Council member, I think said it best.
Speaker 8: Council member super or not.
Speaker 4: Yes. I just had a suggestion. I noticed in the discussion that newer kitchen appliances are included in the rehab. And I just wondered if Senate Bill 88 might apply, and that is assistance for low income residents to purchase energy efficient appliances. Maybe the developer can exempt sales tax and use tax from the appliances in the modernization, since the property will be designated as low income housing for the city's housing element.
Speaker 2: Vice Mayor and members of the City Council. We did discuss this with the developer representative and unfortunately AB 88 requires that the local public utility purchase the appliances in order for them to qualify for this. And in this instance, the local public utility is not purchasing those appliances. So the project does not qualify.
Speaker 8: For for that. Is that it, Councilmember? Yes. Okay. Thank you. There's been a motion and a second. Is there any member of the public that wished to address the Council on item? 17. Seeing nine members cast your vote and I'm a yes.
Speaker 1: Councilwoman Mango. Thank you. Motion carries nine zero.
Speaker 8: Item 18. | Resolution | Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record regarding the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act (TEFRA) public hearing, and adopt resolution approving the issuance of revenue bonds by the California Statewide Communities Development Authority (CSCDA), to benefit Springdale West Preservation Limited Partnership, or its affiliates, Springdale West Apartments, in an amount not to exceed $80,000,000. (District 7) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_06092015_15-0520 | Speaker 1: Item 18. Report from Health and Human Services. Recommendation to authorize the City Manager to submit a grant application to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for the 2015 Continuum of Care for Homeless Assistance Program Citywide.
Speaker 0: There's been a motion in a second council for Austin.
Speaker 9: I move in urging your full support on this. This is something that we have been involved in for many years. And this grant will help. You know, several homeless folks with services.
Speaker 0: Councilmember Gringa.
Speaker 10: Ditto.
Speaker 0: Counsel a supernova. Clear you. Now you're clear. Okay, so we have a motion and a second. Any public comment on the item? CNN, please cast your votes.
Speaker 1: Vice mayor. Councilman Price. Motion carries nine zero.
Speaker 11: Mr. Mayor. Yes? Councilmember Kelly, call if you would like to make a quick introduction.
Speaker 0: For item 18, the one we just voted on. Yes. Okay.
Speaker 3: If she wants it, she wants.
Speaker 8: Just an introduction.
Speaker 0: She wants to make some comments about item 18. So let me just. Okay, go ahead.
Speaker 7: Sorry. I just thought I'd just like to make an introduction.
Speaker 8: Mayor and council members. We have our new homeless services officer here in the audience, Theresa Chandler. So if you see her out and about, please let her know. Please like who say hi, welcome her and know that she's out working in our community.
Speaker 0: Welcome to Long Beach and welcome. Oh, actually not. You know, you're part of the Long Beach family already, but welcome to your new role. So thank you. Next item. Oh, Councilman Superdome.
Speaker 4: I was just going to say she's already been out in the community. And thank you for attending our our community meeting last week. And just one other item, that path is involved in this item, and that's people assisting the homeless. The same acronym as the last group that presented it. But they're different groups.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Let's move on to item number 19.
Speaker 1: Item 19 Report from Public Works and Financial Management. Recommendation to Award a contract to Sally Miller Contracting Company for the rehabilitation of Bixby Road between Atlantic Avenue and Orange Avenue for a total contract amount not to exceed 819,958 District seven eight. | Contract | Recommendation to authorize City Manager, or designee, to submit a grant application, through the Long Beach Department of Health and Human Services, to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for the 2015 Continuum of Care for Homeless Assistance Program, and execute all necessary documents, subgrants and any amendments changing the amount of the award or extending the grant term upon receipt of HUD funding. The grant award amount will be between $6.5 million and $8.5 million for a period of July 1, 2016 through June 30, 2017. (Citywide) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_06092015_15-0521 | Speaker 1: Item 19 Report from Public Works and Financial Management. Recommendation to Award a contract to Sally Miller Contracting Company for the rehabilitation of Bixby Road between Atlantic Avenue and Orange Avenue for a total contract amount not to exceed 819,958 District seven eight.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Count Summary Ringa.
Speaker 10: Thank you, Mary. And I want to thank Ara for bringing this forward. It's a street that so highly traveled and greatly in need of repair. And I want to thank the public works for bringing this forward.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilmember Austin.
Speaker 9: I also want to thank our public works department for their diligence. This has been in the works for for now, about two and a half, three years. We're excited about a Bixby Road being repaved between Atlantic and Orange. I did have a question for a public works director in regards to the timing of this project. When do we expect to get started on this project after our vote this evening? Honorable mayor, honorable councilmembers, Honorable Austin. Based on our conversations, you indicated that there is a there's a two schools in the vicinity. So our goal is to start in July and finish before school starts in beginning of September, end of August. So we're going to do our best to start and complete this project within that time period before the school starts. Well, Mr. Moulin, I do recall that conversation, and I'm glad that we have it on record that those are two extremely busy schools, Hughes and Longfellow. What I would think a combined about 3000 students. And so it's a very heavily traveled street and so hopefully we can get that done before the school year. Thank you so much. Yes, thank you. And I will. We'll get it done.
Speaker 0: Any public comment on the item? There's been a motion, a second seeing analyst castro votes.
Speaker 1: Councilmember Richardson Andrews. Okay. It's. Motion carries 7 to 20. Item 20. From the Office or Department of Public Works and Financial Management. Recommendation to award a contract to HDR Engineering for Engineering and Architectural Design Services for the Schumaker Bridge Replacement Project in an amount not to exceed 4,000,700. | Contract | Recommendation to adopt Plans and Specifications No. R-6960 for the Rehabilitation of Bixby Road between Atlantic Avenue and Orange Avenue; award the contract to Sully-Miller Contracting Company, of Brea, CA, in the amount of $745,416, and authorize a 10 percent contingency in the amount of $74,542, for a total contract amount not to exceed $819,958; and authorize City Manager, or designee, to execute all documents necessary to enter into the contract, including any necessary amendments thereto. (Districts 7,8) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_06092015_15-0522 | Speaker 1: Councilmember Richardson Andrews. Okay. It's. Motion carries 7 to 20. Item 20. From the Office or Department of Public Works and Financial Management. Recommendation to award a contract to HDR Engineering for Engineering and Architectural Design Services for the Schumaker Bridge Replacement Project in an amount not to exceed 4,000,700. Districts one and two.
Speaker 0: Councilman Gonzales.
Speaker 6: I want to first think that the dynamic threesome over there, which is are a million Derek Leask and Keiko Andersson for their very hard work on this project. I know every meeting we talk regularly about the updates for Shoemaker Bridge, and I'm always asking for updates and they're always gladly providing that. So I really want to thank your diligence in your hard work. I truly mean that in all of this. This has been a long time in the making, and I know that we're finally here at one point. And it's a it's a very large priority for the west side of the city and also for the district residents in the first district. I know the more that we connect and redesign the bridge to the park project, this will greatly benefit and contribute to the sustainability for our downtown and West Side residents. As I mentioned, for many reasons for safety, beautification and functionality, including green and open space, bike patters, bike and pedestrian paths. And and, you know, I couldn't be more proud of this project and what it will become hopefully done in the future. And I know this is only about a third, about 30% of the funding needed for the design portion. But we're looking for future collaborations with the public with public works and our government affairs director who's been wonderful as well, donating to find other funding streams. I know we went to D.C. a few months back to the Department of Transportation. We talked to them about what we could do. And I also want to think I would be remiss if I think or mayor as well, because he's the one with all these great ideas. And so I'm kind of finishing the times of great ideas. Yes. And so it's great to have that collaboration. So thank you very much for bringing this forward.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilmember Ringa.
Speaker 10: Yeah. There's also been a lot of discussion and the 710 committee that both leader and I said, well, you I used to sit on it. Lena sits on it now. And it's very important not only for the community of Long Beach in West Palm Beach, but also for the lower end of the 17 freeways as it transitions into the city. So looking forward to this development, finishing up. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilman Austin.
Speaker 9: Yes, I'm in full support of this. And also, I sit on the Gateway Cities Caucus of been a priority of that body as well. I did have a question. I know this is the initial study will be will be used with the funding with early action funds. And I wanted to know from Derek if if other early action items would be funded in this first round as well.
Speaker 12: Mayor, members of the City Council Council member Austin.
Speaker 0: Currently Shoemaker.
Speaker 11: Bridge Replacement Project is one of two funded early action projects. We anticipate more in the future as funding becomes available. There is 590.
Speaker 12: Million available over a 30 year period for the 710 corridor early action projects. However, the majority of the funding.
Speaker 11: Is in the what they call the second decades, which starts in 2019 is the second decade, and we anticipate a large chunk of funding at that time.
Speaker 9: Okay. I know that the the sound walls along the 17 Metro Blue Line near Los Cerritos were part of that early action request. Is that in the first decade or second decade?
Speaker 11: That's an excellent question. Let me be clear. The two projects I just mentioned are the two where the city of Long.
Speaker 12: Beach is the lead agency. The other early action project that is very important to the city of Sound Wall, but currently Metro as the lead agency are the sound wall projects. Those are broken up into freeway and non freeway sound walls. Council Member We've talked about what they call the non freeway sound walls in your district.
Speaker 11: The currently we're still in the inverter. Metro is still in the.
Speaker 12: Environmental phase and they anticipate that the actual design process will begin this year and construction is anticipated to begin as soon as funding is available within the next two years.
Speaker 9: Thank you for that clarification. Just just to compliment on Derrick's comments, there's a total of $10.8 million dedicated for the design of the sand walls for the entire corridor. But the most of the sand was in the city of Long Beach. So hence the city of Long Beach will benefit from majority of these sand walls. And as soon as a 710 environmental document is released, then the boundaries of the sand walls will be will be clear at that point, and then they can finish the design and the construction immediately following that. That's welcome news to many of our residents. Thank you. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Councilmember Supernova.
Speaker 4: Yeah. A question is brought up about the support structure for the new bridge. And would you have to take out the old bridge to accommodate for that? I guess it relates to maybe displacement of water or impeding the flow of water. And do you have a response to that?
Speaker 9: Absolutely. I have a small presentation if you have the appetite for it at this time, but we have a part of our design is to repurpose the existing bridge. And because of that we're going to leave the existing bridge in place and modify the, I would say, the West End to allow for a bike lane to connect the east side to the west side because of that and also because of army course requirements that hydro hydraulic calculations have shown that putting anything in the river will increase the hydraulic grade line or will cause the water line to exceed its that the dam at this point. So we probably will have to design a bridge that is a simple span spanning the entire span of the river without any supports. So even if the existing bridge remained or it did not remain, the new bridge had to be designed to be spanning over the entire span of the river. But also, if we want to have a signature bridge, we do want to have some kind of a stay cable state design that will be a signature to the entrance or the exit to the city at that point.
Speaker 4: Okay. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Or did you have any anything that you wanted to show the council briefly on?
Speaker 9: I have a presentation. It depends if you want to see it or not. If there are any questions, we can answer it. That's amateur. We'll in pleasure. And you have the presentation at your disposal in front of you.
Speaker 0: Okay. So I think, Councilman, did you did you want to go through.
Speaker 6: There's just some highlights that you'd like to point out just to get the the.
Speaker 3: What?
Speaker 0: Okay. Why don't you briefly go through it? I know it's a project of significance, so you can just take the council really quick through it.
Speaker 9: Absolutely. Oops. Okay. This is basically a site plan that shows the location of the project in reference to the overall IE 710 corridor and specifically the location of Shoemaker Bridge. This aerial photograph shows the location of the Shoemaker Bridge in reference to the other bridges, the Anaheim Bridge and Ocean Boulevard Bridge. As you can see, this is the third bridge from the mouth of the river. And it's. And it said the next slide will give you a little bit more history. This this bridge was designed and constructed and opened in 1959. It was the longest bridge span in that time. It was named after the chief harbor engineer, Robert R Shoemaker. And it connects the 710 to downtown Long Beach. This bridge is approximately 1300 foot clear span. The new bridge will be 1300 foot span spanning over L.A. River. It's 200 foot longer than the Gerald Desmond Bridge. I'm having some technical difficulties. Here we go. In 2000. In 2000, US City of Long Beach got into a milieu with the CTSI. Basically, the decision was at that time to relinquish the Tie Freeway to City of Long Beach and Caltrans will take over the the ownership of Shumaker Bridge. Deserve comparison between the I7 ten. The purpose and need and compare the shoemaker. Basically, you'll see there's a lot of similarities between the two projects, with the exception that Shoemaker Bridge now has to connect to Cesar Chavez and Direct Park Master Plan and also be part of the park expansion and re-use of the existing bridge is considered in this in this proposal. This is to define the project vision. We're basically trying to connect to downtown. Esthetically, it has to be a significant and a signature gateway to Long Beach. My comments have been to the consultants and to city staff that I would like to see this bridge on a U.S. stamp one day as far as it has to be sustainable and it has to have the safety elements that the current bridge does not have. These are our current partners and stakeholders. We have about 40 stakeholders and partners that we will be dealing with planning. Parks Harbor Department I 710 Esthetic Committee, the Willmore City Heritage Association. Caltrans Metro Gateway called the LBA and numerous other partners. The project goals are to create an extraordinary entrance to the city, enhance and improve green and open space. Preserve and repurpose the existing shoemaker bridge. Improve safety and calm traffic at entering downtown. This is just a picture of the two parks and how this bridge will be part of the the combination of these two parks and how we can combine them and create create a master park. This was a this is a picture or concepts of how the existing bridge can be repurposed and used for park and other recreational purposes. Going really fast. Basically the selection process we had so queues and RFQ sent out about May of 2014. A team which I'll tell you who they were before, are selected for firms that pre-qualified them. We ask them to to to bring their projects. We interviewed them and unanimously the team selected the HDR engineering company. The team was comprised of city managers, office and different departments, COG and Metro. Highlights of the HDR team's work in the city of Long Beach that are a local business. I'm kind of excited also that the structural consultant is Thailand International. They are very famous in designing long span bridges and they have designed the bridge at Hoover Dam. If you've seen the new bridge connecting it, that's part of that that work. First, look at the project schedule. We're hoping that by if you're gracious enough to allow this contract to move forward tonight, we will be able to have 30% design by mid 2017. With having more funding. We should complete the design of the bridge in 2018 and pending funding start construction in 2020. Potential cost for the bridge is between 130 to $200 million. That includes the repurposing of the existing bridge. And we estimate that this bridge construction will generate about 800 local jobs. It will require significant state and local funding and local funding. These are the coordination with the future. Future coordination as there are needed with a 7 to 17 corridor improvement project director Chavez and park master plan planning peer be with with the port they'll be must which is another public works project for municipal urban storm water treatment plant Yellow River Master Plan Improvements. I just conclude this report. If you have any more questions, you're more than welcome to ask.
Speaker 0: Thank you very much. Good report, Councilman Richardson.
Speaker 12: I just want to take a moment and say, you know, I've heard about this project for a long time. I know how important this is to the council districts wanting to congratulations. I think it's encouraging when you have a big vision. I know, Mayor Garcia, you worked on this a long time as well. I know when you have a big vision and you want to go for it and sometimes you might not have all the funding, but you want to shoot for it. Eventually it comes around. So congratulations. This inspires me to think even bigger in North Long Beach. So congratulations. I can't wait to see this. This park.
Speaker 0: Thank you. See? No other comment. Any public comment on the item? Senior public comment. Members, please go ahead and cast your vote.
Speaker 1: Motion carries nine zero.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next item.
Speaker 1: I am 21. Communication from City Attorney Recommendation to declare ordinance amending ordinance number c-6646 Providing for a change in establishing an IT and advisory body. Read an adopted as read citywide. | Contract | Recommendation to adopt Specifications No. RFQ PW14-033 and award a contract to HDR Engineering, Inc., a Long Beach-based business, for engineering and architectural design services for the final design bid documents, construction bidding and support for the Shoemaker Bridge replacement project, in an amount not to exceed $4,700,000, for a period of three years, with the option to extend the contract for two additional one-year periods; and authorize City Manager, or designee, to execute all documents necessary to enter into the contract, including any necessary amendments thereto regarding the term and/or scope of services. (Districts 1,2) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_06022015_15-0471 | Speaker 1: Report from Development.
Speaker 0: Services.
Speaker 1: Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record. Conclude the public hearing and adopt a resolution amending the local coastal program. Per the California Coastal Commission to be consistent with the adopted mobility element of the general plan districts two and three.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Assistant City Manager Tom Modica.
Speaker 7: Thank you, Vice Mayor, members of the City Council. The staff report will be given by Amy Bodak, our Director of Development Services.
Speaker 9: Vice Mayor, Members of the City Council. You may think this is a familiar, familiar item to you, and that is correct. You, as the City Council adopted the mobility element back in October of 2013. It is a city wide policy level document that talks about all sorts of mobility and transportation efforts throughout the city. It is required to go to the Coastal Commission for Certification and Acceptance. When it was submitted to the Coastal Commission, the Coastal Commission had a hearing on this in February of 2015 and suggested some minor modifications to remove some outdated language that really talked about access to our shoreline. We've provided to you the information in the strikeouts and new language that are that are being proposed as part of the LCP. This language was frankly negotiated with Coastal Staff and Coastal Commission in order to meet the needs of the city of Long Beach and then also meet the intent of the Coastal Act. With your approval, we would be returning to the Coastal Commission for their final certification of the mobility element. We have been implementing the mobility element everywhere in the city except the coastal zone. With their acceptance of it, we will be able to implement the mobility element in the coastal zone as well. Let me know if you have any questions. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Thank you. I would like to see if there are any public comments on this item prior to closing the hearing. Mr. City Attorney, is this this is a formal hearing, so I can take public comment at this time?
Speaker 0: That's correct. Okay.
Speaker 3: So any member of the public that wishes to address counsel on hearing item number one. Okay. Seeing none, I'd like to go ahead and close the public would close the hearing and take it behind the rails so that council members can deliberate on the item. There is a motion and a second council member Price Councilwoman Press. You have no comment. Okay. And as the second year Councilmember Your Honor.
Speaker 10: I thank you, Vice Mayor, as a member of the Coastal Commission. I'm very glad to see that the city of Long Beach is keeping track of their LCP, the local Kosovo program. And I'm sure that it will be coming to us, and I'll be reviewing it a second time as a member of the Coastal Commission. So I'm glad to see this forward. And I'm glad to see that the staff is on top of this and updating its plan as we go forward. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Councilmember. Your Honor. I would like to make some comments. I'm pleased to see that this item is coming to council and I think back to 2006 and certainly inspired to think back to 2006, especially hearing the staff update on it when I had just arrived on the council. I remember the condition of our beaches. I think a lot of you do as well. Our water quality Heal the bay was giving us DS and FS at the time and thousands of tons of trash were washing up on our beach every winter. We had a beach bike path and some river paths, but not much of a bicycle network in the city at that time. And little, if any, access to the Queen Mary downtown or our business districts or parking management in the downtown park area was dysfunctional, which resulted in a horrible experience for visitors. And I think we all remember this. And now I sit here with new council members around me at the dais some nine years later, and after years of investing in stormwater infrastructure, we're receiving A's and B's up and down our shoreline. And it's something that we should all be very proud of. We have a bike infrastructure that's the envy of many a city in our state and our nation. We could do better, but we really are enviable in the position that we're in. And the best part is it's still growing with approximately 30 miles of bike paths expected throughout the city this year and next. So who would have thought? Who would have thought that we'd be hosting a sick Livia style event called Beach Streets on Saturday, eight years after take. After I asked the original creator of the event, Mayor Enrique Pena Llosa from Bogota, Colombia, to share his ideas for becoming a bike friendly city with our traffic engineers, architects and community leaders. And eight years ago, our city could not have imagined doing a similar Villa type event. Not that it should have taken eight years, but we are a densely populated urban city with a very tight network and very difficult to close our streets. And the fact that we're able to do that from an insight from an inspiring mayor, from another country, to be able to do that and to be able to do that well and see us through this Saturday is something that I think all of us should be very proud of. And so sometimes things take a very long time. We get inspired by people that we see doing great things in other places. We come back to our own great cities and we say, we can do that too. And I want to thank this city and our city staff for allowing us to all dream together based on an inspired event that we all saw in another country. From our new beach pedestrian path, which opened on Saturday to thousands of runners and walkers to the Mark Bixby bike and pedestrian path that is going to be built as part of the new Gerald Desmond Bridge. This city has truly made the commitment to improving our mobility network. I just want us to take a moment and feel proud of our accomplishments, inspired by all the possibilities that await us and thankful for the many individuals that made these changes possible. With that, there's a motion and a second. Mr. City Attorney, do I need to take public comment for the motion in second? Thank you. Members, please cast your vote.
Speaker 1: On price. Motion passes nine zero.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Madam Clerk. Can we go ahead and take item 16 at this time? Which we were going to take in the first place, but we weren't ready to. | Resolution | Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record, conclude the public hearing, and adopt resolution amending the Local Coastal Program per the California Coastal Commission, to be consistent with the adopted Mobility Element of the General Plan. (Districts 2,3) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_06022015_15-0484 | Speaker 1: Report from City Manager recommendation to sign the petition and subsequent ballot relating to city owned properties located within the boundaries of the proposed Midtown Business Improvement District. District six.
Speaker 0: Join a portion of Councilmember Andrews.
Speaker 2: Thank you. You know, this is an item that I think everyone should really kind of be kind of proud of, because I think this is a great step. It will lead to creation of, you know, a midtown business improvement district. You know, it would be a start to a great working relationship between the communities and the city. You know, this is a win not only for both my and the fourth District, but all of the Long Beach. I'm excited to see the process and it's moving forward. I'd like to move this motion.
Speaker 3: Okay. There's been a motion by Councilman Andrews and a second by Councilmember. Mango. Can't remember mango. Would you like to make any remarks?
Speaker 6: I think you've done a great job, Dee, and we're all looking forward to this.
Speaker 0: Great. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Councilmember Richardson.
Speaker 5: Thanks, Vice Mayor Bee, congratulations. I'm hoping you wish you the best on this process. We were the last bid, the uptown bid to be established. I remember how how this process was. But I want to also say a great name. We've got a downtown bid. We've got an uptown bid now. We have a midtown bid. So. So I think that's really awesome. Congratulations.
Speaker 3: Councilmember Austin.
Speaker 11: Thank you. I'd like to join in on congratulating the central area and Councilmember Andrews on this endeavor. You know, obviously the business improvement district model has worked well, downtown has worked well, and Bixby knows we expecting a lot of success in our town and we expect nothing less from the midtown area. There's a lot of potential there with the businesses and property owners rallying together. I did have one question before we do this. I know that the Cambodia town is is in within that those those borders. Is it all of Cambodia town or would it be just part of it and the Midtown Improvement District?
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's just part of it, because we're going to it's going to be all of it and the end of it with the business corridor. Is that right? Mr. West on this one? Mike Conway Yes, you're correct.
Speaker 11: Mr. Anders So is there any difference between the designation of Cambodia Town and the Midtown Improvement District?
Speaker 2: No. I believe those boundaries are coincident. Are are similar are the same. Yeah. They just put. Okay. Thank you. Put together.
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Did you say coincidental? Well, I'm always eager to learn a new word. Thank you. Councilmember Turanga.
Speaker 10: Thank you. I too want to join in congratulating Councilmember Andrews for his efforts in doing this. I'm working on one in our Wrigley area. Hopefully that we can get that done very soon to be able to join you and and the other parts of the city in creating these business districts. Congratulations and looking forward to work with you some more.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Councilmember. So any member of the public that wished to address Council on item 16. Seeing None members cast your vote.
Speaker 1: Motion passes nine zero.
Speaker 3: Okay. Can we do consent? Please. Consent calendar. Thank you. It's been a motion and a second by Councilmember Yanga and Councilmember Richardson and I believe item five is being pulled some members. This is four consent items, all but five. | Agenda Item | Recommendation to authorize City Manager to sign the petition, and subsequent ballot, relating to City-owned properties located within the boundaries of the proposed Midtown Business Improvement District. (District 6) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_06022015_15-0496 | Speaker 3: Thank you. Thank you for being here tonight. If we can go to the regular agenda item and start with item 14.
Speaker 1: Communication from Councilman Price Councilmember Super nor Councilman Andrews. A recommendation to request a report on the possibility of preparing a citywide survey on the prioritization of city services. And citizen user satisfaction of existing city services.
Speaker 3: Is there emotion? And a second place. I'll do it. Councilwoman Price.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I wanted to bring this item forward, and I thank the council colleagues who have signed on to the item with me. I think it's very important when we approach budgeting season and the process involved with determining what city services the public views. It's critical that we do a study to determine whether or not survey tools can be used to help us gather information about what citizens actually believe. Many, many years ago, when I was in grad school, I wrote my thesis on the purpose and utility of citizen satisfaction surveys. And in support of that thesis, I prepared I created a citizen satisfaction survey that was supposed to be modeled after a business government, a business customer satisfaction survey to determine really what the residents felt about the city services that they were getting, what city services they believed were critical, and provide the city with opportunities to enhance and better improve its service delivery models. I know that the City of Long Beach has in the past embarked on a very expansive survey analysis of its residents. And I know that some of our departments currently have surveys associated with the services that they provide. For example, I know that we have a survey mechanism available through Go Long Beach. This particular item requests staff to really evaluate the purpose and utility of surveys and to provide us as council members some information regarding what it would take for us to have a survey tool in place that would help us prioritize city services with the understanding that we are going to be entering budget deficit years and we're going to have to make some difficult choices regarding what services we are going to fund and invest in. You know, every single week we get requests from different organizations for various programs, and oftentimes the folks that are bringing the request to us are not completely aware of our financial situation. Our financial situation going into the next three years specifically is dire. It is not a positive financial situation. So when we're thinking about programs that people are presenting to us. Sometimes programs are wonderful and they provide a lot of opportunity to improve the city in any one particular area. But we may not have the money to fund it. And I think it's important as council members that we gauge really what do the residents and the taxpayers of our city, the people who live here and and contribute to our tax base, what do they expect to see from us in terms of government services? That's where our focus should be. That's where our emphasis should be. We should be focused on the specific services that the residents believe are the required services that the city needs to provide and figure out how to make those better and improve upon those and allocate our precious resources to those areas. So that's the intent behind this particular item, is to request staff to come up with long term survey methodologies that we can employ. And also short term, our budget cycle is coming up I think in August is when will have the budget release to recommendations released. And I think it's important for us to try to, even though it's a very short window, try to develop a short term survey methodology to allow us to be able to reach out to residents. Perhaps we could do it on Speak Up, Long Beach or SurveyMonkey or some other survey tool that would at least give us a small baseline of what our residents are thinking in terms of core city services that we can use to guide us, not to direct us entirely, but to guide us during this year's budget process. And then looking on into 2017, I'd like to see us have a more detailed and thorough survey methodology in place that we can use to find out how we should prioritize our services as we enter into even more significant deficit years. So that's that. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Councilmember Turanga.
Speaker 10: Thank you, Vice Mayor. I am concerned about the costs associated with a program of this magnitude, given the likelihood that the surveys web based. Am also concerned for the ability of lower income residents in my district to have equal access to the survey. Also, given our recent passage of a language access policy. For the sake of equity, we would need to include other way to use languages in Long Beach, in industry and the survey's methodology, including Spanish, Carmi and the Gulf. Lastly, if we are currently asking departments to make proportional cuts, can we really afford to fund a survey program to be able to financially implement any suggestions brought forward by our residents? Most of the time, when a series initiated is done with the idea of changing or implementing a new policy, and I feel that it brings a false sense of expectation from our residents and I am unable to support the same at this time. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Councilmember Andrews.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yes. Thank you, vice mayor. You know, I think it's a good idea to provide our constituents, you know, with up to date information on the city and city budget by conducting surveys. I also think that it's very important that everyone has access to this information by having these surveys put it not only in English, but Spanish , Kumai, Tagalog, Vietnamese, just to name a few, since everyone is not the access to computers. We should find other ways to reach out to our constituents, whether it is by fliers, brochures going door to door, community stakeholders like the churches. We need to make sure that we reach our four corners of Long Beach. This is a way for people all, including into this process. And I would like to thank you for bringing it to the diocese, Mr. Wise. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Councilmember Alston.
Speaker 11: I thank you. And I just wanted to, I guess, get some clarification either from the maker of the motion or from staff. Does this item actually have a cost associated with it or is it asking for a report?
Speaker 1: The item is asking for a report. It specifically says there's no fiscal impact. But in regards to survey technology, there's also free surveys that are available. The intent behind the item is to develop a methodology to find out from citizens where they want the city to spend its money. It's not really designed to target a specific survey methodology or a range in terms of what the survey methodology would cost, because there are free surveys available that staff would also explore as part of the study.
Speaker 11: So right now, as it reads, there is no fiscal impact, but there could be. And it sounds like you are thinking in or directing staff to look at the free option.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Especially for the short term survey. But the particular item that we're voting on is asking staff to explore what the cost of surveys would be and what methodologies available.
Speaker 11: I would add, there's going to be obviously some some time and cost associated with exploring the cost. I don't see a real problem with that, but I will just just just say that since this is looking toward our budget and you have expressed and I think express very eloquently the challenges that we face in coming years with our budget. If there is any real cost associated with this, I'm going to have an issue with that. But tonight, I'll go ahead and support it just to ask the question.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Councilman Austin, I wanted to ask the city manager what would be staff's next steps with an item that would indicate that there's no fiscal impact at the time, but may anticipate one depending on your research. Would you let us know how you would bring that back?
Speaker 7: I'm. Vice mayor, council members. We certainly would expect some type of a fiscal impact for a long term strategy that would go citywide and deal with the things that Councilmember Urania talked about. Maybe a consultant or maybe a new team or something like that. But that's something that would probably come back to you probably in 90 days or so. I don't think that it would come back to you quick enough to be utilized for the fiscal year 16 budget. That said, part two of this item would be for us to quickly look at one of our existing survey tools, as Councilmember Pryce talked about. And it might be something that we could just simply be web based and get out as fast as possible without a cost or a minor cost. And we would put that back to you on a two from four on what we would be able to do. Our Memo to the City Council and see if the council would want us to get to go forward with a tool like that so that you would have something before the fiscal year 16 budget actions.
Speaker 3: Thank you. And with the Long Beach Go app. When someone uses Long Beach Go, the government outreach app to report whatever they see graffiti. Is there a feedback? There's a feedback item that comes back, and I'm not sure if every council member was aware that when our constituents use that, they get some way of being able to say what what their feedback is to the issues that Council member Yarrawonga raised regarding language access. Are you and your staff prepared to incorporate that as part of your review based on the commitments that we've made to include as many of our non English speaking residents as possible?
Speaker 7: I Vice Mayor, I don't think that we would ever consider coming back to you without adhering to all the policies that we've adopted. So. Absolutely, yes.
Speaker 3: I didn't think so. Thank you. Councilmember Councilwoman Pryce.
Speaker 1: Guys. I was cued back up. The other thing that I wanted to point out is this is a very common methodology that municipalities are using all over the nation. It's there's books written on how important it is before people vote on policy to understand what the needs of the residents are, what the priorities of the residents are . There are numerous standard surveys that are already in place and available that the city can use and modify so that they would reduce the cost that would be associated with utilizing such a survey. I believe there are already sample surveys that the City of Long Beach could actually tweak to tailor it to the specific services that we provide in the city of Long Beach. So it's not like we would be reinventing the wheel. This is a methodology that is being utilized throughout the nation so that people can basically have some support in budget period prioritization. So I think it's important it makes the budget process a lot more objective and it makes us a little bit more able to make decisions not based on the specific group that's asking for an item, but rather what the values of the community are in terms of the core services that they consider to be vital to a city's function. It's basically quantitative statistical data that says what the residents of the taxpayers of the city want to see from their city government.
Speaker 6: Councilmember Mongeau So speaking to the the value of such a tool in the graduate program that I attended and have continued to work with over the last decade, and they have a course that actually the second year master's students do these surveys for local governments and nonprofits at no charge and they come out and they do an interview. My current full time employment has utilized them. I have had many of those students as interns in my council office to gather the information from our residents that I'll be presenting at the June 27th State of the Fifth. But I strongly encourage the city staff to explore both the Long Beach State and USC UCLA options that we have available to us, because they, year after year can use the work of the prior class and see the types of tools that have been used. And many of the budget directors across the region have used similar tools so that there would be no costs, in which case I would be supportive.
Speaker 3: Councilmember Urunga.
Speaker 10: Thank you. Vice Mayor I have to respectfully disagree in the fact that there is a cost associated with it. There's staff costs. There's a cost that staff has to do in terms of doing the research necessary to find a tool or an instrument that is going to be as extent as as wide as it needs to be to contact all the portions of the communities that are going to be impacted by any policy decision that we make here in the city council. It's going to be a survey that it has to be comprehensive. It has to be complete. It has to be strategic. And it has to be one that is going to be realistic for the citizens of Long Beach if they're going to be responding to this survey. If I heard that the city manager correctly, this is a survey they would not be able to put into implementation right away. It's a it would be a survey that is not going to be effective for the current budget year this year. It would be something that would be used next year. So in that consideration, that is the reason why I'm not able to support this motion at this time. Perhaps next year, perhaps in a new budget year once we already completed this one. But I think that moving forward with a survey, even if it's just a report to come back to us, I think that we're not ready for that at this time. And that and even if it's a short term one, it would be incomplete. I mean, if we're going to do this, let's do it right. Let's not just do it half, half way, short term only, not long term. We need to be as comprehensive and complete as we possibly can. And that takes time. And I'm not ready to support it at this point.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Councilmember. Your Honor. And I wanted to share I don't think anyone disagrees here that we should not receive resident feedback or stakeholder feedback. That's something that we all do through council offices. But as a city on policies, there is value to opening up as many mechanisms as possible for feedback and reports do costs money. And I will ask all of us to consider that everything we do, even the items here that don't that say that there is no fiscal impact, there is because staff has spent some time preparing the item. This entire book has cost money just by the level of the number of hours every staff member has put into it . So that's the nature of public service. There is a cost. We have many, many, many. Public servants in the audience that provide a tremendous amount of service throughout their careers here. So that's that's our business. We provide service. It's not free. It's never been free. And I understand with Councilmember Durango saying that we are in tight budget times, we will continue to be in tight budget times. But there is tremendous value in opening up the ability for residents to communicate with us in a manner that's relevant to them. And I'll give an example, which I think many of you are aware of the national civic. The National Civic Day of Hacking, the hackathon that is on the sixth, I believe, the city of Santa monica is participating. I would encourage the city of Long Beach if we're not already participating to do that and put out a challenge to students and developers and all the individuals that love working with data to come up with something that we can use that is minimal in cost, that is usable on a web enabled device where most residents may have access to a Web enabled device. Not all residents, but most, and will figure out a way to capture those that do not have those devices to bring them in as well. So there are opportunities and I think there's great value in considering them and being as flexible as possible. And I think that's what this council is supportive of and that's what we intended when we discussed the language access policies, access to as many people as possible, which also means communicating in the tools that are relevant to people, not just the tools were willing to provide. And and I think that's what this council means. But I do I do appreciate the prudence, the fiscal prudence, especially being chair of the Budget Oversight Committee and knowing that we're coming into budget conversations and I appreciate the city manager's notation that we will probably not be able to take this up with this fiscal year. But something that we should look at now united your head. When I mentioned the hackathon, are we doing that?
Speaker 7: A hackathon is scheduled on Saturday, June 6th, was going to be at the Expo building this transition to the aquarium. So it'll be a marine based hackathon at the aquarium on Saturday.
Speaker 3: So is your ISD direct your is it I.T. department here? Is the IT department in charge of that?
Speaker 7: Not they're not in charge. It's we're an ancillary use. We're trying to hook up wi fi for the hackathon at the Expo building and it's transitioned to the to the aquarium and will be involved somehow.
Speaker 3: So what I was recommending is actually the city participating in opening up whatever data we may have already opened up and offering that as a challenge, not just a venue. We're certainly happy to offer venues, but it's the civic day of hacking. And so that should mean that our civic center participates as well. And this would have been a great opportunity to submit that to these genius brains that will show up.
Speaker 0: You know.
Speaker 3: So that would address, councilmember, your biggest concern. They're willing to give free consulting and free expertize, all for the privilege of working with our data. I think so. Thank you. Councilmember Price and Councilmember Richardson would like to add something.
Speaker 5: Thank you, Vice Mayor. We've I've heard some good arguments about this, both in favor and against. And I'm going to I'm going to support this. And just a few points to note, I support feedback and surveys, and I think they can be a great tool. In my experience and surveys in my particular area of town, online surveys really capture only the engaged people, folks who have access to a service and familiar with the service. But for those folks who may not have access to services or may not be familiar with the services, you have to take an additional step and actually have a one on one personal connection in touch with that person to actually better understand and better engage that that that survey. So I'm confident that city staff is going to evaluate sort of the language barriers that Councilmember you brought up and then access issues. The other point I want to I want to say is, you know, I was able to watch the last round of cuts that the city had to do. And people can say what they want about about proportional budgeting. But the fact is, certain departments we still have today because we didn't deviate from that, we were able to protect some libraries, some parks and other services that are really a drop in the water compared to a drop in the bucket compared to police and fire. And I will be want to just be careful that we don't one way or the other, sort of have some unintended consequences by having more surveys in one department, then having, say, one survey for fire and one survey for for the larger departments, whereas these other smaller departments do a number of different programs. So those are just a few things I would want to just pay attention to as we move forward in the survey. So I'll be I'll be supporting this.
Speaker 3: Thank you. There's been a motion and a second. Is there any member of the public that wish to address the Council on item 14?
Speaker 2: Biosphere.
Speaker 3: So after Gary comes forward, would you like to come forward?
Speaker 2: Good evening, Madam Vice Mayor and members of the City Council and Staff. My name is Gary Shelton. I believe my address is on file. A survey, you know, complete. There's 240 some odd thousand households in the city. So completion in that respect could be a lot of surveys. I believe that the wording of the item in the first paragraph is that the process would be open to all Long Beach residents and employees and would specifically be emailed or mailed to citizens who come into contact with the city through any of our city departments. And that made me think water, gas, trash. Again, we're back up to 340 some 8000 households. It would be a very, very big survey. Now, that doesn't I'm not trying to say that's bad or good. I'm not even trying to come down on one side or the other of this motion. I'm hoping that maybe there's even more communication behind the rail as to the feasibility, because the possibility is what requested here. But in every in all expenditures of time, effort and money, we talk about feasibility when something is going to come out. The other end is a project or a program. Council member Urunga expressed that he would hope that it would be complete and strategic and realistic. And I think that was a good triumvirate of points to be thought of. As you move forward on to this, I'm only concerned that you would be asking the city manager to come back with a report that gets us nowhere. That's really my only concern. I think a survey would be great idea too, but I'm not sure it would really get us anywhere, you know. And lastly, surveys always have a sampling methodology, but we've already kind of ruled out are we talking about one in ten are going to be asked questions or one in 100 or maybe one in a thousand or maybe only one in 10,000 people in the in the city asked any of these questions to get a plus or -3.4%, you know, range of error on this thing that would make any sense to us. But it's just I have concerns and I'd like to hear it fleshed out a little more from behind the rail before you ask the city manager to try to flesh it out himself. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Gary. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 2: Good evening, Vice Mayor. This is an excellent motion, I think, brought forward by Councilmember Price. My name is Kim Rising. I will be addressing a separate issue this evening. However, I have a master's degree in political science and a bachelor's and also have done post-doctorate work. One of the required courses, of course, is statistics. When you're a graduate student and I've had experience working in both the city of Tacoma and the city of Flagstaff, and I'm dating myself here. My master's degree was 1975 prior to the city swarm, and we did very effective surveys without the help of the current statistics. And it's further in my career, I've worked for the Democratic Party, where we've measured ideologies and political psychology, and we have not used necessarily I.T. responses. There's a variety of universities and colleges in this area, especially Cal State University, Long Beach, USC and UK, that graduate students in political science. And I wish Dr. Garcia were here because he could back me up on this in order to get their degrees, they have to do this type of volunteer work. And indeed, even if you ignore the i.t and the language issue, statistically, this is something that people would be readily able to volunteer and pass the data further on to ongoing classes. I thank you.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 7: Good evening. My name is julian morales. I'm a student at Cabrillo High School and I live in the the Craftsman Village area. And I'd like to add a lot to what Mr. Unger said in my specific neighborhood. Most of us are Spanish speakers, and I talked to a lot of them. Not one of us knew there was an election happening a year back. And I think addressing these people on the fact that there's going to be a survey is going to be a lot harder if it's not done in person, because a lot of these people don't either trust or understand what's happening in the government. And I still think they deserve a word on what's happening. And on another comment on the. On getting people from the hackathon to work. I do a little bit in programing and I can tell you to create a survey of this magnitude would take between weeks, two months. And I do believe they're going to get there even though they're going to charge to do this. It's not something that any program would just want to do for free out of charity. And if you do find them, you still have to find people that speak in other languages spoken in Long Beach, which still creates even a bigger challenge. So. I would say that I'm against it solely for the fact that I do believe is going to cost too much to be able to get this running and to get it running in all languages. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Thank you for your feedback. Are there any other public speakers? I would like to address the Council on this item. Okay, so we have a motion and a second members. Please cast your vote.
Speaker 1: Motion carries eight one.
Speaker 3: Thank you. And members, if I may take one more item prior to taking item 25, I would appreciate that. Item 15. | Agenda Item | Recommendation to request a report on the possibility of preparing a City-wide survey on the prioritization of City services and citizen/user satisfaction of existing City services. This survey process would be open to all Long Beach residents and employees and would specifically emailed/mailed to citizens who come into contact with the City through any of our City Departments.
The City of Long Beach currently offers a brief survey following a submittal to the Go Long Beach application, however, it is unknown what other survey mechanisms are currently being utilized. As part of this agenda item, staff should prepare a report on what other City departments currently utilize a survey process to gather data that can assist in budget allocation decisions. The report should consider all options including on-line surveys for residents who have pulled building permits or obtained a business license or a survey on our community outreach efforts from residents who provide feedback through "Speak Up" Long Beach.
Additionally, the City (1) should explore a City-wide resource on servi | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_06022015_15-0497 | Speaker 1: Communication from Vice Mayor Lowenthal. Councilwoman Gonzalez. Recommendation to request the City Manager to work with the DLP to identify methods and estimated costs for activating the section of Victory Park adjacent to the former Jergens Building property, and also explore ideas and estimated costs of activating the parking lot at 100 East Ocean Boulevard.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Madam Clerk. Many of you are familiar with the southeast corner of Pine Avenue and Ocean Boulevard with its artwork on the wall. This portion of Victory Park has been closed off to the public for decades, which is a shame, as many of you have driven by given the potential for this corner to serve as a focal point for the city and for downtown, an innovative space that inspires tourists, conventioneers and residents to cross the great divide of Ocean Boulevard. Councilmember Gonzales and I believe we have an opportunity here to bring a temporary use to the site that breaks down the visual and psychological barriers to pedestrians. We have thought about it for probably years and decades. How to make ocean not seem so, so large, so wide and and so untenable. The debate, which I know Mr. Craig Cogen is here tonight, is willing is a willing partner dedicated to revitalizing public spaces and improving pedestrian activity. Each of you receive Dove's recent report. Each of you council members discussing the opportunities for temporary pop up retail at the corner. I thought April Economies did a fantastic job of showing us what's possible in the way of activation for this important corner. So what we'd like to see is the Dolby and city staff exploring those possibilities and bringing them back with cost estimates. From there we can discuss all the funding options available for that space. And with that, I'd appreciate your support. Councilmember Gonzalez.
Speaker 1: Yes. I want to thank you, Vice Mayor Lowenthal, for bringing this forward. I think it is very important that we are looking at this. The areas revision, revisioning is such a large piece of the Renaissance currently happening along Ocean and Pine Avenue in the downtown and a smooth transition in to our convention center. And nightlife is vital for tourists and employees, as well as locals who benefit greatly from continued growth in downtown the part of downtown Long Beach. This part has such a legacy and history, something that can be that can continue to be built upon and restructured in a modern, well-planned way. And working with the deal, Bay, will be a positive transition for the area. I know Council District One has worked on many projects with you all and we're excited to move forward with this item.
Speaker 3: Councilwoman Price.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I too am very excited about this. And even though studies cost money, I think this is a worthy thing for staff to study because I think this is a great item that will enrich and activate this area and give us some opportunities. So understanding that the staff is going to have to go back and come up with some alternatives for us, I think it's a very worthy investment in our city. And I want to thank my council colleagues who worked diligently to get it to this point. So thank you very much.
Speaker 3: Councilmember Urunga.
Speaker 10: I couldn't help it. I knew the opportunities there. Now, this is a worthwhile study.
Speaker 0: It did stop it.
Speaker 10: Going to come back with a real solution to a blighted area that we need to fix this. I totally support. I want to thank the council members who brought this forward because it's about time we address that block and that area. It is a very important aspect of what we want downtown to look like, and I'm looking forward to see how much we're going to spend on that corner. But as far as a previous subject, I know it's going to come back expensive and I know I'm going to vote it down. So anyway, thank you.
Speaker 3: So that's councilmember. You're on his way of saying I've left that corner blighted for far too long. Point taken, sir. Thank you. Thank you. Is there any member of the public that wishes to address council on this item? Please come forward. State your name.
Speaker 0: Hi.
Speaker 7: My name is Ryan, ultimate executive vice president of Anderson Pacific and also chair of the Public Realm Committee for the Derby. We're very proud to be working in partnership with the city on trying to re-energize this corner. That, as many is known, has been blighted and neglected for far too long. The Public World Committee is dedicated to public improvements that really work towards the benefit of the greater good and see this as a first step in the right direction. As you all may recall, the Urban Institute was commissioned by the DLB to come in to study the ways that we could improve the urban fabric of the community . And this is one of the recommendations that came out in terms of reengaging this corner and in bringing people back into the fold who are appreciative that part of our investment as well was in working towards funding this report by April kind of meetings that that demonstrated, I think, a very pragmatic approach to the solutions on this corner, which we do think will always.
Speaker 2: Work towards providing economic.
Speaker 7: Benefit. I speak more to the tourism aspects of this and obviously providing open space is much needed in the city. So I want to thank Councilmember Gonzales Vice Mayor Al Lowenthal for their stewardship in this and look forward to the future partnership together. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Ryan. Is there any other member of the public that wishes to address the council on this item? Item 15? I also wanted to mention that this is an investment in this corner. I know this is a very prime corner, and it's one of those last unfinished areas that I think will complete our efforts in the downtown. Although it's an open canvas, it's going to be very important. Part of the pop up strategy is to show potential to really market that corner in a way that having just an open space doesn't quite do. So I appreciate the support for the investment and really the creativity that the DBA and the Urban Land Institute and others have brought forward and said that it's possible. It is possible and we can use it as a flex space and change it from time to time, depending on what the city and residents and stakeholders would like to see there. With that council members, please cast your vote.
Speaker 1: Motion carries nine zero.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Item 25. | Agenda Item | Recommendation to request City Manager to work with Downtown Long Beach Associates (DLBA) to identify methods and estimated costs for activating the section of Victory Park adjacent to the former Jergins Building Property, including but not limited to temporary pop-up retail, tourist, wayfinding, historical and arts-based installations; and
Request City Manager to also explore ideas and estimated costs of activating the parking lot at Seaside Way and Pine Avenue
(100 East Ocean Boulevard) with DLBA. | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_06022015_15-0492 | Speaker 1: Report from Development.
Speaker 0: Services.
Speaker 1: Recommendation to adopt an ordinance amending the Municipal Code by adding Chapter 18.30 relating to a proactive rental housing inspection program. Read the first time and lead over to the next regular meeting of the City Council for Final Reading Citywide.
Speaker 3: Mr. City Manager, am I turning this over to your staff first?
Speaker 7: Yes. Vice Mayor, council members. This is an item that was first discussed when we last updated our housing element last year. Since that time, we've been working behind the scenes to address this very, very important issue. I'm going to turn this over to our development services director and the deputy director, the same Amy Bodak and Angela Reynolds to make a presentation on a program that we're recommending tonight to help address the issue of tenants rights.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Ms..
Speaker 9: Modak Madam Vice Mayor. Members of the City Council, thank you for your time today. As the city manager said, we are here tonight to talk about a very critically important issue. We did discuss this briefly a year and a half ago or a year ago when we adopted the housing element. And the housing element is a very powerful tool in that it is really setting for us the road forward for the next several years until 2021. On the programs and policies that we're going to be focusing on to ensure adequate housing opportunities and adequate housing resources to all sectors of the community. The housing element has a number of programs that we implement on a on an almost regular basis with really not a lot of fanfare. Part of those programs are just part of the daily operations of the city we are part of. And part of that is something that we want to talk to you tonight. It's about code enforcement in particular. When we were adopting the housing element, there were a number of concerns that were raised by stakeholders about the habitability of our housing stock. And frankly, our housing stock is aging. We are an older city. A lot of our housing stock is, frankly, over 30 years old. We have homes that range from single family homes to 20 units and more. We have large complexes. We have multifamily complexes that are high rises. We have multifamily complexes that are four story buildings. It really runs the gamut across the city. And because of that, we did hear the stakeholders concerns about habitability and how we were addressing habitability, both under state law, which does require inspections for multi-family housing and then for for our specific program. And so what I want to talk to you about tonight is the program that we're proposing to you tonight, which would increase the type of inspections that we are doing above and beyond what's already allowed under state law. With that, I'm going to turn it over to Angela Reynolds. She's the deputy director of development services. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Amy. Good evening, Vice Mayor Lowenthal and Council members. On January 7th, the city council did approve the housing element that has been mentioned here this evening. And one of the primary objectives in that housing element is to conserve and improve existing affordable housing. So just a bit of history on a program that we currently deliver through the Code Enforcement Office. In 1966, the city's Health and Human Services Department operated a proactive inspection program for properties consisting of four or more residential rental units. The reason for the four or more is that the city considers them to be a business and requires a business license and tracks them in that manner. So in line with the housing and excuse me, in line with the housing element, this program was designated to ensure that the city's rental housing comply with the minimum standards for health, safety and welfare of the public in compliance with California Health and Safety Code. 17920. This proactive program incorporates annual inspection fees to those property owners of four or more that help defray the cost of delivering this program in FY 13. This proactive program was transferred to code enforcement. It was in health since 1966. That was all part of the government reform initiative. And I would say that since that time, we've been able to gain more compliance in this realm because they were able to take advantage of all the administrative citations and prosecutions that code enforcement had had in the past. So it's made it a much more robust program, I think. Staff has included new language that provides. I'm going to talk about the prep or the proactive or proactive rental housing inspection program. And I'm just going to call it prep, if that's okay as I go through. And that's something that we're currently doing. However, in light of what we have heard from from the community and some of the advocates as well as the Apartment Owners Association, we've added a couple of things to the ordinance before you tonight that we don't currently do, and those are notification of property owners and tenants prior to us coming out to do one of these proactive inspections. And we've also developed something that a few other cities have, which is a tenant and landlord rights and responsibilities brochure to be provided to tenants by the landlord. And it's also going to be online as well. This brochure includes language advising tenants about how to exercise their legal rights, such as requesting habitability repairs without threat of eviction. We've also added a modification to the inspection process when responding to complaints so that we try to keep it anonymous so that not one unit is singled out in in the apartment building. And then we've also when somebody does not come into compliance and is not working towards compliance, we find them for the first hundred and 20 days as the state code provides 100 200 and $500 for the first 120 days, and then thereafter it's $500 plus penalties every seven days. And then we're also taking them simultaneously to the city prosecutor. So we've met with stakeholder groups, as Amy said, regarding this ordinance on at least six different occasions and incorporated, considered and incorporated feedback from the Legal Aid Foundation housing Long Beach and the Apartment Association of Southern California Cities. So staff's recommendation is to adopt an ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code by adding Chapter 18.30 relating to the proactive rental housing inspection program. Read the first time and lead over to the next regular meeting of the City Council for its final reading. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Miss Reynolds. Councilwoman Gonzalez.
Speaker 1: So I, I know this has been certainly a long journey for many of us in the room here. Many of you have come to council every single time. And so we appreciate that, certainly. But we also know that the struggle for renters is certainly real, something we can't shy away from. And one of the biggest reasons why I'm here and I'm so I ran for city council was from my experience visiting homes and looking at the deplorable situations firsthand. Some of our our residents are living in very bad situations, conditions that affect the health and lives of children in their families. And health housing needs to be healthy and safe for everybody. Renters should not fear retaliation from voicing their their needs and basic needs. And in the last year, I've had the opportunity to meet with housing advocates from housing, Long Beach renters and other supporters on the needs of renters. I've also met with the Apartment Association as well to hear their concerns from the ordinance. And I've worked very diligently and very closely with our development services. Both Amy and Angela have worked very hard on this and to ensure that there's a collaborative voice. In addition to that, there is no easy fix for a problem so enormous. And while I support the core values of Deep as a city, we must take careful policy steps as we deal with the upcoming budget deficit. This is certainly an issue that I am committed to for as long as I'm an elected official. I will continue to work side by side with residents, apartment owners, city staff and other stakeholders to create and maintain comprehensive solutions involving strong, effective policies on safe housing. I want to thank everyone who's been involved. I think what we can get from this is that we have worked collaborative, both on the landlord side, the tenant side and from the city side. And what we can do, what is what is possible for us at this time. I have some amendments that I would like to add to the ordinance to strengthen it for the health and well-being of renters throughout the city. And I will say that. We may have been at odds with each other. I know many of us in this room have not talked to each other. There's landlords on one side, tenants on the other, and I don't feel that it really has to be that way. We're all looking for the same goal. We're just getting shot at different ways. And so I think this is a really good opportunity for us to look at those different ways and how we've collaborated and come up with something very comprehensive and sustainable for our city.
Speaker 3: So, Councilwoman Gonzalez, we have a maker of a motion and a second. Are you are you asking if they will consider your request?
Speaker 1: I am.
Speaker 3: Okay. So if the maker in the second year is amenable, can we hear those from Councilmember Gonzalez? Councilmember Superman and. Okay. And Councilwoman Mongo. You've made a motion. She's going to ask for some consideration for friendly amendment. Okay. Thank you.
Speaker 1: I forge ahead. I'm sorry. This is a very important issue for all of us, right? So the first couple amendments, all I'll ask for is. It was in the original ordinance. And now I want to see if we can put it back in as a state franchise tax board program. I'd like to see if we can direct staff to incorporate participating in the State Franchise Tax Board Housing Program for those owners who do not comply within 120 days and are unresponsive. These are the worst of the worst landlords. As I mentioned, this was in the original staff report but did not make it so. I want to make sure that we include that in this ordinance. The second thing is for $75,000 for that component to be added into this ordinance, because it will assist with educating both tenants and landlords to create, again, a comprehensive outreach program . And I think it's really important that we include in this all renters. We're not just looking at renters that are included in this ordinance. It's all renters. We're taking a larger approach, not just the four plex's or more everyone. And then thirdly, increasing the frequency of our fines. If after 30 days we've given due process, why should we wait an additional 30 days to to increase the frequency of the fine or to find them find a landlord again? It would be good if we shorten that time. If we can shorten that time to increase the frequency of that fine. And in addition, I think accelerating I think Angela had mentioned this, but accelerating the case to the city prosecutor. If it is a health and safety. Imminent danger. And so those are the three amendments. I hope I was clear. If there's any questions, I'd be happy to.
Speaker 3: So may I ask you a couple of clarifying questions? I know other members will have questions as well. The $75,000 could you repeat for me and for us, you said, where would these resources come from? What are you directing staff to do?
Speaker 1: Well, I'm looking I'm asking them to look to see if we I mean, the $75,000 would be something that development services would have to look for in our budget to be able to do some outreach with multiple partners. I see the Apartment Association and Housing Long Beach. I don't know if that's possible, but I would like a collaborative, you know, approach as to how we would use this this $75,000 as far as additional outreach to all tenants.
Speaker 3: And this is for landlord and tenant education. So it could be a collaborative effort between, for instance, the Apartment Association to develop an education program that would encompass both renters and landlords.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 9: Vice Vice Mayor That's Amy. If I could just add a little bit to that. When we originally submitted our two from four memo to several months ago, we had suggested this as as a way to help the city reach reach certain segments of the population that may be very hesitant in calling code enforcement or may have language difficulties in doing that. So I think that it would be something that we would look forward to doing. We don't have a specific group in mind. We would be really having to RFP it and we would hope to be able to use several community resources to help us reach this this most needed segment of our community. I would suggest that it's it probably wouldn't really go in the ordinance, but would be something that you would direct us to incorporate. And then we would work with our financial management department to do a budget adjustment if we need to do it or incorporate it into our existing fund balance within the department.
Speaker 3: Okay. So the second item would would be a request to staff, but not included in the ordinance. And the third item, Councilwoman Gonzales, on frequency, you said shorten the time you would like staff to come back with what a shortened time frame would be on after.
Speaker 1: Yes, because we have to give due process to landlords. 30 days is our our typical due process in the city. So after that, if instead of waiting an additional 30 days for them to comply or to respond, I would like to shorten that time after the 30 days to maybe two weeks. I mean, there's got to be something else that we could do.
Speaker 6: Can we agree to it? And the next day it would be 15 days.
Speaker 3: Okay, let's stay in order, please. Sorry. Okay.
Speaker 0: Right.
Speaker 3: Councilmember Supernovas, maker of the motion. Would you like to make any comments at this time? And I'll call on Councilmember Mongeau after that.
Speaker 2: I'll. I think we're in favor or I'm in favor of the amendments.
Speaker 0: Okay.
Speaker 3: And Councilmember Mongo, would you like to comment on the amendments that councilwoman. Gonzales asked for and you had a question.
Speaker 6: So I just wanted to ask Amy first, do you believe that your division can have net neutrality the way that the fund was set up with the $75,000 allocation?
Speaker 9: I'm not sure I understand the question. I'm sorry.
Speaker 6: So there was a request in the friendly amendment that we would set aside $75,000 for outreach development services as an enterprise fund, which is supposed to have a net zero annually. Do you think that within your current year budget or partially this year and partially next year, you would be able to find those funds? Or are you asking us to take something to Budget Committee to find additional funds for?
Speaker 9: I see. I see the funds for this program does not come from the Development Services Fund. We we do have other sources of funds to do this. Development services. If three, three, seven is really just for planning and building. So we do have other sources of revenue within the department that would not impact those funds. So I do believe that we would be able to accommodate this. If not, I would come back and let you know that.
Speaker 6: And then on the additional follow up, so I'm definitely in favor of those who are not being responsible to receive more quick and swift response responses from the city. Would a 15 day be a reasonable secondary follow up from your office?
Speaker 9: We'd need to understand if it was working days or calendar days. We typically right now it's every 30 days. So we do 30, 60, 90 and one, 20, and we can modify that for this specific program and do 15 days. So it be 35, 30, 45, 60, 75. The only issue I would say with this in general is in order for us to implement the State Franchise Tax Board portion of it, we do have to wait the full 120 days. So once we got to our fourth citation, for example, if we did it on the accelerated timeline of a of 75 days afterwards, we would do as Angela had proposed, where we do a every seven days, a continued citation. We would then have to wait the full 120 days before we could start the State Franchise Tax Board referral process. So as long as there is an understanding of that, I think we can work with the the every 15 day request to accelerate the timeline.
Speaker 6: So let's would it be agreeable to say every 15 calendar days next to Business Day? So if the calendar day lands on a Sunday, it'll be the following Monday.
Speaker 9: It would be a calendar day. That's correct. Yeah.
Speaker 0: Okay. Okay.
Speaker 6: Sounds wonderful. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Thank you, sir. The maker and seconder of the motion. Except those three items.
Speaker 2: Councilmember willing to hear public comment?
Speaker 3: Yes. And I would like to ask our colleagues if they'd like to hear public comment first. Yes. Thank you. That's a great suggestion. So at this time, if there's a member of the public that wish to address Council on item.
Speaker 7: 28, mayor members of the council, just with those friendly amendments, if this motion were to pass this evening, it would come back as a.
Speaker 0: First.
Speaker 3: Reading again. Thank. Yes, thank you.
Speaker 2: Good afternoon, Council.
Speaker 7: Vice Mayor Lowenthal. My name is Jim Danno. I currently live in the.
Speaker 2: Fillmore Historic District. I support the amendment that Councilmember Gonzalez.
Speaker 7: Has brought before you. I actually there's a way of even increasing the fines. I know it's state mandated, but we're talking about the worst of the.
Speaker 2: Worst.
Speaker 7: Landlords.
Speaker 2: And they deserve to be punished.
Speaker 7: Thank you very much.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 0: Good evening. Council member and council members and vice mayor. My name is Kathleen Irvine. I live in the Walmart Street District and I fully support the the recommendation to adopt the ordinance and Councilwoman Gonzales amendments. I think that if anybody had to live in I live in one of those areas where the there is a certain constituency that is afraid to report things that are wrong with their apartment. And I know that if any of us had to live in those places for a full 30 days or 60 days or 120 days, that we would be voting for the amendments also. Thank you very much.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 0: Supposed to.
Speaker 2: Be. Good evening. And hello again. This is the reason I'm here. My name is Kim Rising again. Vice Mayor, Council Member City Staff over 216 East 25th Street. Mr. Andrews District. I've resided in Long Beach in the immediate area for over 30 years. As mentioned, I hold a B.A. and May in political science. I'm retired from General Motors, but still perform as an organist. I play classical, jazz and theater organ. I'm here today to passionately speak towards the issue of the lack of tenant protections in the city. One summer afternoon I was working in my yard. The building to my west was for sale and the owner leaned over my fence and said, I used to live in your house. Is there still black mold there? I replied, Yes, kind of startled. And the previous owner laughed and said Yes, I sold it as is. And I guess they've never fixed the thing, have they? In the last two weeks, my present owner, the second of two owners of my property, painted the exterior of my house. It is the only thing, and I repeat the only thing that they have been doing in repair in my ten year tenancy with this particular owner, the first owner, the one we originally rented from, bragged at the resale of the current property to the present owner. Quote, I did not invest a dime. I'm selling it as is. Although the sale ensued and the second owner who owns it now to date has never repaired anything until the recent painting, there has never been central heat. The fireplace flue is seized open. There is black mold in multiple rooms, there's lead based paint. There is an in sink disposal that is never been repaired. There's a freestanding garage door with the correct frame that cannot be opened. These items were painted over the original circa 1940 Windows, many of which still cannot be opened. The carpet is over 40 years old and has never been replaced. The entire house is leaning to one side on its foundation. This is one of two houses on the property. It is a duplex. My partner and I are retired seniors, 65 and 69. Our health has been severely affected because of the mold and other issues. One of us has AIDS. Presently, we have been given two weeks to evacuate the property so interior repairs can commence verbally. We were only offered one night of motel and one month of storage. We counter offered because we felt these requests were unreasonable and the owner replied via text messaging that our counteroffer was unacceptable and we have not been given any guarantee of reentry. We have signed a lease until April of 2016. No rent adjustments have been offered verbally or otherwise. Our owner is not working in good faith with us and there is nothing that protects us from being evicted in this scenario. How are we as a city to attract a workforce with escalating rents and with property.
Speaker 3: Tamers.
Speaker 2: Which intimidate and do not value existing tenants? Thank you. I thank you.
Speaker 3: Next speaker, please.
Speaker 2: The honorable vice mayor and Lowenthal and members of the city council. I am Paul Bonner, president of the Apartment Association, California Southern Cities. 333 West Broadway, Long Beach. The Apartment Association provides education and training to residential rental property owners and managers and promotes and strongly advocates on behalf of our industry. In particular, we want our members to comply with our laws and contribute to the economic viability and health of our neighborhoods. These are our core values and are of utmost importance to us. We are pleased to present to you our comments regarding the ordinance before you this evening. Quality rental housing at every socioeconomic level is critical to our community as a whole. With it, we have a vibrant and healthy rental housing stock and an excellent relationship between tenants and rental property owners. Without it, our community is tarnished and the lives of those adversely affected suffer. The proposed ordinance is a balanced work product in the best interests of the city. Inspections should continue. In particular, inspections should focus on slumlord properties, a term that is defined in law and properties where serious code violations exist. There is no room for us to allow serious code violations. City inspectors have not turned their head the other way, and we believe in a zero tolerance policy. Inspections of known violating properties should continue. The council has heard from tenants and about concerns that they may face eviction due to filing a complaint against an owner. Laws currently exist that protect tenants in these situations. We are reminded that our state anti retaliation laws are explicit and protect those who file a complaint with a city or a property owner. We with me tonight are members of our association. We are Long Beach housing providers. We serve a vital and important element to our community. We stand with you and support a residential rental property ordinance. Thank you very much.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 0: Good evening. Vulnerable Vice Mayor Lowenthal and members of the city council. My name is Elaine Hutchison, and I'm here this evening also representing the Apartment Association of California's Southern Cities here in Long Beach. I have twice had the opportunity to serve as president of this association and also of the California Apartment Association and have owned and managed properties in Long Beach for over 30 years. Thank you kindly for this opportunity to express some of our thoughts. We know that you have heard from tenant advocates. We would like to begin by commending the overwhelming 97% of owners of the estimated 77,000 rental units in our city, owners who care for their rental properties as well as the residents who reside in them. As we know from our membership. Most of these are small properties and in many cases its owners struggle to pay all the bills. But these owners do care and often know residents by name. We believe safe and healthful housing is a partnership between owners and residents alike. We believe owners must proactively inspect and take care of maintenance issues in their properties and that tenants should tell owners about maintenance issues that they become aware of. In looking at the proactive rental housing inspection program proposed ordinance before you. We note that every owner of four units or more will have to pay a habitability fee for inspection of properties, not just the minority of bad actors, and that every owner will be required to register their properties. And there are inescapable financial penalties and potentially criminal penalties. These provisions and others fall upon all owners in order to weed out the minority of bad owners. All owners are paying the price. We recognize the responsibility of owners, and just as owners are responsible, we also recognize tenants are responsible to help in maintaining the properties by allowing access for repairs and participating with us. We note that the ordinance continues to allow heavy and code enforcement actions, and as Councilwoman Gonzales has added even more. We wish that there were a provision that if nothing is found on a city inspection of a unit, that the habitability fee would be waived and refund to the owner. We truthfully wish no ordinance would be needed, however, because we are just as tenant advocates want safe and healthful housing for Long Beach tenants. We urge the support and passage of your Honorable Council o the proposed ordinance before you. We hope that the passage of this ordinance, along with a two page document of owner rights and responsibilities and tenant rights and responsibilities, will be the door we can all pass through to greater collaboration and again what we all want safe and healthful housing for all of Long Beach residents. Thank you very much.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 7: I thank you. Good afternoon. Honorable Vice Mayor and council members Malcolm Bennett. I'm also a member of the Piper Association of California Southern Cities. I've had the opportunity to serve also as president at association. I do own and operate a property management company in Long Beach for probably close to 20 years and myself, along with our staff , really believe we're part of the fabric of this community. I've served on the board of directors of Long Beach Fair Housing Council, served as vice president, was very instrumental in the multifamily improvement district for Andy Street, a just a a stellar project for the city. My manager is on the board of directors of the St Mary's and various other associations. I do own and operate a property management company in Los Angeles where we do have a rental inspection program. And I would start off by saying Long Beach is certainly not like Los Angeles. We are here to support this this program. I've been in the rental property business for more than 40 years. I've been installed and inducted in the Congressional Hall of Records for the work I do in rental housing and been awarded the aggregate of the year through various organizations. One thing I'd like to point out different than people that buy single family homes. You put out 35% to purchase a residential income property. You're looking at putting down 30 or 40%. That's quite an investment. So we have a real incentive to maintain these properties.
Speaker 2: Are all.
Speaker 7: Landlords good? Absolutely not. And we support actions to take care of those bad actors who give us a bad reputation.
Speaker 2: And in addition to this.
Speaker 7: Ordinance, you always have the complaint driven process where owner tenants can still complain. And we look at this. Some people like to pit landlords against tenants. We're not adversaries. Where would a landlord be without a tenant? We wouldn't be able to maintain a paid a mortgage on these properties. So we have a real incentive and a lot of people don't know as a property owner, you don't really have a right to go in and inspect a unit just to see how a tenant lives. We use the fire marshals ordinance to allow us to go in to inspect smoke detectors and seal devices. So we welcome this inspection program and we fully support it. The amendments that were offered this evening, we certainly are also are those, because those are directed toward property owners who do not take care of their properties. And we have a code of ethics that our association that we try to enforce because we have an investment in the city and I rental property owners. We thank you for your time and we hope that you will support this ordinance. And thank you very much for your time.
Speaker 2: Hi. Thank you. Vice Mayor and city councilman. My name is Jeff Benedict. My address is on file. I live in the third district. I was for several years. I was the manager of the health housing inspection program in the city of Long Beach. And before that, I spent 30 years when at Orange County in housing and was on many task forces across the city, the county of Orange and I have extensive amount of experience in and regulatory parts of our housing inspection programs. And when I left, I retired from the city in 2008, and when I left, I, I still had some work I wanted to do. And I came back as a volunteer and got a couple of contracts actually to do some work on our health housing inspection program. And I went out and I did a pretty comprehensive survey of the housing because I had some problems with our delivery of how we were doing our housing inspection program. And I spoke to two tenants fair housing, property owners, property managers, etc. And one thing that just came across that that I found was that properties that were managed by property managers actually were across the board in better condition than regular places. But also that our program, our housing inspection program, spent an inordinate amount of time more than necessary on the good guys and on the good on the good places. And when I was trying to redesign our program a little bit, that that came to mind that we really need to concentrate on the bad guys and on the bad inspection programs. When I first heard about this, I initially came with the idea that I wanted to say, no new laws, just do a better job with the tools we already have. You know, as we know, we have the code enforcement, Scott, the citation power, we have reinspection fees. We, we've got a very supportive city prosecutor. I can tell you that I never took a case to a city prosecutor that had some great photos and it was pretty substandard conditions that they didn't jump out and take because these kind of conditions don't don't even actually ever make it to court. They settle out because good pictures, etc., do it every time. So I just don't think that for the lot for a lot of me, my only concern with this program is, is that are we going to start going back and spending all of our time inspecting places that that probably don't need it? And I only thing is, was when we implement this program that we concentrate on the bad guys and do whatever we can to, to, to, to focus in that area. So initially, I was going to come to totally oppose this. But as I stand here now, I think that we just need to to make a very good effort to to to recognize the fact that we need to concentrate on the bad guys and create a way that the program can do a little bit better job of not not doing the comprehensive inspections on the really good places. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 7: Good evening, Vice Mayor and City Council Members. My name is Worker Rivera, a community organizer with Housing Long Beach. And we've been coming here for many, many weeks and we've been sharing stories because we've been trying to elevate the discussion around our rental housing issues that we're having here in the city. And as you know, we've been asking for rape, a policy which we believe is a good step towards protecting renters, holding slumlords accountable and building a healthier Long Beach in general. The community's cries for this type of help have received much opposition, including our own city staff and development services. And now they're taking a program that's already existed, giving it a different name in a couple of words, and saying, Hey, this is our alternative to tenants rights policy. How is this attendance rates policy? Please tell me how this protects tenants, because this is nothing different than we had, as you had mentioned then we've had or already had. So this supposedly new program falls way short of what residents really need. It does not include 2 to 3 units, which the LA Times article today highlighted would well have been overlooked. Two years going without running water or gas, this program would have not found that. And that also accounts for 15,000 rental units here in the city. It offers no method of tracking. As this gentleman said, we need to know where we're going, what doors were knocked, where did we get it and where couldn't we get in? It does not protect renters. There's no accountability for slumlords, and it's simply not good enough. All of the stories that we've brought to you are we're trying to communicate that people are scared. People are afraid. I have a resident that's sitting out here who just got knocked down by code enforcement because I called and she will tell you that her neighbors did not open the doors. Why? Because they're too scared. It's not because they we they don't want to be inspected is because they're scared of what's going to happen if they do get inspected. How does this program protect them from that? How does it protect them from eviction or rent increases? Yes, they're state laws. But you're going to hear from our attorney that this is not going to protect them when they go to eviction court. They're going to settle out and they still have to move. What if they have children? What if they're low income? What if they don't have the funds to move? How is it going to account for that? It's not going to count for that. So this.
Speaker 2: Program.
Speaker 7: Although we do need more inspections, I would not call this a proactive inspection program because it's reactive and it's going to rely on people to complain, as the other gentleman here said, that it would. And if these are all good landlords here, they don't have to worry about this. They're good landlords. You don't have to worry about what goes after the slumlords. So you shouldn't be opposing any of this stuff. We need to protect our renters. We need more code enforcement policy. We mean more tenants rights. And this one here is not good enough. We need more tenant rights. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Vice Mayor Kelton members. I lived at 1221, East First Street, apartment number ten. Lived there for five years. When I moved in this apartment. The roof was leaking. We had cockroaches and from the roof leaking the mold in the walls. I had code enforcement out four times. Every time they try it, they write out the correct wording on the document to be cited when they would come back to get these corrections done. All the landlord would do was go in and spray the walls, paint over it. When they were told to take the wall out and get rid of the mold, bomb the building for the cockroaches, all they do is bond my apartment, which they just run away and come back. When code enforcement came back. All they said was can't see the mold. They must have done a good job. I've been evicted there for 35 days now. My wife and I are both homeless. I have been. I've had cancer since 92. I'm a cancer survivor since 92, 2002. I was put on disability because of the cancer. Now my spine has arthritis and my wife is 71 with Alzheimer's. This is this is a hard thing for both of us to go through. I had since I lived in that apartment. Half my life was taken out. And in the biopsy, yeast was found from mold. My wife's esophagus was eaten up from the mold since we left. It has correct. It is correcting itself. It has gotten better. But yet we lived in in a motel here in Long Beach. Again with the cockroaches and again with the Morgan Motel. But I'm here to ask this program. Give us tenants some rights. I've been evicted. I had nowhere to go. No one to talk to. The the discrimination. From code enforcement from the landlord of the adult abuse by moving us in their. The handicapped abused, moving us in there knowing that all these problems were going on and then having us evicted. When you tenants need some, right? Thank you. They bring vice mayor and council people. I took off my sign so you could see my my crest, my family crest when you know I'm Irish. I've been living in Long Beach since 1952 at a time when I was renting a garage apartment furnished for $50 a month. Now I'm living on the east side. Mr. Soberano is district or excuse me, and my rent now is 1220 $5. I recently received this notice from my landlord, made every effort to control expenses, hold your rent minimum. However, increasing costs associated with general maintenance. There's been no maintenance. I had the same carpet in my house that I had when I moved in and it wasn't new at the time and that I asked the landlord to please do something about the call up. And he says, Well, if I do that, I'll have to raise your rent. But you've raised my rent. And if you look at this, he's crossed out things. He doesn't want to spend the money to get a new notice. And the other notice that he crossed out was some them from the year 2000 when the rent was $1,000. Now it's 1220 $5. We need some help. And he came to me and I. I refused to pay the $75 that he was requesting. He told me, Well, then I'll have to respect you. And I said, No, you won't have to reject me. But that when we went round and round and I agreed to a $50 increase, which because my daughter, who was very disabled, was very concerned, and it was that it was causing her a lot of problems. Now, I watched. Well, what what is the solution to this problem? And this is well, there are a number of people that we know have not been able to, you know, get proper food and other things because the cost of the rents are so high, so much of their their income my income is from I'm a disabled veteran and I get a pension. And that's that's where my money comes from. And this man wants who is a millionaire living in Bellevue, Washington, wants another $75 just because he can get it. And he can get it because it's it's it's it's it's it. He can do it because there's no law preventing him. I consider this to be extortion. He is extorting me. And then I consider this also elder abuse. I want you to protect me and do something to help all the renters in Long Beach.
Speaker 3: Sir. Actually.
Speaker 4: When I started, senora, spell check you miembros consiglio mi nombre. Eric Instead of A.C., We wanted this day to own it. Amy So an apostle in the event that Tracy went out to Tracy, then going to Cinco Annual, we been talking on beef and I mean what Distrito Tengo Cinco de who's e-mails between Aqui También. Yes, the aunque your nope. With all that a year on, we had tables in it.
Speaker 1: Good evening, Mrs. Suja and council members. My name is Raquel Cervantes and I live in District one. And my zip code is 90813. I've been living in Long Beach for 25 years in the same district. I have five children that live here in Long Beach. And even though I'm unable to vote, they do vote and they are very.
Speaker 0: Active.
Speaker 4: Participant as in course, was the leader as well in the group was there with that he like Leyzaola we've seen that thing on Manzano Shindo they let the house in Long Beach. Estoy aqui porque go. No scholars, no city. That is a los Angelinos forget your soil, you know they use mbt cinco anos man this aloha cuatro basis for capital preparation. This dollar is more you being guerrillas. The thing Morella Siamo Bianco lose money have orders Ortiz Wendell told us stabbing me no below reparations cannot be reparations I you sir Kavala relation.
Speaker 1: I participate and I attend leadership courses in groups like Best Start and the Neighborhood Church. I've been a leader with housing language for more than six years. I'm here because I know the needs of the renters because I'm one of them. In the 25 years that I've been living here, I've been evicted four times because I've asked for repairs. Everything's fine and the relationships with the managers are very good. As long as one does not complain. When one asks for repairs, everything goes downhill.
Speaker 4: And as companions, Grant doesn't love companions I didn't know say as in cargo the LA reparations. Guess he'll go back last persona must have it that a son Los Ninos de la comunidad para los padrino pinto recuerdos para los mis. I see that is the use is también though improper that is destroying us you it they Rattansi Karachi Hussein is in who's talking your personal mantra estoy pasando también.
Speaker 1: Also the large companies don't take charge of repairs that are needed. The people that are most affected are the children in our community because their parents don't have the resources for their needs. They're living in properties that have been destroyed and they're infested with mice and cockroaches. It's unfair, and I personally am living through this.
Speaker 4: Lack of money that the animal shall meddle. You know, is that noise that brought the heat or not the any me the name mucho miedo they had there are losses bit stories porky soon this aloha those boring will look at alas you that.
Speaker 1: The community is very afraid we're not protected. We're afraid to let the inspectors in because after that we are evicted for involving the city.
Speaker 4: You're still on beef, pork, your quiero third party de la but yet bara balearic follows the rituals the Los Angeles knows is important. They they is that through this post program ask one month they near Otra no faith is.
Speaker 1: I got involved with housing Long Beach because I want to be part of the battle to fight for the renters rights. It's important to talk about this problem because in one way or another it affects all of us.
Speaker 4: Openly and all to improve the hablar para porque all state is necessity and really saki is then. Ascendant leadership rotation allows in killing of poor killers. Let's get the normal. No, no siren.
Speaker 1: And I'm here taking the time to speak because it's important that you realize that you are here making laws for us and we need things that will support us.
Speaker 4: A plan this imprecision noise sufficient to get it most mass, get it most cap or generate.
Speaker 1: The inspection plan isn't enough. We need protection. We'd like you to support RIP. Thank you. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Evening. Vice.
Speaker 6: Vice Mayor and.
Speaker 4: The rest of the City Council. My name is Cortez Arantes. I live in 1242 Cedar.
Speaker 0: Avenue, which is in the first District. I'm 20 years old. I'm in Long Beach is where I was born and raised. I am a Kurdistan student and on Big City College.
Speaker 4: But I'm also a really active voter and I've been a member of housing lobbies for for six years.
Speaker 0: I'm here today because I'm against this inspection program. And here's the reasons why this special program has been has been existing for more than.
Speaker 1: For many years already.
Speaker 4: There's just this program used to be called Healthy Homes.
Speaker 0: City council knows it, and it's obvious that our community knows it.
Speaker 4: This program hasn't been working because tenants are afraid because of the lack of protection. And as I was growing up in Long Beach, my parents had been.
Speaker 0: Renting all my life. And it seems.
Speaker 4: Like the roaches and mice have better protection than I do.
Speaker 0: So. So instead of investing.
Speaker 4: In an inspector that's only going to lock on, knock on locked doors, that never going to be open because tenants are afraid. I wish for you guys to.
Speaker 0: Invest in trust.
Speaker 1: And protection. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you.
Speaker 4: Olav when I start this tells me no worries. Lillia Fuentes No. We want a lottery tournament. All those are all 20. So you want Lombardia and Los Primeros for Feist.
Speaker 0: Good.
Speaker 1: Hello and good evening to everybody. My name is Celia Fuentes and I live presently in District two and a volunteer at first five.
Speaker 4: And eight a minute, hustle, ambush.
Speaker 1: And all to housing Long Beach.
Speaker 4: Is there a key Stoiber thing or mutuals? Bain, Daniel, mother, Daniel's baby in the nest as we then there's the Andersons the latterly the Estamos so for in the law allows means by Consequentials Nos ultra low rent areas. There's Qatar I there is in the central zone you'll see not participating but the key Pakistan to anarchy.
Speaker 1: I've been here for many years. I've lived in the city for more than 20 years. And before that, up until now, we've been suffering the same consequences as renters. The owners say if you don't like it, leave, leave. Why are you renting here? Go away.
Speaker 4: Parents are given up instead of not being sold on cocaine or sulfate. The La economia board trabajo and I rattle through the apartamento address La Scala, Centro seahorse, la la la casa. And can we important there is our adult I mean pardon me, forget our law, my espanol and English, particularly the property that allows us deals are me seahorse, Kenya, Mimi SMA Beatles Toyi Estoy Estelle or an opera but Balenciaga la sitwasyon economic social demi sequels but good.
Speaker 1: And they don't stop to think for a moment how we're affected by the economy, by work trying to get another apartment our children's schools because education is very important and even for me because presently I do speak more Spanish than English, because I make my children and a priority more than myself. So I'm fighting to balance things. The situation, the social situation of my kids.
Speaker 4: Are they still me? Me hotel stays unsold all alone. A thousand needles, the key.
Speaker 1: Alejandro In spite of that, my son Alejandro is a US soldier.
Speaker 4: You know, it's possible in a book Real gay. Gay me. Who is the and the parakeet the all those things almost killed me know that HLA moment protection he we in Newcastle mean of our media as west post us all yeah. Yeah. Nosotros nonresidential status.
Speaker 1: And I it's not possible. I can't believe that my son is working so that we can all have the same rights and the protection. His wife, his daughter. But you all don't give it to us.
Speaker 4: I mean me because the Parliament decides to. The Animal Coalition. Let me see. The colors.
Speaker 0: Is.
Speaker 4: More yellow professional. Yeah, but there are certain things to the minister. Sovereign. The law laws minimize consequences for gay porn lot. The leader in post has to say no, no son, the Mandelas cartels, they are local. It's. I said, that is what this community is based on.
Speaker 1: And my daughter currently is studying in the college. She's at Long Beach City College. She's a professional model and she's going to be a dentist. But she also is suffering the same consequences. In fact, in the last two years, we've got an eviction letters of 60 days or 30 days, like ten times or.
Speaker 4: So programa gay or status proponent noise la solution mosque estamos pasando nosotros como and Thaddeus.
Speaker 1: So the program that you all are proposing is not a solution to the problems that we have as renters.
Speaker 4: E eliska liz cato the syria key story but silky grasses poor trattati solution l'opération or la solution he can stumble mass malaise as it como el proyecto they get the inherit list be local told in Cologne listen equally la they know no portal neither Barack Bianco Mr. Trabalhando NutraSweet this e equals that I won't dialog percent eating almost eating almost as a privilege you get scared the animals, the literature. Mama knows that baby mama knows grasses.
Speaker 1: And I want to say and I'm here to say, first of all, thank you for trying to solve this problem, but this is not the solution. We want laws like rape. So I am asking that you study it, that you analyze it and take the chance to see how it is working in other cities. And perhaps one day it will pass and we'll have the privilege to live as humans with the rights of humans. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Thank. Thank you. Before I take the next speaker, I need to take Mr. Rockwell, who's cute up from the top. Do you have a mic, Mr. Rockwell?
Speaker 0: I'm not putting it off.
Speaker 2: Good evening.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Can you hear me down there?
Speaker 0: Yes.
Speaker 2: Okay. I would like to say that while we have some assisted housing in this city, there is nowhere near sufficient housing. There is no where near sufficient housing for persons who are wheelchair users at any cost, whether it be affordable or not affordable. I see people in wheelchairs, out on the streets, blocking areas that should be passable at all times of the day and night. I see persons out on the street who need housing but can't afford it because of the lack of good, proper, affordable housing. Our city is really down the tubes when it comes to having suppression housing for low income workers, those that are working for minimum wage, or sometimes a little bit more than minimum wage persons who are making a thousand or 1500 dollars a month cannot afford to live in Long Beach the way our housing has been set up , a housing that is going up at this time, most of it is running anywhere from 1400 to 2500 or more a month. A person on minimum wage cannot afford that. A person on Social Security or SSI cannot afford that. But yeah, we need to continue living. We cannot afford to move. Many of us are do not have the energies to be able to move from our housing. So, Madam Mayor. Vice Mayor. Council members, please consider the needs of all these people, but are appealing to you and keep things such that we can have decent, affordable housing that is going to be sufficient to be able to live in comfortably and properly. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 4: When I start this, members will continue. Number 13, I want to be one in the street. Elumelu knows a thing or two to see how we been doing it.
Speaker 1: Good evening, council members. My name is Georgina Goldson and I live in District two. I've been living in Long Beach for 13 years.
Speaker 4: A Participar co-owner of Grupo de Lava Con, the group of 18, the Scream Clinic continues in action. Yes, it was the annual humanitarian group Latino Girl Senior Center Bella Cuatro Ella McCauley about.
Speaker 1: I participate in the group's LA off with the group children's clinic with the Latinos in action. And it's been 12 years since I've been a volunteer with the Latino Club at the Senior Center on Fourth Street. And they're the majority of people vote.
Speaker 4: Can you get us email address, A.L.S. Association, the Captain Lomis Medical Center, your system? I wonder what protections are la comunidad. But I'm honest and to really look at the animals in Bebe.
Speaker 1: When I got to the association that is housing Long Beach more than three years ago, I realized that they have been fighting for protections for the community to better the conditions that are so terrible that we live in.
Speaker 4: But is it going to look rather be working? Methadone rescues to El Programa de inspection proponent La Ciudad no suficiente no protocol in clean las inspection is not Syrian.
Speaker 1: And that's why I still am involved. Living in fear isn't fair. The inspection program that the city is proposing is not enough. It does not it does not protect the renter. The inspections are useless.
Speaker 4: But what is a criminal substrate is Yukiko Canal Program and Rip City and Rams protection of medicine and make sure this condition is withstood this desperate. And I said it is it can be but they must protect program. Thank you.
Speaker 1: And that is why we have come before all of you so that with this program that is reap there we would have protections. Our children deserve to live in better conditions. You all can make this change. Let's vote for the program that is reap. Thank you.
Speaker 12: Thank you. Thank.
Speaker 4: When I start this, Senora Suya.
Speaker 3: Stands.
Speaker 4: Gloria mendoza. Olga. When I started, said Todos, I can present this. Good evening.
Speaker 1: Suya. My name is.
Speaker 4: Gloria Montes, the.
Speaker 1: Oka. And good evening to everybody that's here.
Speaker 4: Do you want. And last one. anO métodos. Listen up. That is my visitor or home address.
Speaker 1: I live in District two and my zip code is 90813.
Speaker 4: It was big, memorable moment of your career. Now, narcos, your record, your it. It is it. The lesson of general medical school.
Speaker 1: And I tell you, number my number, because once I said two numbers together and they said the two numbers don't go together, it's number by number.
Speaker 4: Thank you. Thank you. Then go quarantine. You say machine. Maybe in dark in Long Beach. Then go to CBS. You. Vegas is to get on a Navy display. The tide is the highest. Good. So do we want to just give you tomato soup? That is so good. Korean potato may not be huge. We love romance music. I said you welcome me as possible, your bottom of calories. And as I said, I've been living.
Speaker 1: Here in Long Beach for 40 years. Can you all imagine that? I have three daughters and two of them were in the Navy after high school. They signed up and we had to sign for them because they were under 18. And we did sign. And they know that my husband and I vote every time that we can.
Speaker 4: Just volunteer for music. Is there anything else in your sentence and different deliveries? It can go on one house in Long Beach. Unforgettable assignment. I've been a volunteer for more than.
Speaker 1: 15 years in the senior center, and I've been a leader with Housing Long Beach for a bit more than three years.
Speaker 4: The middle this year, Daniels and Long Beach commu Camille Berman in which was pro lemon so much coastal is still not good apparently. See the first 17.
Speaker 1: Years in Long Beach we lived in fear and many, many problems. That is not fair and I don't want that for my daughters.
Speaker 4: It a program young everyone I lost you the noise would be silent. No protection, nothing. Lena's mom was my guitar in middle the report that I was wounded potato. But then in the central apartment.
Speaker 1: The inspection program that the city is proposing isn't enough. It doesn't protect the tenants. It's not going to take away our fear of reporting something that's wrong with our apartments.
Speaker 4: Senora Year, I remember you when you. I'm sorry. That's okay. This went off. We are all at senior center. This is how you see a little grass? Yes. Get all this year. Lazaro said you have to move members like you present this ghetto, those little Latino Maoris. Then I said today they would not work remotely nosotros my daughter's school homeowners. It was really shameless and suja.
Speaker 1: I would like to say you came several times at the senior center, and I'd like to say thank you for that. And I'd like to tell you and everybody here that the seniors, the older people we like to vote because we want to choose who represents us.
Speaker 4: In program are there is endemic corruption get them of mass protection but I don't think enough people I mean see could even I think.
Speaker 1: The program rip is our best option. We want more protection for the tenants. Also for my daughters who live here.
Speaker 4: Is but I'm not going to support you. And we hope.
Speaker 1: We hope that you support us. Thank you very much.
Speaker 0: Thank you.
Speaker 1: My name is Jennifer Wiseman. I'm the tenant attorney at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles in our Long Beach office. I am the only pro-bono tenant attorney in all of Long Beach without an attorney. A tenant is almost certain to lose at trial in an eviction case. And if a tenant loses at trial, the eviction will be on their credit record for ten years and is subject to renewal. This makes it near impossible to rent a safe apartment. The system isn't working for our Long Beach renters, as you have heard from other speakers this evening and in today's L.A. Times article, retaliation against tenants is real and it is happening. Every week. I counsel families who are being evicted from their homes after reporting substandard living conditions to their landlords and to code enforcement. The proactive rental housing inspection program or prep, as Ms.. Reynolds referred to it, does not address this key problem because it offers zero protections for tenants, even with prep retaliation will continue to occur. It is good that the city is codifying its inspection procedures, but this must mark the beginning of a conversation about improving the health and safety of rental housing in this city. Slumlords will continue to evade the city. The city's efforts if tenants are too scared to open doors for inspectors or to call code enforcement because they fear a retaliatory eviction. I believe that the city can do more both to protect tenants and to hold each and every slumlord accountable. And if the city wanted the code enforcement process to work, the city must do more to make tenants trust that they can work with code enforcement to fix their living conditions and not get evicted. This is vitally important because the only ways to get repairs under state law actually create an environment where retaliation is likely to occur . Option one under state law is to withhold the rent. Many tenants withhold rent because this is the state sanctioned way of getting the landlord to make repairs. Option number two under state law is to make the repairs and deduct the cost from rent. Both of these options result in the landlord receiving less than the full amount of rent, which then result in the landlord often retaliating against the tenant with an eviction. The system isn't working for Long Beach renters. A RIP ordinance would protect tenants from retaliation because it would create a safe harbor for tenants who complain about substandard living conditions. Current state law protections are very flimsy. Prep does not address any of these issues. More is needed to protect tenants who have done nothing wrong, wanted to live in safe housing and now have no home. We should not be a city where slumlords can continue bullying tenants and evading the city's code enforcement efforts. We need a system that works for Long Beach renters.
Speaker 0: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Good evening, Madam Vice.
Speaker 7: Mayor and members of the City Council. My name is Josh Butler and I'm the executive.
Speaker 2: Director for Housing Long Beach, and I thank you for discussing.
Speaker 7: This serious matter tonight. While it has been expressed by many people here tonight that the proposed ordinance falls short. We are encouraged to know that some council members feel the same way and housing Long Beach would encourage you. Housing Long Beach agrees.
Speaker 2: That this measure falls short. Homeowners and renters agree with us.
Speaker 7: Businesses and our partner organizations agree with us because.
Speaker 2: They endorsed a reef ordinance that doesn't let slumlords off the hook. This ordinance lets slumlords off the hook. Long Beach doesn't look good by having slumlords. But we look worse.
Speaker 7: For not.
Speaker 2: Doing anything about it. And it's shocking to me that so many people I here tonight that don't want to see us do anything, that want to let slumlords off the hook. I don't think that there are members of the department. I hope they're not members of the apartment association that are currently operating.
Speaker 7: As slumlords in the city. If they are.
Speaker 2: I hope they are expelled from that organization.
Speaker 7: People are recognizing, as we saw on the L.A. Times, people outside of Long Beach are starting to recognize that we have irresponsible landlords and we have people recognizing that we don't have enough tools in the toolbox to address those landlords. I would strongly encourage you to support Councilmember Gonzalez's.
Speaker 2: Amendments tonight.
Speaker 7: To strengthen this ordinance, because this is a start. As was the theme at last week's People say to the city that I know many of you were able to attend. We've come a long way, but we still have a very long way to go here.
Speaker 2: We have to recognize that we have people who are afraid to speak out about their living conditions for fear of reprisal. We have to recognize that we have good property owners like the ones who have endorsed our ordinance. But we also have to recognize that we have bad actors who continue to operate without regard for the.
Speaker 7: Health and safety of their tenants.
Speaker 2: As the new executive director of Housing Long Beach. I look forward to working with the community and our brave leaders to take on slumlords. And if we have to take on that fire directly into the streets, we will. We're prepared to. If the city is not prepared to assist us in our fight, we'll do it ourselves and we will lift our neighbors out of their despair because people don't deserve to live a fecal matter. non-Working facilities.
Speaker 7: Rats, mice. And we think the.
Speaker 2: Council members have taken the.
Speaker 7: Time to come out and see those conditions. And we strongly encourage you tonight to take measures to strengthen the rights of renters in the city of Long Beach. Thank you very much.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Josh.
Speaker 0: Good evening. First and foremost, I'd like to say thank you for your patience and hearing each of our individual stories. My name is Misty Cromwell. It's my first time here, and this is pretty much impromptu. However, it's very real. I could be your sister, your niece, your cousin, your coworker, your neighbor. In any event, I reside nearly elementary school. I am currently in the background for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. However, I do reside under the nonprofit corporation in partnership with the Multi-Service Center that due to their wrongful evictions and I say evictions, plural against me, I may have to withdraw. No candidate for the sheriff's department may be a part of any civil litigation. If I withdraw, it would make me have to postpone for one or two years. I'm 40 years old. I live with my partner and three year old Anita, our grandbaby. And it'd probably be a once in a lifetime opportunity that I would have to withdraw from the first eviction that they filed. Judgment was rendered in our favor due to uninhabitable, severe roach infestation, among other things, in which the Honorable Peter marriage did rule in our favor and reduced the rent 20%. At that time, we did render approximately $6,500 to the plaintiffs. On March 17th, St Patrick's Day, our granddaughter's birthday. However, on that same date, again, wrongfully and illegally, the plaintiff and the plaintiffs attorneys did document an additional three day notice to evict, claiming I owed a subsequent $800, which is false. There is no way I will render nearly $7,000. Take funds from my 401k to not pay $800. Their their complaints have no validity whatsoever. I'm trying to keep it. And with due time, my partner is 15 years. Her mother does own property. Therefore, we know what it takes and what can be good. These people are operating in no way under good faith. They are receiving federal exemptions, grants and subsidies to which if you're lacking the $75,000, you should unwind that deal with them and you'd have your money right there. And lastly, I would like to just state, among other things, are hearing is for the fifth and I was told if the civil litigation proceeds past the fifth, I would have to withdraw myself. And that's this Friday. The plaintiff's attorney did tell me that no matter how much money we do render and regardless of what the judgment is, they will file an additional subsequent 30 day notice against myself pursuing an additional eviction and credit judgment on myself, which will indefinitely make me ineligible for the Sheriff's Department that I've worked so hard for. A lasting and probably most appalling to you at the moment. Our three year old granddaughter is unable to take a bath currently because the hot water in the bathtub continues to run so scalding hot that we cannot put her in there. She's a brilliant young girl. Excuse me, Miss Thomas.
Speaker 2: Arch it. Time is out. Thank you very much. Could you do? My name is Hollis Stewart. I live at 115 West Fourth Street, also known as the Walker Building. I'm an owner of a loft there, and I'm speaking as a homeowner then, not as a tenant and not as a landlord, but as someone talking about justice in our society and the need for housing in a way where people can be able to have the decency and an honorable place to live so their children can grow up and go to the same school year after year, so that they can develop neighborhoods and community, so that they could turn out as really good children. And since I live in the First District or because I, I appreciate my my Representative Lena Gonzales and her work on this, and I do support those kind of amendments she's brought in, perhaps in the future that life should be looked at. But I think as a council, you have to really look at what is good for all at Long Beach. And that means having a city in which all the people can grow and flourish and feel like this is their place, you know, in the universe, this is their place in America. This is a place where they can live in democracy and with justice so that they, in fact, don't try and get their rights through tenants rights and then get evicted and and punished in some way so that they, in fact, cannot walk with their head up high and in happiness and where they have to worry about their children, perhaps getting more disease and things like that and when buildings aren't taken care of. And I agree the good landlords don't do that. But there are many landlords unfortunately, who are in it for the dollar, not just to be a service. And of course they all want to make a living from it. I mean, and we all do that in our work. But there's a difference between that and being very mercenary about it and trying to take away from the people that you are serving in order to serve yourself and only looking at your own needs. But when we look at community, as I said, we want stable neighborhoods where I live in the First District. I want that to be a stable area. When I walk over to the Cesar Chavez Center in the afternoon, in the mornings, I like walking through my neighborhood and I and I like feeling when I talk to people and say, hi, how are you doing? That they speak back and they feel with some confidence and I want to make sure that everyone can feel that way so that where I get as I'm getting old while I'm already old, I'm 75 years old. But as I get older in Long Beach, I want to continue to feel that I'm part of a community that is there for all the people tenants, homeowners, landlords, everyone, and that we can all live with pride in what we're doing. And I think this ordinance up here will help in this program. But I think that perhaps the relief program is a step you ought to look at in the future, because it is a problem for tenants. And I've been a tenant, too, by the way. I was only a loft owner recently and a homeowner recently, but before I've been a tenant and it can be very scary. I've also managed apartment buildings right here in Long Beach, and I did, I think, an admirable job. But I talked to other apartment owners and other apartment managers who much didn't care about the tenants. So thank you very much. Just do the right thing here and let's make this a really good city for everyone. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Good evening, Vice Mayor. Council members. My name is Mike Murchison. I'm here on behalf of the Apartment Association. I want to welcome George Butler back to the City Fold. Josh, it's been a while and I think for the first time one of the few times Josh and I are pretty much on the same page. I say that because neither one of us supports slumlords. The Apartment Association doesn't support slumlords housing, Long Beach doesn't support slumlords. I want that to be crystal clear. I also want to be crystal clear that there's been a lot of articles by our local media that have not fairly characterized everything on behalf of the apartment association. They've mentioned these landlords to you all. None of the people that were indicated in those articles that are landlords are members of the apartment association. None of them. The Apartment Association's been around for a very long time. They do very good work. They do an awful lot of outreach. They're trying to figure out the best way possible to support the tenants. Yes, this ordinance is something that we support. Yes, we do support.
Speaker 7: Lena's first three parts of her motion.
Speaker 2: I'm looking forward to the rest of her motions. I'm sure it's coming here in a couple of minutes. There are a couple.
Speaker 7: Of areas I want to call attention to. We support the outreach programs. We support measures that the council will like to take against landlords that are over.
Speaker 2: 120 days late. We want to give you, as Josh referenced, more tools in the toolbox. We support collecting empirical data. We want you also to have city staff to have that data so they can present it to.
Speaker 7: You, present to all of us. We know what's going on. We do believe that there's any discussion of increasing fees.
Speaker 2: It should be referred to the housing committee. I can't say that. Stronger finally. And I think where we're all at is we believe that for lobbies to succeed, for landlords and tenants to work together, we need to continue to communicate. So I look forward to talking with Josh in the future. I look forward to hearing from all of you. And I believe that the apartment association has made every effort to. Come forward to you folks and say, hey, what can we do to support you? We look forward to being part of that solution. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 6: Good evening, Vice Mayor. Council members.
Speaker 0: Staff and my neighbors. Well, once my neighbors.
Speaker 6: My name is Vanessa Davis, and I've addressed you guys before. But let me refresh you on my story. I was asked to leave my apartment when I when I went through all the proper channels I was supposed to. I talked to my landlord verbally. I then decided to only do it. Written emails only told him he could not contact me over the phone. And after I've been fed up for a year, I called code enforcement. They came through. They made documentations. They cited him. Then I was issued a rent increase. 30 day notice. 60 day notice. He even came to me and asked me, did you call the code enforcement on me? Yes, I did. So he intimidated me in front of my face in my home.
Speaker 0: After that.
Speaker 6: I got the grand eviction notice. Yeah, I won because it was dropped once I came in with my stack of papers from the coat inspection, but I still had to move because I couldn't fight the 60 day notice. Did you know that landlords can give you a 60 day notice for no reason at all and you have to move. You cannot question it and you cannot fight it. So you say that we have these regulations for anti retaliation, but when the landlord is saying, Oh, it's not because she called code enforcement, then what leg do I have to stand on? Do you know that I had to go to court myself.
Speaker 0: I had to file a small.
Speaker 6: Claims and go to Downey and go in front of a courtroom. Would a judge they had nothing to do with Long Beach. He knew nothing about Long Beach. And who won? The landlord did. So why am I not a neighbor of you guys? Because I became homeless. I had to live in my car.
Speaker 0: I lived in my car for 19 months. And I love this city. I've been here for 12 years. I graduated the Neighborhood Leadership Program. I volunteered in so many ways in this city. I clean up the beach. I plant trees. And you guys have felt me. This program. Please show me, Rip.
Speaker 7: Good evening, Vice Vice Mayor. Council members and everyone in this room. My name is Miguel Angel Romero. I have attended Garfield Elementary Stephens Middle School and Milliken High School. I have over 100 family members currently living in City of Long Beach, where the WHO are both tenants and owners. I've been in the property management industry for 13 years. I assist with managing property in L.A. County, which include properties in Long Beach. I'm a professional property management professional. I am. I'm certified by the California Association of Realtors. And if I may ask. Define slumlord. Is it the landlord who refuses to change the light bulb, or is it the landlord who refuses to fix a broken toilet? Or is it the landlord who was tired of fixing tenant cost damages? I would ask the council to define slumlord and where its tenants can relate and pass it on to the tenants of this great city so they can be protected. Now I ask who is going to protect the property owners from slum tenants? Question Please define and provide property owners with a definition so they know and they also that they are also protected. We should put an end to this tenant versus owner mentality. It takes an effort of all sides to make it happen. We need to assist owners and tenants to come together and work together. I support this inspection bill, Henry Ford said. Coming together is the beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together exists. Thank you.
Speaker 2: I met the mayor, vice mayor, councilmembers again to Gary Shelton. You know, let's let's stipulate that. Renters. I mean, the landlords association, the Apartment Owners Association doesn't have slumlords in its membership or that if it does, they're not welcome there. We can stipulate that. I think we're talking about a whole different crowd of folks. Let's also look at what was in the staff report in the year 1966, 59 years ago. Now, 49 years ago, let's say 50 years ago, this was an issue that the city council acted on then. And I bet it wasn't suddenly in front of them. I bet it took a long time before they finally took action then. And here we are 50 years later, talking about the same thing. I would ask you, how many more stories do you have to hear before you start to put some teeth in what these people are asking you to do? It has baby teeth in it, but you need teeth in there that will gnaw on these landlords and force them into compliance. And you've got the chance to do it, but not with what the staff has brought you here tonight. What housing Long Beach has been talking about for some time is the REAP program and don't be confused with the P rip thing because that doesn't have teeth. I was on the board of Housing in Long Beach for a number of years. I've had to do other things since then. I'm a proud member of my community right here in the First District. I guess we're in the second district here. But right outside those windows, you know. And. I think you're going to be hearing one more story. I think there's one more person in line behind me. Maybe that will be the tipping point. For each of you to say, you know, this is not the ordinance we need to pass tonight. I appreciate that the council member from the first District has tried to put some extra safeguards in there. With all due respect. It's not enough. Thank you. Hello. My name is Malcolm Armstrong. I'm a landlord here in Long Beach. I owned 24 units, and I think it's perfectly fine. The thing that has been suggested by staff. But I do ask you not to get into our business. You know, when you buy 24 units in Long Beach today, you can pay approximately $4 million and up. So the investor the landlord is putting in 25%, at least of that, you can't get a loan for more than 75%. So if you buy a building for 4 million, you're putting in $1 million. Now, I would suggest to you that any sensible person is going to try and protect that $1 million that has been invested. And 99.9% of landlords do exactly that. Quite apart from the fact that most of us are ethical and take pride in presenting people with nice living quarters, it's in our interest to keep our properties in good condition. So yes, do have more penalties for those very few .00 7% of landlords in Long Beach who simply do not correct the bad conditions. Please do not start getting into a financial thing by telling tenants that they can pay a lower rent because conditions are this. You're going to have all the bad tenants in the city calling you up, requesting lower rent, and blaming landlords for the conditions they create. You know, we very often rehabilitate a unit, put in new carpet, fresh paint upgrades all over the place. And if we get a bad tenant in 3 to 6 months, that place looks like something down on the Los Angeles River. So, you know, there is another side to this. And I've been a renter for most of my life. I know very well that that things can be tough for renters. But please don't get into having the money into the city and you know what's going to happen. You're going to have a big bureaucracy attached to this and the money that the rent is going to put money in less than their regular rent. The administrative costs are going to be eating that money up like mad. What little comes back to the landlord in those circumstances? They're not going to be able to pay their mortgage, the taxes, their insurance, their utilities, their maintenance, their repairs, etc., etc.. So it's really important to let us carry on doing it.
Speaker 0: Thank you.
Speaker 4: We went on notice, he told me, Nebraska, hear me now on this.
Speaker 1: Good evening to everybody. My name is Gear Mina Fernandez.
Speaker 4: You'll be well-known. Edificio Apartamento, Yola. Not if you can. My yet another look at Mazara. Not any more magnate property.
Speaker 1: And I live in a building with eight apartments. I notify the manager of everything that happens there, but it's only on the phone. We don't have a manager there.
Speaker 4: Which advisor? List? Vega Manuel. Manager. The Los Problemas Italo? Yes. The American. The Merry, the repent, amigo. Karnataka, the like. Notification this. Isn't that the paradise? Aloha.
Speaker 1: And then many times when I was calling the manager and suddenly the manager showed up with a 60 day eviction notice.
Speaker 4: Your lady has Jonas as he took away and cannot take care of me. Apartamento. You must help me. They must be a job. Then go sing on your side. Better you'll be below. Sign your congrats.
Speaker 1: And I said I need you to check on the apartment. Not just my apartment, but all of them. I've been there for five years, but I lived with rats for two years.
Speaker 4: But in this list we amando Mira. I regret, said Mimi trabajo. The rector really meant Contreras Autonomy. Casals, la rosa. A lot of my.
Speaker 1: Quigley And sometimes I would call and I would say, look, I came home from work in Victorville and I found a mouse and it smells and he took it as a joke.
Speaker 4: You American. The Tuscan premier salamander. Mr. Armando can I says it's almost impersonal, I wonder. Recklessness as it almost robotic. The lava suddenly says it impairment. Larry Fazio, do you say I'm at the unless cancel.
Speaker 1: And then one time he called me and said, look, you always need us to be cleaning, cleaning the laundry room, trash cans, you need us to clean up. And I'm sick of it.
Speaker 4: Young lady, pick up your thing. I think I most animals that I told I can also trust our most honest renter estara most stubborn with background on restaurant that all us Nussbaum was viviendo gratis eat ghetto necessity necesitamos we appear to be in 4k ninos.
Speaker 1: And I said The reason I'm calling is because we all have the right. We pay we pay rent there, all of us. We're not living there for free and we need to live in a good place. There are children.
Speaker 4: When the Ebola cartel closes. Entry as animal entry. Why me? No, Malala. Hawaii, the brother in law.
Speaker 1: And when he brought me the 60 day notice, he didn't even give it to me. He just left it there. Thrown on the floor.
Speaker 4: Eva Ugandan touch. Hillary Holy baby says hi la senora literature. Nagasaki. Yes. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And there was a girl coming. He said, you let the lady know there's a letter there. That way she knows.
Speaker 4: I'm coming this holiday. Not even you. Nagata Specific El Motivo Simplemente el medico mpg rental losses Antalya. There was a this girl Apartamento.
Speaker 1: And he never told me the reason. It doesn't say a reason in the letter he just said You're going to pay me rent for 60 days and then I want the apartment.
Speaker 4: You met your Lady Hickey. You'll Necessita I'm not going to go anywhere. That poor will not see another Emery No, I stay. L No, I'll get it. Apartamento Apartamento low person autonomously allocated Rio de Janeiro la canal regional not in as a Rachel, not goodness, not out to go work on the loan.
Speaker 1: You and I said I want to talk to the owner because you don't do anything. And he said, no, he just wants your apartment. And I said, Why there, let me talk to him. And he said, no, you don't have a right to talk to him up.
Speaker 4: Were able scaling up a la fondation la in Dallas tonight.
Speaker 1: Yolanda and I looked for help. I went to the neighborhood foundations and they're helping me yesterday.
Speaker 4: What are your keys? He rekindles his kitchen atlas. Personal photos, estamos noi Samuel Viviendo gratis estamos bargains on the you see him on the Rachel's Common Cleaners.
Speaker 1: And tonight, I want you to hear from all of us. We're not living for free. We pay rent and we demand rights as renters.
Speaker 4: Apathetic and or strengthen apartheid can also rattle must not noise then on the masses, not in and not in an motivos por corcoran on the mass Pakistan almost sexy Hindu and also Wrigley.
Speaker 1: And besides arenas badly they don't even have to have reasons it's they're just doing it because we're demanding that they.
Speaker 0: Fix things.
Speaker 4: In which all the laws the laws Senators Carrington Taylor, Lauren Terrell at a munich C no less baguette por Qatar. Qatar, Caracas, Eliasson arsenal regular ace getting less per game.
Speaker 1: And many of those that rent to us, they demand that one pays when something is.
Speaker 4: Fixed by ECOMOG union dollars.
Speaker 1: And I'm telling you that because I already paid like $500.
Speaker 4: S.A.T.s, he he must get a handle. So I get this and I'll see you there. You see, Ramos had then it connected to Saddam, which had recently televised, must argue almost and also escalating.
Speaker 1: And tonight I'm here demanding and asking that you hear us and help us. If we have to come back and come back, we will until you do hear us.
Speaker 4: Get us. Yes.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 3: I'd like to I'd like to thank all the speakers that came forward. And prior to calling council members from the Q, I wanted to call on Council Member Councilwoman Gonzalez to perhaps make a couple of clarifying statements.
Speaker 1: I think everybody for their comments. I think it's you know, we've certainly heard you loud and clear. We understand where you're coming from. I certainly do. And it's it's just good to have this discussion and to to shed light a little bit more so on on what you're dealing with every single day. I have to. Just wanted to ask a couple of questions of our staff. So I had two men. I had requested an amendment for the State Franchise Tax Board program. Can you clarify that? So everyone understands what that means for us as far as including that in the ordinance?
Speaker 9: Certainly when we submitted some information to the City Council as part of the two from four and as part of the housing element, we had heard about the State Franchise Tax Board Housing Program. It is a program that allows state and local agencies the ability to issue determinations that a property is substandard, and this determination actually disallows income tax deductions for rental units that are determined to be substandard. And so this program, if we are to implement that as part of this ordinance, we would be after the 120 day period. There is an appeal period as well within the city. There would be a hearing board, which would probably be the Board of Examiners Appeals and condemnations, which already exists to deal with building code violations. Once the appeals process has run its course, we have the ability to submit the address and of the offending location to this program. And the state actually withholds any income tax deductions that that property owner gets as running that for a business. They are not allowed to to apply for the income tax deductions until the program. They are released from their program and they don't get released from the program until the local agency designates that they're in compliance. So there are some significant penalties to rental property owners who are taking income tax deductions on their rental properties.
Speaker 1: Okay. And then I also had mentioned the Third Amendment was the increasing the frequency after 30 days and also potentially accelerating the case to the prosecutor's office if it is a life and imminent danger to health and safety. Can you go over that a little bit more?
Speaker 9: As certainly it looks like I laid out a process as I understood it, in order for us to get to the hundred and 20 days before we can submit to the State Franchise Tax Board. But we have had previous conversations recently with the city prosecutor who has indicated a willingness that there if there is a an egregious property that is truly life threatening, that he would begin prosecution concurrently with any of our citation process. So it would be a concurrent process. We would not have to wait for the 30 days to be over before we started our citations. If we felt, based on the expertize of our building inspectors, that it was a life safety issue, it could immediately be turned over to the prosecutor's office and they would be willing to to consider that case.
Speaker 1: Can you give me some examples of what that would be? What would a life for, you know, health and safety, imminent danger be so people understand exactly what could be sped up to the city prosecutor's office even before 30 days, certainly 30 days.
Speaker 9: You know, a building that has a substandard roof where there's holes in the roof that you can actually see through the roof, there's holes in the floor and you can see through the flooring. Clearly, something that does not have running utilities is a significant concern to us as well. Those are truly health and life safety issues to us. We many years ago had a significant backlog of substandard buildings that were truly, truly substandard. And we don't have that level that we used to have, but we do still have buildings that have significant issues that would still be considered eligible for immediate prosecution.
Speaker 1: Okay. Thank you for clarifying that. And then I will make a few other points of clarification and add a few more things if I can. I think it's important we look at Triplexes. I know that that has been a hot topic. Bit of discussion. But I think if we were able to come back in a I mean, I don't know if it's 60 days or so, whatever, you think it would be sufficient to come back and have some more information on that as to how many triplexes we have and the data around that, I think that would be really important for us to do that.
Speaker 9: We can look into that. What we don't have right now is a process under business license where we treat them as a business. So if we were to look into this, are you suggesting that we would also modify the business license process so that they would also become a business?
Speaker 1: I would just like to look at this. I would just like the data to see exactly how many triplexes we have and what we're working with and in the beginning.
Speaker 9: Okay, we can do that.
Speaker 1: I also think I mean, on the slumlord note, for lack of a better word, I think landlords that are bad actors, in my opinion, need to be publicized. And I've run this back and forth. And I think it's very important that people that are living in deplorable conditions. Clearly, these landlords are making a profit. These people are making a profit. They're making a profit while putting nothing into their units. No additional repairs. They're unresponsive. They may have had lines. They may be at 120 days or more, and they're wasting city resources, clearly. Now, with that said, they're making a significant negative impact on the city and their tenants. So I would like to look into publicizing our our bad landlord list. I know that there's a list of about ten so far. I don't know if there's more. There may be. But I'd like to know how we can roll this out.
Speaker 9: Certainly we can. I know that the prosecutor worked closely with the city attorney's office to publish a list of folks who were soliciting, but those were after they were convicted. I would suggest we'd need to work with the city attorney's office and the city prosecutor's office to understand what level of notification we would have to give before we could post them. We do have information. You know, all of our information is public. So we do have the ability to run reports on how many cases we have that are over 120 days, etc.. So I think we can probably craft something with the city attorney and not have to wait that long in order to do that.
Speaker 1: Right. I mean, we're I mean, we've seen it in other cities there faces, you know, the. I don't know to what extent we could include, you know, what what type of information. But I think it'd be important that we include something on our city website, maybe some other avenues with housing. Long Beach, another apartment association with a lot of outreach. And in terms of who these people are and not to do business in the city of Long Beach like that.
Speaker 9: I would say that, you know, the information that we do have is certainly public. So it would include the address case numbers, what the initial violations were, the date of those initial violations, etc.. So that is public information. I think we can work with the city attorney's office to mine that data and come back to you with a suggestion on on what the appropriate timeline would be for us posting that information.
Speaker 1: That would be great if it came back with the information as well as the Triplexes. And then lastly, I think just as we're on the eve of budget budget discussions, I think it's important that we do look a little bit more deeply at our data collection. I don't know if our tracking system is necessarily as mentioned. I will agree as well. I've asked for reports and it's not very clear as to who we've gone to, who we visited, what the contact was. I think it's beneficial for both the landlord and the tenant to know. Maybe if someone didn't answer their door what the what all the fine details are. And so I would like to just for us to consider that in our budget discussions as to what we can do and what is possible for a better data system.
Speaker 9: We can certainly talk about the existing capabilities of our system and how we can try to grow that. It is very challenging for us to do reports that are that remain in the system. You know, once we close the case, the case is closed and those reports no longer consider that address when you're looking at, for example , open cases. So so the numbers of our cases are frankly constantly in motion as we open new cases and close old cases. So we can certainly look at ways to enhance that.
Speaker 1: Okay, great. Thank you very much.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Councilmember Your Honor.
Speaker 10: Thank you, Mayor. Lina, I want to thank you for your diligence in this. Those other items that you mentioned, there are those amendments also that you want to include in the in the current.
Speaker 1: I'm asking for the triplexes and the slumlord information to just come back as a as information. So not necessarily amendments to the ordinance, but just information to come back and the molasses, just a consideration as we get into budget season. Okay.
Speaker 10: Thank you. While we know that this is a very difficult issue, it's one that has merits on both sides of the aisle here, as I see it right here. But one of the most important things that we have to deal with as as a city council is what do we think is the best and fair way to be able to treat this? We're dealing with human lives. We're dealing with people's lives. We're dealing with their ability to live, and then also with the ability of people to make a profit. But in the end, it's a public health issue as far as I see it, when it comes down to inspections with not only inspecting the living conditions, but it's the deplorable or the living conditions that are there in terms of mold, in terms of vermin, in terms of what other kind of infestation that might be existing in these properties. And I think that one of the things that we lost a few years ago is, is the ability to have health inspectors be a part of this process. I spoke with our IRA with Angela. And I want to thank you very much and. Reynolds for sharing her thoughts with me on this. However, I think that when we transferred the ability of the health department to make inspections in housing, I think we lost a very important component in regards to inspections experts, people who are trained to recognize the living conditions that people might be living in, to recognize mold and just be able to recognize, actually, that a landlord may have just cleaned it up and painted over it and still be able to recognize that there's mold is still there, still existing, that it's not it has not been mitigated and it has not been addressed. I also am concerned, other health issues concerned as well. We know that a lot of the housing elements that we have are old and there's probably a lot of lead based paint still existing in a lot of these apartment buildings because they haven't been repainted in a long time. There was someone earlier said that when they put their property up for sale, they did absolutely no investment in it. They didn't do anything. And so that raises a flag in terms of what had what have they done to that apartment or rental unit that makes them believe that they can sell it as is and still make a profit out of it. So I'm really concerned about that. And I want to thank the housing people and the coalition for their willingness to come and meet with me and share their thoughts. I visited a an apartment in seventh District, and I witnessed firsthand some of the deplorable conditions that these people live in. I saw open water. I saw water coming in through next to the outlets, electrical outlets. I saw mold and I saw droppings of not only rat or mice, but of cockroaches and other type of infestations that that are in the houses. And that was just deplorable. And my heart goes out to those tenants who have to live in those deplorable conditions. On the other hand, I know that, you know, we can't throw the baby with the bathwater in respect to apartment owners. They're not all bad. We're talking about the very low percentage of bad land, bad land owners at the apartment, owners who have been taking advantage of their tenants and do not want to take care of their their facilities in their apartments because they're looking at the profit margin. And when it cuts into that, they're not going to do anything about it because it's all about being able to make rent or make their mortgage because they do have payments to make as well. So I could see both sides. And I want to thank them. The Apartment Manager Association as well for meeting with me and sharing their viewpoints and their thoughts. It's not perfect what we're dealing with today. I want to thank you, Councilmember Gonzalez, for bringing these amendments to the table. I think it's something that moves us in a positive direction. It's not reap. Let's face it that that's not what we're dealing with tonight. We want it. You want it? Fine. However, we can't get there. Not tonight, but at least I think that with these amendments, we're getting closer to something that's going to be amenable later on down the line as we move forward with this. I think that when we're looking at how do we want to place Long Beach in regards to this issue, I would like I would like language in everything that we do. I want Long Beach to be a leader in everything that we have. This is one step towards that. I think it's a it's a step that would be headed towards the right direction because it s addressing the issues at hand. It's addressing potential punishments, if you will, for slumlords with the the state franchise board, the tax board program. It's not rep and it's not an escrow, but it's something that gives it teeth. Maybe not. Maybe they're baby teeth that maybe they'll fall off as you take the first bite. But it's something that I think is workable and that can be used to send the message because that's what we want. I think in the end, we want to send a message to to to those the bad landlords, bad owners that we're we're looking and we're paying attention and we're going to come after you if you're not if you're if you're misbehaving. And I think that's the message that we need to send. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Councilman Andrews?
Speaker 2: Yes, thank you, Vice Mayor. You know, I would like to thank the staff for their hard work on filling in the holes and finding solutions to our miserable code that protects residents from terrible living conditions and some apartment. I would like to thank the Apartment Association for their efforts to help bring about positive change and working with us to promote the very small community of property owners who do not care for their properties and protecting the rights of the vast majority of good property owners. And I'd like to thank Mr. Murchison here to explain a lot of things with both the property owners and and the slumlords that we speak about. They're not here tonight. You have individuals who really care about their property and care about the people who live in their property. And I think that's something I really want to commend both of you here to listen to both sides with the dialog that we can use here, because tonight is letting us know that we do have some bad guys out there. And I think we're going to find them. We're going to seek you out and let you know that people do have a right to live in decent places. And I would like to thank the Councilmember, Lina Gonzalez, for helping with her passion and leadership on this issue. And I support you Motion. And I would like to also thank the community groups and housing of Long Beach for working so hard on this issue and helping the community. And I feel the pain. I see your challenge and I hear your cry. I have firsthand experience in working with the properties that are in terrible conditions. My hope is that we are making a significant change that will help make it better for men, women, children and seniors who have no choice but to live in these conditions. If the City of Long Beach can't protect them, then who will? I'll be watching this and I'll be continuing the dialog to ensure all of Long Beach. It has a right to stay in their homes in a safe and free from the conditions I have seen firsthand. And I want to thank all of you to come out tonight, because I know it's been a long night, but you have come out with your sincerity, your honesty, and hoping that we can find a better place for all of us to live in. And thank you very much.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Councilmember Andrews, Councilwoman Price.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I agree with my colleagues and Councilman Andrews on the statements that he just made. I, too, want to thank everyone for coming out. I've had the privilege to meet with so many of you who are out in the audience every time you've requested a meeting on the subject. I've had the opportunity to meet with you and have in fact met with you and been educated on the issues. So I appreciate everyone coming out and taking the time to not only educate but also to collaborate. My very first meeting with Housing Long Beach, and I know that at least one of the folks who was in the meeting with me, I said the first thing I said is, have you met with the apartment association? Is that something that you're open to doing? Because I think when the two groups work together, we can come up with reasonable and meaningful areas where we can reach an agreement on that are realistic given our fiscal limitations. You know, I know that housing Long Beach has pushed for and really wanted us to adopt REAP. I get that. And that's been the position of housing Long Beach from day one. My personal viewpoint on it is that rape is not warranted in the city of Long Beach. It's not fiscally or legally feasible for us. Given the information that I have and that I've received from our staff and just so you know, I have personally met with staff, city attorney staff on two occasions and our development services staff on I can't even count how many times I've met with them to talk about this and ask them the follow up questions that both organizations have asked me to act to, to take back and and research. So I've done that. And I appreciate that staff's work on this and the fact that they've been so incredibly responsive and educational in their in their approach. So I want to thank them for their work as well. I want to thank Councilwoman Gonzalez for the amendments that she's made today. I think that the amendments really go to the heart of what it is that we're able to do as a city, as the city of Long Beach, given the current problem as we know it to exist. And what that means is that the amendments that the councilwoman has proposed specifically target the individuals who are out of compliance, and that minority of individuals who are out of compliance should in fact be held to a different standard, and they should be targeted and penalized in order to serve as a deterrent for future bad actions on their part. You know, we have an issue comes up all the time in the city of Long Beach, especially in those neighborhoods that have a lot of bars and restaurants where people want to approach an entire industry with broad strokes. And I think that that is not prudent because I think that in every industry and in every field and in every type of business, you're going to have good actors and you're going to have bad actors. And it's really important to incentivize and empower and support the good actors because. They are, in fact, investing in our community and helping our community be better and to really go after the bad actors, either through peer pressure or through sanctions, in order to deter their future conduct. So I think that the idea of putting them on this, you know, along beaches, most out of compliance landlords, I don't know what they're going to call it, but I think that that making that a very public access document or public access system that allows for people to see that these individuals are in fact not being responsible landlords is important. I think the frequency of fees is important. So I support those completely and I think outreach is very important from the very beginning. The one issue that's concerned me is obviously retaliation. You know, we don't want people to feel retaliated against. That to me is the one issue that really speaks to me. We want people to have the right to advocate for themselves and to protect themselves and their family and to really do what they can within their rights to utilize the city's resources. So and they should not be retaliated against. That is absolutely a fundamental right. And I think that that to me is the one piece that housing Long Beach has reiterated to me that really resonates with me. I think outreach is going to go a long way in that regard, communicating with not just the landlords but also the tenants and whatever effective way that we can to educate them on what their rights are is very, very important. And I also think that it's important for us to be mindful that that is happening and that people might be afraid to reach out for whatever reason, whether it's cultural, whether it's linguistic, whatever the case may be, so that we could be a little bit more proactive when it comes to that. I also support Councilwoman Gonzalez's request for staff to study further and come back to council with some more information for us or propose solutions on some of the items that she's requested. I think asking staff to research things is really great. It's good for us to have the information. It's good for us to know what is available as we move forward. So I think that's very good. I will say in regards to Triplexes, probably a bit premature, but we have a lot of Triplexes in the city of Long Beach and I would preliminarily not think it would be fiscally prudent or otherwise prudent for us to change the business license structure as they relate to the TRIPLEXES and require them to have a different business license structure. So, you know, we'll wait and see what that data shows. But I am in favor of studying the issue and getting more information because I think as a council we make better decisions when we have more information. So I commend her for those recommendations. Just make sure I said everything. And I welcomed the new leadership for housing Long Beach. So welcome. I think one of the things that is most effective in advocacy is not just to be, you know, a loud advocate, but also to be an effective advocate. And so I really respect the fact that you're open to collaborating and working with both sides in order to reach some solutions. Because I can tell you, anytime reasonable solutions are presented to us, we consider them. We absolutely do. So welcome and thank you.
Speaker 3: Councilmember Alston.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 11: And this has been a very, very interesting to take in. I want to thank all of the speakers, speakers from the housing advocates. I want to thank the landlords, the property owners who came before us and spoke out and shared all of your perspectives, your firsthand perspectives and knowledge on this issue. Much of the testimony was was extremely compelling. And I just want to also thank staff for their their very thorough staff report on this. This was, I think, some of the best work that I've seen, and it was truly collaborative work. The Apartment Association were collaborators. I know the housing Long Beach were stakeholders in this process. This final report, the staff report may not be what everybody wants. And I'm sure what ultimately what this council decides here tonight won't be what everybody won't leave here happy. I think nobody's going to get exactly what they wanted when they came here tonight. And if that's the case, this council's probably done its job or will have done its job. I want to thank Councilmember Nina Gonzales for her thoughtful and compassionate amendments or suggestions, her leadership on this issue. I don't think the action tonight will solve the the problems of bad landlords and substandard housing, but we will, I think, take a step in the right direction this evening. We're going to take a step in the right direction this evening because of much of the advocacy from housing Long Beach and many of the residents who have come and shared their personal testimony over months and months and months. We want to thank you for your vigilance. I think some of the solutions here this evening are are good and certainly palatable. They take us in the right direction. I still have a few questions I'm really interested in. And the state of California, franchise tax board, the substandard housing program. It's not ripe, but it has all the mechanisms in place. It's already in place. It doesn't cost the city of Long Beach anything. And if you've heard anything tonight from the previous agenda items, we're thinking about our budget always. We're thinking about cost. We're thinking about long term costs because we want to be able to continue to provide and be the great city that we are and provide the services that we currently provide. And so we need to look at creative options. And I think this the Franchise Tax Board Substandard Housing program is an excellent suggestion by staff and is something that definitely merits everyone's consideration. It's it's real leverage. It it it will, I think, force a bad actor to to to to change their behavior. I'm not sure that we've addressed the retaliation issue here this evening, and that's unfortunate. I wish we could come up with something, something else. And and I've been kind of racking my brain to figure that out. But I think we do need to continue to do this. And by no means do I think this conversation will be over tonight. I don't think our action tonight will will will be a panacea for for for for any problems. But I do think we're headed in the right direction. I'm not sure. Maybe the conversation should be about more code enforcement officers, and we still need to have that conversation. And maybe that's something we think about moving forward. I think, Councilmember, your longest comments were pretty telling regarding the training of these officers and and and maybe we need to invest more in that direction. But at this point, based on what everything that I've heard, all of the analysis and there has been serious, significant detailed analysis on this, there's been hours and hours and hours and months and months and months of staff work on this. They've studied where RIP works, and from my analysis, it's only one city that actually is implementing REAP and it actually has. And that's the city of Los Angeles. If it was the the the answer, so many other cities would be doing it. It's costly. And I think that is. What, what what what what is giving this council great pause is certainly giving me pause. Slumlords and gave property owners a bad name. But you give tenants a bad quality of life. We don't want to we want to expose ourselves slumlords. We want to penalize the slumlords. But I think we also need to, as Councilmember Price said. We want to create incentives for those who are doing the right thing, and that's probably the vast majority of property owners. And so with that, I would ask my colleagues if you would, as in the makers of the motion, to take a friendly amendment offer for the report that is being requested of staff of additional elements to also look at developing a system for landlords that establishes a history of no violations and no complaints over a certain period of time to require these proactive inspections less frequently, you know, maybe every two or three years, as opposed to annually. And then that by doing that, creating that kind of incentive, maybe you, the bad actors, further into compliance. Maybe they look at, well, if I'm not going to be inspected every year, maybe if I if I want to reduce the amount of inspections, I clean my property up and and you know that Denison it could work was that would that be would you be amenable to that?
Speaker 3: Councilmember Soprano or Mango.
Speaker 11: And this is essentially providing incentives for the good landlords.
Speaker 2: So 24 months in addition to what we currently have.
Speaker 11: In the works. I mean, I'm asking staff to come back. They can come.
Speaker 2: Back and say.
Speaker 11: Okay, the number, I'm not necessarily asking to assign that number or that tonight, but.
Speaker 3: So it's a reward system for positive correct action.
Speaker 2: Like that of.
Speaker 11: Reinforcement.
Speaker 7: Councilmember Austin, is that a request for information back with the other items or cause that part of the ordinance?
Speaker 11: I think that's a request for information. Back with the other items. That is what I'm asking for. Thank you.
Speaker 3: In the maker in the second term, Annabelle.
Speaker 11: Thank you. Yes. So I did have a couple of questions and I just wanted to get some clarification because a lot has been said about our our rental stock throughout the city of Long Beach. And I want to I want to make sure that I'm clear and everybody else watching and participating here are clear. Do Section eight properties apply to this this inspection process?
Speaker 9: Section eight inspections are part of the health department. Still, when Section eight, when a landlord is going to participate in the Section eight program, the health department inspectors for the housing authority actually go out there and inspect the units prior to allowing the landlord to participate in the Section eight program. There are times when there is overlap and when that landlord is no longer up keeping the property to the standards which he should. But. But when a property is entered into the program, there are inspections for that program. And as I understand it, they are pretty regular inspections as well.
Speaker 11: Okay. Thank you. And part of the recommendations is to develop a tenant landlord rights and responsibilities brochure is that posture is the city going to assume the costs for that brochure, creating that brochure and providing that to to landlords to provide the tenants?
Speaker 9: We actually have drafts of the brochures that we shared with housing advocates and the apartment owners advocates to run the the language by both of those entities to make sure that we were not speaking out of turn, both from a landlord perspective and from a tenant perspective. We are intending to translate those in accordance with the language access program and that is being absorbed into the departmental budget.
Speaker 11: Okay. Thank you. I have no further questions.
Speaker 3: Councilmember Richardson.
Speaker 5: Thank you, Vice Mayor. So I wanted to begin by thanking everyone who participated in tonight's council meeting, beginning with the community members. I know you've been here time and time again. Josh, I think this this suits you well. You're a part of the former chief of staff fraternity like like me. And I'm glad to see you here, continuing this great work in the city of Long Beach. I want to thank the property owners for coming out. I was really surprised to see how many actually joined us tonight. You've reached out to my office and met with me and answer my questions and and I've had the opportunity to engage with you. I want to thank city staff for working on this and keeping us abreast on what what the realities are with with the realities with our existing program. I acknowledge that there are bad landlords and there are bad tenants. There were a few things that came up tonight that I think I just want to want to remark on. Someone mentioned, you know, to be a property owner of apartment buildings, you have to make $1,000,000 investment. Now, I can't necessarily identify with that, but I can't imagine that that's more impactful than that or more concerning than an investment someone makes in the in the life or the health of their family that lives in substandard housing. I can't I can't say that just because one is wealthy, you have more or less of an interest in the condition of that of that facility. I would also say that I like the approach and thank you, Councilmember Gonzalez, and asking for more information, because I think this is a long term conversation. I don't think the housing advocates are going anywhere. I don't think the concept is going to go anywhere. But that does bring me to the question of Mr. City manager. When is our next bite at the apple? Should this information come back? And we say that there are elements that we want to look, move forward with. When is our next bite at the apple?
Speaker 7: I think we're councilmember. We're being directed to come back to the council and with studies to look at Triplexes and will be regularly reporting on this. Again, it's going to come back to probably in just a few weeks for the first year. And the ordinance.
Speaker 5: Well, to be to be more more specific. Is there anything specific in the ordinance about this coming back for annual update or anything like that?
Speaker 7: We can certainly provide an annual update to the city offline, to the city council offline. And that is probably something that would be very, very important to do, maybe even at a six month level to know.
Speaker 5: I think like in an open session, I think we need to check this out like annually. We need an annual update on this. That's what I that's what I think. So that we, you know, these these conversations have a specific space. And I was under the impression that we already had that there was an annual update to the housing habitability ordinance. Can anybody speak to that?
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think amiibo that count.
Speaker 9: So as part of our work plan for the housing element, we are required to provide an annual report to both the Planning Commission and the City Council, and then that is actually provided to the state which keeps it online. We are required to report on all of our programmatic activities and this activity with our proactive code enforcement and cut enforcement in general actually falls under a specific program within our housing element. So we are required to file that report April 1st of every year. So it goes to the Planning Commission roughly February of March every year, and then we transmit that information to the City Council. We have the annual number of inspections that we do. Certainly this next year we will actually be reporting that we've actually implemented an ordinance and any other changes that we might be making to our inspection program. But there is an annual vetting of the program already.
Speaker 5: Perfect. So again, there were updates tonight. There was things that folks requested for information to come back. I think, you know, the community asked for RIP City staff, worked with the apartment association and key community folks and and proposed an alternative. Some would say that this is old soup warmed over but I'm going to say that I'm giving I think folks have given given this a good faith effort, that this is really a meaningful step, especially with the with the amendments that Councilmember Gonzalez threw in there. That's a meaningful step. So I think we should have some accountability in that step to make sure that we're we're checking it and tracking it. So I would say, like, maybe in this ordinance, we just mirror the language that an annual report of this will be reflected in. You know, whatever our annual update is, I'd like to make sure that that's a part of this. Are the makers of Motion okay with that.
Speaker 3: Let me ask a question first, Mr. City Attorney. If it's a restatement of existing policy, does that materially change the ordinance?
Speaker 7: Well, no, actually, if it's a restatement of material policy, this is part I believe would be reported back as part of the housing plan. But the ordinance could have a statement in there that there'll be an annual report to the city council. I think it's going to be redundant.
Speaker 5: And my understanding is that all the changes to the motion already required to come back. Come back so it wouldn't delay it any further. Correct.
Speaker 3: That wasn't that wasn't my question. But you're right. Makers of motion. This. Go ahead.
Speaker 2: Yes, I think we can handle that.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: Great.
Speaker 5: So just a couple of things. Well, you know, I was a little embarrassed when I got a call from the L.A. Times guy. And and, you know, I said, hey, you know, we we're on top of this. We're having this conversation. And and, you know, we're I'm familiar with what's happening. And and he gave a narrative that simply said, you know, I pulled the I pulled the property owners who are engaged in rape in L.A. and then went and visited their part, their projects, their apartments here in Long Beach. And and here's what we found. And what I learned was that majority of those were duplexes and triplexes that we went and checked out. So I think it's appropriate that we do that. We do necessarily like explore duplexes and triplexes. I know that your recommendation was for Triplexes. I don't know what the fiscal impact any of this is, but I think like as Councilmember Price and council member, your anger tangled about earlier. I don't think there's any problem with getting more information. So I think while we're looking into triplexes like how many we have, I think we should also look at duplexes. I want to know what we're up against here. And if we make a decision that it's not fiscally prudent to move forward with those, then let's do it based on facts, not based on suppositions. So are you okay with that? Mr.. Making the motion.
Speaker 2: With the caveat that the business license issue is covered also. Absolutely.
Speaker 5: Certainly that's something we have to evaluate.
Speaker 3: If I might ask Mr. Burdick, how do you acquire that information? How are you aware of the number of the request is for information on the number of triplexes and duplexes we have in the city. So how would you acquire that?
Speaker 9: So we do have we would end up working with our GIS department. They would link to the county assessor's office to give us rundowns on duplexes and triplexes. As I understand it, we were asked to return in 60 days with an offline memo on the triplexes. If we were to add duplexes to that, I would respectfully ask for additional time to look into this. The data that we get is not 100% accurate, and we would frankly need to define what a duplex is. A two on one lots may not act as a duplex. It may be a granny flat, but it may show up in the assessor's information as a duplex because there are two separate units and two separate addresses on that property. That's a very, very different rental scenario than a business, a four plex, you know, renting as an investment property. So I think with the duplexes, I have a lot more concerns about what is an investment property as opposed to what is an opportunity for a property owner to, you know, make a little bit of of money and rent to a family member or a friend or even a tenant. But that's a very different situation than a four plex or a ten plex, which is truly an investment property. If we were to add duplexes to the request for a TFF, I, I would just respectfully ask for a little bit more time to investigate those issues.
Speaker 5: And so and so and I would, I, I, I understand where, where you're going with that. I would say that in order for us to make a decision, I would say we wait a couple of weeks to make sure that information is accurate. And my thought was not that we're just asking for numbers, but it was sort of an explanation of what the impacts are of going to go in three, you know, in terms of the business license situation, in terms of, you know, any logistical or staffing concerns or or fiscal impacts, I just want to have a better understanding of what one means versus the other so that that's my request.
Speaker 3: And then, Councilmember Richardson, before we move on from that item, Mr. Burdick raises an issue about duplexes and back houses or single family homes. Is our intent here.
Speaker 0: To.
Speaker 3: Identify certain solution sets because of the nature of the property or because of the nature of our status as renters? I think that's a fundamental question. So if I mean, you've gone from multifamily units to having information on how many triplexes there are and how many duplexes there are. But I think what we want to get to and really for all people here, we want the same things, which is no renters should be subjected to the conditions that we've heard described and we know exist, whatever small percentage. So it's the renter that we're looking to protect. So if I'm renting a back home, why would my status be any different than if I was renting in a four plex or a triplex? And I'm not necessarily throwing that question at you.
Speaker 0: But.
Speaker 3: Ms.. Burdick. Is there a way that you could, without a significant amount of work, at least identify rental properties, properties that are claimed as rental properties, whether they are to plex's, triplexes, whatever it is. What I would not like to see us do is create a two class system where we are saying renters. In this type of unit, we value their quality of life more than renters somewhere else. And I'm asking that question because I don't know the answer of how difficult that would be. But we're passing this down so far down we're leaving.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I actually agree. That's exactly what what I'm trying to articulate here. Renner's Renner, what is their condition? The L.A. Times article actually discussed Renner's that are not wouldn't fall into what we're discussing tonight. I agree. I want to understand in this report, like, what is the fiscal impact of just categorizing, you know, Renner as a Renner and what, you know, what does that mean if you're in a duplex, multifamily, a triplex? I'd like to.
Speaker 3: Think it might be impossible to get to that, because you also have people who are renting rooms in in homes. And so there will be a population of individuals that we won't be able to reach with a sweeping policy. And that's something that we have to accept. But if I can have misspoke, let us know what's what's possible and practical. Then we have a realistic understanding of what she can do.
Speaker 9: And again, I honestly don't know the answer to that. You know, as you're talking about that, I'm thinking of the person who bought an investment condo in a high rise who is renting it out. They are a renter. They're no different than a renter in a four plex or a ten plex. I would point out a couple of things. Remember, the program that we're doing, we're talking about is a proactive inspection program. And even if we were to move forward to a reward system for those individuals, owners who maintain their properties, I think it would be a bit challenging to staff it in an appropriate level. You know, we are already understaffed in our current multifamily tenant program and there would certainly be fee increases that would need to be incurred. Having said that, you know, we'll take complaints of violations in any way we can get them. It doesn't matter who gives them to us. It doesn't matter if a tenant tells their pastor and the pastor calls us. It doesn't matter if the tenant tells their doctor or a social worker or someone at the health department or calls any of your council offices. The important thing for us is that we get those violations taken care of, whether it's a property owner who's being a bad neighbor or whether it's a landlord being a bad landlord, or whether it's a fellow tenant who's wreaking havoc on the rest of the tenants in the building. What is important to us at the end of the day is habitability for all of the housing stock in the city. And so, you know, I don't know the specifics to your answer. I am absolutely willing to explore this and go down this road with you. I just don't know what level of resources are going to be needed to do that. But absolutely happy to do it.
Speaker 3: Okay. Councilmember Richardson, thank you. Do you have more items?
Speaker 5: Well, I think everything articulated has been redirected to answer questions that I didn't ask. I'd like to just wrap this up and then move on. So it's in I think it makes sense. So the the four units in up are the proactive piece and anyone has the ability to call code enforcement. Is that what I just heard?
Speaker 9: Including those who live in four units or more. So just because we don't visit that property, it does not mean that you can't call 570 code.
Speaker 5: I get it. That makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 9: Units are less.
Speaker 7: Excuse.
Speaker 5: So if in the conversation about triplexes or duplex is really about what the impact would be on a proactive program if there's a fiscal impact impact of the business license circumstances. So based on how many tenants and units there are, correct, is that is that what would come back?
Speaker 9: You know, I think we'll look into it. I think we're going to have to look into certain definitions under state law. You know, what is a dwelling unit? What is a rental? What is a room rental versus a unit? And come back with some definitions and work within those definitions to find out exactly how many of those, you know, units we have in the city and then calculate if we were to do a proactive program, what that cost would be.
Speaker 5: So to do that on the so that that calculation, that formula, it's basically a per unit cost, right? You can get it down to a per unit cost. So if it's triplexes, we would know per unit how much it would cost to be able to have a proactive program based on that. Right.
Speaker 9: You know, that's what we are hoping to do. That's not how the current fee schedule is set up, but that is something that we are looking at. We do think it would be far more equitable to be a per unit cost than grouping them together.
Speaker 5: Sure. So based on per unit, it would be very simple to calculate. Okay, this is how many? Four and up units. This is how many triplexes? How many duplexes. Based on that formula, this is what it would. And then if anybody wanted to take it a step further and use that on that formula and say this is how many, you know, single family, this is how many everything. Then to have a proactive program, you would understand what that fiscal impact would be. Am I right in that logic?
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 2: Okay, great.
Speaker 5: So so that said, to move on. The last part is, I agree with with Councilmember Ranga that like this is a major public public health thing. And I think, you know, there's a public health lens that should be applied to this. And, you know, I just you know, I made sure that I brought photos. I went out and visited an apartment in my district and I was blown away just at the images like this is supposed to be a white wall and it's like blue and purple with mold. And this was a one bedroom apartment with and I've told everybody about this and I reported this place, but it's a one bedroom apartment with mold. There was a baby living in there. And I just couldn't imagine living in there myself personally. And so, you know, I reported it, but when I spoke with the property owner, what they said was they were afraid to report it based on retaliation and that that particular family had issues with documentation. And so I do want to make sure and I know today is not that day, but I do want to make sure we have a conversation about retaliation and that we do give some evaluation to like public health here. And I know that those considerations are there and that they used to be in the health department. But I think that. Councilmember, your angel makes a very good point. Thank you again, Councilmember Gonzalez, for for leading on this. And I think that's all I have.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Councilmember Mongo.
Speaker 6: Can I first start by hearing where we are with the motion and how many friendlies we have and where we are?
Speaker 3: It's all very friendly.
Speaker 7: Certainly, I'll try and summarize it. There's a motion currently on the floor to adopt a staff recommendation, plus amending the ordinance in three ways to add the State Franchise.
Speaker 2: Tax Board.
Speaker 7: Program to increase the citation review and frequency and third by Council District nine to.
Speaker 2: Require an annual report.
Speaker 7: And also and then and then there's four items or five items now that are to come back for additional information or adding $75,000 for the outreach and education of this program. That would not be part of the ordinance to come back with information on how to advertise or roll out a list of poor landlords or landlords who are not in compliance, requesting information on the number of triplex and now duplexes within the city, and to an information on how we can better collect the data for the units that are inspected. And then also information on some sort of an incentive to lower the number of inspections for those landlords or apartments that are in compliance
Speaker 6: . So let me start by saying that. Though discouraged by my mother from sharing this story, I'm going to share it anyway. When I lived in another place, I had paid three months rent in advance and within two weeks we were infested with mice. Within 90 days of becoming a council member, I opened my garage door one morning. Yes, I'm the woman who wears hot rollers to work. And as I drove out of my driveway, there was a man standing there who told me about the roaches in his house. And so it happens all over the city. And it is important that we have teeth for our bad landlords. We're very lucky in Long Beach. 90% of our landlords, actually probably closer to 99% of our landlords are excellent individuals. And I stand firmly with Lena in the additional. Punishment for those who are terrible because we don't want terrible landlords to own property in Long Beach, we would be more than happy for them to sell their multimillion dollar investment and go somewhere else. We also. I stand strongly with Councilmember Austin. In that we must incentivize those who do a great job to relieve the pressure on the staff, to focus completely on our bad landlords, our good landlords, our good landlords and their consistently good landlords. I hope that we will model our program after the Santa Ana program, which after a history of zero infractions, you move to a 48 month inspection cycle, which has been seen as a very successful model. It reduces the workload of court code enforcement on the good landlords by a significant amount by almost. I want to say it was 40% in a study that was done in 2010, and that additional 40% of staffing can be used to reduce the penalties from the 30 days to the 15 days. It can increase the number of visits. It can increase the proactive review of areas of concern. It can increase the number of inspections on the landlords that are consistent violators. It can work more closely with our outreach programs so that once the first $75,000 is gone, that this is an outreach responsibility of the department because those staff members who used to be inspecting 18 to 24 months are then able to spend that time on the things that we want to do to become the premier rental and landlord city in America. So with all of those things said, I really want to thank a few people who came up and spoke tonight. I know I have not met you before, but Mr. Jeff Benedict, I thought you were really eloquent in your ideas related to the incentive program. While I read a lot about it, I appreciate that that our constituents are coming up and bringing those ideas. And had you not brought that up, that was something I was really passionate about as well. Josh Butler. I know you're an alumni of the Chiefs of Staff, but you're also alumni of the Fifth District. And, you know, the house is on our community, one of which was boarded up yesterday. So we are we are working hand-in-hand to make sure that no renter's or any family members or seniors, whether they rent or are in a home of their family member, are in those conditions, including mother in law's quarters, which we have many of in the fifth. And finally, George Rivera, you've you've you've definitely come around and we appreciate the hard work that you've done in motivating individuals to come to council because it is not easy to come to council every Tuesday night. I was just on a flight back from out of state and I sat next to a woman who didn't know I was a councilman and told me I used to go to every city council meeting and she burned out. And you have not burned out. You've been consistent. If she hadn't burned out, I might have met her before sitting next to her on the plane. So good work to each and every one of you. And I think that we've come to something today that is remarkable. I hope that these incentive programs really free up our staff to focus on those bad landlords. I want to make it so difficult to be a bad landlord in Long Beach that it's easier to just be a good landlord or to put their property up for sale. So thank you very much.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Councilman Mongo. Councilmember Supernormal.
Speaker 2: I'd just like to thank everyone for presenting tonight also. I just had one quick question and that was for Ms.. Bodak. It seems like we had a little mission creep here, and you seem to have a different tone when it came to the duplexes. And I just want to make sure we have a good solid feeling on that. And is does that double the work? Triple the work if you have to do the duplexes also?
Speaker 9: You know, first we have to start with defining the universe before I can define for you the mission creep to use your term. So duplexes in general have a different level of concern because they are they had typically in the past never really been seen as true rental properties. And there are housing laws that certainly do protect granny flats and the ability to have granny flats in almost every residential zone in the city. So we do need to look closely at, you know, the intent and what we're trying to achieve. Clearly, there will be workload implications and we will be sharing that with you. And ultimately, it's it's your decision to allocate the resources necessary for us to take on the additional workload. All we can do, really, is to share that information with you, and then you can decide if it's mission creep or not.
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 3: Yes, that's good. Councilmember Your Honor.
Speaker 10: We're coming to the end. I like the direction this discussion has taken thus far of. Some very important items have come up in this discussion. I count three of them that are very important. First of all, we're dealing with a finite number of staff and a finite budget that we're having to work with and having that we know that now we have to have the data. We need to know what we're dealing with and come with that. Data comes definitions defining a duplex, defining what is a rental property. And I think that once we take care of those issues, we can arrive at something that's going to be workable and positive for the city. However, we can't get there without knowing what it is we're dealing with. We're dealing with issues that are very important, not only to the to the tenants, which are of the utmost importance, because, you know, there's a chicken and the egg type of thing. Who came first? A renter or the property owner? So, I mean, we have they have to work together and being able to resolve these issues. When it comes down to inspections, there was a consideration about forgiveness program, if you will, or a delayed inspection program. I'm not sure how that's going to work when we have thousands, probably tens of thousands of rental properties out there, some of which will never get inspected, some of which will probably take years, years to even get inspect, inspect it once and where. And one of the issues that we addressed earlier or that has been brought up was, you know, 10% we're looking at 10% of inspections. That's not going to get everything and it's going to take years to get all of them. And how do we identify who's a good land owner and who's not? It's going to be hard to do that. So I'm not I'm leery, wary of what an inspection program or a a relief program is going to look like in rewarding the good tenants, a, the good landlords versus a bad. I'm not sure how that's going to work. The other aspect that I'm concerned about is the escrow, not the school program, the the the tax board program, if that's within 120 days and the renter has already been noticed about. The inspection that's coming or that's that was already there. And then the landlord pushes out that renter. What good has it done? I mean, the renter has already been kicked out. And the and the escrow program is it's going to take 120 days to fix it.
Speaker 2: If at all.
Speaker 10: So I'm still a little concerned about how that is going to come into the mix. And perhaps that's something that staff can evaluate and look at in terms of not only rewards, but penalties. Something that that's in there in the interim while we're moving forward with some kind of program. And then lastly, like I said, my my first comments were about dealing with a finite number of staff and a finite budget. It's going to be difficult to implement this program. It's going to be difficult to implement even a deep program because it all costs money. So we all we have to look at out of the box thinking, if you were to coin the cliche, as we always have out of the box. But it is something that we need to seriously take into consideration in terms of the implications for the city, in staff and in resources to be able to push this forward . So those are my closing remarks there. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Councilmember Urunga. And I wanted to just add a few comments myself. I wanted to thank everyone that came today for your patience. Many of you have worked on this for a very long time, just not the months that this council has taken up this policy issue. And while landlords and renters sat in different sides of the room, I do think you heard today that we do want the same things. I don't think you have landlords in the room today that qualify under the descriptions that you had brought forward for the horrible conditions that many of you described that you live in. So you do have people that are good operators that are here. I wish there was a way to find out exactly what percentage of operators, landlords in our city are under that qualification of horrible slumlords. That's small. We don't know how small. And as I had said before, one is clearly too many because you have families living in the circumstances that were described today and they're all over the city. Some are far more deplorable in certain certain districts. I know this. Several of you have come forward and indicated your second district residents, many of your first district and sixth district, they're all over the city and it's not acceptable. I think we're making a good first start. And that does sound cliche. And I will admit that we do often talk about taking small steps toward larger policy advances, and that's public policy. It is a work in progress. We are not able to cure this situation. The situation precedes all of us. And the human condition of gaming other human beings precedes all of us. And that's really what we're talking about here as well, is when we talk about one human being taking advantage of another and being able to do so because of poverty levels, because of circumstances where we cannot do anything about that, and then those power struggles will continue to exist. And what we hope to do here in the city with with this first step is to cut that short a little bit, is to blunt the force of what that can be like for an individual or a family with the various items that come back for information. I think we assure you that this council will continue to review this. It's not over tonight, and you need to feel confident that it's not because of the items that the city attorney listed, the items for information, the items that will come back, those are all different opportunities that this council will have to either expand on the policy to review it, to make it better, to change it, whatever it needs to be. And so your active engagement is still required. Both of your active engagement is required. And I appreciate Councilmember Richardson's way of articulating that one person's interest does not supersede and others that wealth and investment in one property is not an indication of of the greatest of intention or requirement to protect that investment. We as individuals with families have the same interest to protect our investment, which is our quality of life for our families. So thank you for articulating it in that way. It was it was clear and and it was pure. And I think no one would disagree with that. And so for that, I'm very thankful. But I want to our staff is with all of this work that you've put into it and you are aware of the various bad actors that come toward that that exist in this city, are we in any way able to track or prove that we're reaching previously a segment of the community that didn't used to trust either the city or didn't used to trust that retaliation was an issue? Is there a particular way that we're reaching out to them? Are we working with for instance, I look at housing Long Beach and this is something we can do offline, certainly off line from this ordinance. But it's a very strong advocacy group that people trust. And throughout this whole process, I think what we heard is trust is lacking, trust of landlords, trust of city, trust of authority, trust , distrust in general. That's broken fundamentally. But we do have an advocacy group that I have seen in the council, has seen, has a tremendous amount of trust with these individuals. Can we work with them in a way where, as you said earlier, anyone can make a complaint. So if our advocacy group comes forward with a complaint from a particular unit, instead of just reviewing that one unit so we don't isolate or target that renter, can we not inspect that entire building work with certain stakeholders? And it could be the apartment association as well. They can come forward and say they're aware of a bad actor. And so let's inspect the entire building, give it sort of a priority status because it's coming through a trusted group.
Speaker 9: First of all, we have been working with housing Long Beach and. An informal process. They have given us the ability to provide us some referrals to certain units or tenants of concern. We do inspect the building and look around the building. If we're if we're going into one specific unit for a specific health hazard reason. We do need the tenant's permission to get into that unit and to investigate. But we also do look around at the rest of the building and we do knock on other doors in that building as well. If there are other tenants in the building, when we're there and they happen to open the doors, we will absolutely talk to those tenants and look in their apartments if they will let us do that related to trust. That is a key component. We have recognized over the last year that the voice of government knocking on your door is not always welcome. And we understand that there are groups out there that can reach tenants and reach landlords better than we can. And so I think that was the idea behind Councilmember Gonzalez's initiative to have us work with community organizations or or CBOs or non-governmental organizations to reach out to those areas where we know there are problems. We know that there may be language barriers, and we know that there's high concentrations of code issues. But we're not just we're just aren't seeing the complaints coming in. So I do think that that's something that we're going to look forward to. And as I said, again, we'll take any complaint in any way, shape or form that it is provided to us and treat it seriously. I can't say that enough tonight, really. So I guess my final closing comment on this is, you know, I really appreciate the attention that the city council is paying to this. I do think that on all sides of the chamber, we are here focusing on housing habitability issues. There are certain skills that the government can bring to that task and certain skills that we just don't have or we're just not as nimble savvy by working with both the advocates and the Apartment Owners Association, I think we can get there where we want to go.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Ms.. Broderick. And the question of retaliation came up many times today, and that's not something we would solve today either. And I'd like us to consider, aside from the state law and other definitions of what the city's role is in protecting our residents from retaliation, I would like and I know that you do think about this, but I think this council has demonstrated that it is not tolerant of of our residents living in fear and fear of really standing up for our for their quality of life and their rights. And so as you think this through, I don't want us to lose track of retaliation as a risk. There's always a calculated risk that we take when we stand up for something that we believe in. And that's what advocacy is always about. It's a calculated risk of what you will lose in order to achieve what is right. I want us to consider what is our burden in in sharing that risk and removing some aspect of that for our residents. And that, I do think, is an obligation we have. Whether state law requires it or not is to consider that as we consider developing policies and improvements is to not fall into the belief that we cannot do anything about retaliation. And that's more just of a statement rather than something you need to respond to. But I am confident that it's on your minds as much as it is on ours.
Speaker 9: Understood. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Thank you. And with that, I do thank all of you. I think this council is prepared to take a vote tonight. And as I said, this is our start and we hope to continue to get better. And thank you for all of your engagement and interest on this issue and your support and valuable input. With that council members, please cast your vote.
Speaker 1: Motion carries 9000.
Speaker 3: Okay. So we are back to the regular agenda item.
Speaker 1: Item 17.
Speaker 3: 17. Actually, if we can take 5 minutes, that.
Speaker 0: Would be great.
Speaker 12: Why did you do this?
Speaker 0: Yeah. Thank you. Would you like me to get your anger?
Speaker 3: Richardson.
Speaker 6: You're on the air and dear in the bathroom.
Speaker 7: Just.
Speaker 0: I guess you would have got one month.
Speaker 3: All right, members, we don't have a quorum. Chiefs of staff, can you go retrieve your members, please?
Speaker 0: I need you looking official. Thank you.
Speaker 3: All right, we have a quorum. Madam Clerk. Item 17. | Ordinance | Recommendation to declare ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code by adding Chapter 18.30 establishing a Proactive Rental Housing Inspection Program, read and adopted as read. (Citywide) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_06022015_15-0485 | Speaker 1: Report from City Manager, Financial Management and Public Works Recommendation to award 11 contracts for as needed architectural services and an aggregate amount not to exceed $9 million citywide.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Mr. City Manager.
Speaker 7: Tomorrow we'll have a full report on this.
Speaker 0: Thank you.
Speaker 7: Madam Vice Mayor. Members of the City Council. This is an item where we're awarding contracts to 11 firms for as needed architectural services. Three of those firms are local Long Beach firms in an aggregate amount not to exceed $9 million for a two year term. This is essentially to have firms on board to be able to do feasibility studies, conceptual schematic designs, mostly for smaller projects. Larger complex projects would still go out to RFP. And it's important to note this is an actual dollars being spent. This is contract authority, and the dollars will be appropriated through.
Speaker 2: The city budget process.
Speaker 3: Thank you. There's been a motion and a second with Councilmember Austin or Councilwoman Pryce. Would you like to address your motion?
Speaker 11: I purport motion as recommended.
Speaker 0: Okay.
Speaker 3: So any member of the public that wishes to address item 17 seeing nonmembers cast your vote.
Speaker 1: Motion carries nine zero. Item Meeting Report from financial management. Recommendation to adopt a resolution requesting that the Board of Harbor Commissioners approve the transfer of 5% of fiscal year 2015. GROSS operating revenue from the Harbor Revenue Fund to the Tidelands Operations Fund citywide. | Contract | Recommendation to adopt Specifications No. RFP PW-14-005 and award contracts to Aetypic, Inc., of Long Beach, CA; Dougherty + Dougherty Architects, of Costa Mesa, CA; Frank Webb Architects, of Los Angeles, CA; Gwynne Pugh Urban Studio, Inc., of Santa Monica, CA; HMC Architects, of Los Angeles, CA; IBI Group, of Irvine, CA; Kardent, of Long Beach, CA; Mary McGrath Architects, of Oakland, CA; McDonald, Soutar & Paz, Inc. (MSP), of Long Beach, CA; RA-DA, of West Hollywood, CA; and Studio Pali Fekete Architects, of Culver City, CA, for as-needed architectural services, in an aggregate amount not to exceed $9,000,000 for a two-year term with the option to extend the term for three additional one-year periods; and
Authorize City Manager to execute all documents necessary to enter into the contracts and to execute any necessary amendments thereto regarding scope of services, adjusting individual agreement amounts without exceeding the aggregate amount, or extending the terms, at the discretion of the City Manager. (Citywide) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_06022015_15-0486 | Speaker 1: Motion carries nine zero. Item Meeting Report from financial management. Recommendation to adopt a resolution requesting that the Board of Harbor Commissioners approve the transfer of 5% of fiscal year 2015. GROSS operating revenue from the Harbor Revenue Fund to the Tidelands Operations Fund citywide.
Speaker 3: There's been a motion and a second. Mr. City Manager.
Speaker 7: Our budget manager, Leah Eriksson.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 0: Good evening, Vice Mayor and members of City Council. This resolution would request the transfer of the 5% of gross operating revenue, which would be needed for the FY16 budget. Our estimate is that it would be about $17.7 million and by passage of this resolution we would ask the Board of Commissioners to give us the funds for 16 . This concludes the staff report, and I'm available for any questions you may have.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Councilmember Richardson. Or Your Honor, go to Councilmember Urunga.
Speaker 10: In regards to the 5%. Is that written in law? We're committed to some hard times. You know, we have a cash cow called the port.
Speaker 3: Mr. City attorney.
Speaker 7: Actually, yes, it is written in law. It is a part of our city charter. Those men.
Speaker 10: Would it be possible to consider an amendment to that?
Speaker 7: The charter was recently amended, I believe, in 2007 and in 2010 when they went from 10% of the net to 5% of the gross. And so while a ballot initiative is always a possibility for the council to consider, you do have to consider that the State Lands Commission in the State of California looks at the uses of the state tidelands trust, money and the restrictions on that money and evaluates the transfer and the dollar amounts requested by the city. Yes.
Speaker 10: Well, the only reason I ask, obviously, is because we have a number of projects that are waiting for talent, money and oil to turn around. And and so we need to look at ways that we can increase our transfers. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Councilman. Councilman Austin.
Speaker 11: Yes, thank you. I just had a really quick question as to what was forecasted. Are we on track or is this less or more than we expected from Tidelands Councilman Astin?
Speaker 0: This was in line with what we got for FY 14, which is 17.8 million. So it's a little bit less.
Speaker 6: But but in line with our projections.
Speaker 11: Thank you.
Speaker 3: Thank you. There's been a motion and a second. Is there any member of the public that wish to address Council on item 18 seeing none members cast your vote.
Speaker 1: Motion carries nine zero.
Speaker 3: Item 19. | Resolution | Recommendation to adopt resolution requesting that the Board of Harbor Commissioners approve the transfer of 5 percent of Fiscal Year 2015 (FY 15) gross operating revenue, from the Harbor Revenue Fund (HR 430) to the Tidelands Operations Fund
(TF 401), with a true-up adjustment if necessary, to reflect the final gross revenue amount upon issuance of the Harbor Department’s FY 15 audited financial statements. (Citywide) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_06022015_15-0487 | Speaker 1: Report from Human Resources and Financial Management. Recommendation two Award for contracts to provide qualified services to operate Pacific Gateway Workforce Investment Act Youth Academy projects in an aggregate annual amount not to exceed $1.7 million citywide.
Speaker 3: Mr. City Manager.
Speaker 7: Vice Council Members This is Nick Schulz, the manager of our Workforce Investment Board. So, Madam Vice Mayor, members of the Council, this item is to award four contracts for qualified service providers to operate our year round Federal Youth Workforce Investment Act programs and Academy projects. Again, the aggregate amounts not to exceed $1.7 million. It's for a period of one year with an option to renew for additional two years based on qualified performance and financial management.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Councilman Andrews or Councilwoman Gonzalez, would you like to address your motion? Thank you. Councilmember Urunga.
Speaker 10: Thank you, Mayor. I'm very glad to see that this coming forward. I think that the more we help our youth and help them with their leadership development, the better we all are, and especially when it comes to the future leadership of our city. But do you have any kind of data or any kind of information that would that you can share with me in terms of activities in the seventh District?
Speaker 7: Specific to the 77th District? No, we did. We haven't segregated that at this point in time. Last year, the Pacific Gateway combined youth programing, a combination of state and federal money, served about 796 participants. I will get you the data per zip code and segregate that by districts.
Speaker 10: I appreciate that very much because I do have a high school in my district that I think would be a very that would benefit greatly from this type of program. So I'm looking forward to that information. Thank you.
Speaker 6: Councilwoman Mango with regard to the performance measures that the nonprofits who receive this funding are measured against, do we have the number of applicants versus the number of jobs and then the number of hours per candidate completed during the program? And if not, could we require that the contractors report out on that this year? Are we using the statewide system for this or the.
Speaker 7: We have a local yes. For these particular awards. It is the statewide system because it is this is 100% federal money that you're approving tonight. So all of the contractors who who are on the list with to be rewarded or who have qualified under the new RFP process met or exceeded all performance measures. We do have some contractors who have not operated in the system before.
Speaker 6: And do we have a dashboard or crystal reports that draw down from the state system that show those specific criteria? As mentioned, the hours per candidate, the number of candidates accepted all of that.
Speaker 7: So so what we have is we can show you, again, educational attainment from beginning of program to end program. We can show you any attainment, retention and wage advancement in employment, and we can show you continued into secondary or post-secondary education. The military or other things in the federal program will be considered positive exit.
Speaker 6: So having worked in this program, one of the things that I will say is that in the state of California, because our minimum wage is different than that of the federal minimum wage in this particular category, the state of California does not have an apportionment greater than those hours awarded to other states. And so our youth are actually getting less work experience than youth in other communities across the country. And so that's one of the the things that I look forward to discussing in terms of exemptions, because these entry level jobs that give people their first job opportunity are really pivotal. And reducing the number of hours in a summer is detrimental. And it was even more detrimental is to reduce the number of youth who get to participate. So I'm very supportive this program, and I look forward to the information that is drawn from the state system to be included in our open data platform. So everyone in the community can know how successful our contractors are and that they can compete against one another to have the best stats, to have the best educational performance for their youth that are involved in the program and the highest yield of employment. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Councilman Austin.
Speaker 11: Yes. Thank you. And I'm excited about about this the opportunity here. I think there's a lot of good work that will be performed by a lot of reputable community organizations. I see four were selected. I I'm obviously aware of three Central CHA, Long Beach Unified and UCC Cray Corporation out of Maryland. Can you give us some background on what they provide and what their nexus is here to Long Beach?
Speaker 7: Sure. And I'd start by saying we had five applicants for four award. Again, the the three local that you mentioned and one out-of-state applicant. I will tell you that we funded all of our local applicants to the capacity that they requested through the RFP process. CRA was funded at about or is recommended to be funded at about half what they requested. They're a national organization based out of Fulton, Maryland. They are a for profit corporation difference. And some of the nonprofits that we have here locally and we're funding. They have been in business since the 1980s. They operate many programs across the United States. Closest geographic program to us in California would be San Diego, where they've been successful over a period of years. And also in Alameda County in California. Other questions with regard to Kerry?
Speaker 11: Well, the next is here to Long Beach. I mean, do they have an office? And how will participants in these these job training programs?
Speaker 7: So they are. Excuse me. I'm sorry to interrupt you, but they are in the process of negotiating for space here in Long Beach. Some of the partners in their application that signed letters of support and will receive receive subcontracts from Kerry to provide services are the Long Beach Unified School District. Our YMCA has Long Beach Community Action Partnership, the Boys and Girls Club, the Long Beach Community College, the Job Corps. So so they worked very hard on the ground to put together meaningful partnerships, do to help them engage and understand the Long Beach community.
Speaker 11: Thank you for clarifying. I appreciate it.
Speaker 3: There's been a motion and a second. Is there any member of the public that wishes to address Council on item 19 saying none? Members cast your.
Speaker 0: Vote.
Speaker 1: Motion carries nine zero.
Speaker 3: Kate.
Speaker 1: Item 20 Report from Police Recommendation to receive and file the application of Moon for an original application of an ABC license at 149 Linden Avenue, Suite C District two. | Contract | Recommendation to adopt Specifications for Request for Proposals
No. HR15-088 and award contracts to Centro Community Hispanic Association, Inc., of Long Beach, CA; KRA Corporation, of Fulton, MD; Long Beach Unified School District, of Long Beach, CA; and United Cambodian Community, of Long Beach, CA, to provide qualified services to operate Pacific Gateway Workforce Investment Act Youth Academy Projects, in an aggregate annual amount not to exceed $1,700,000, for a period of one year, with the option to renew for two additional one-year periods at the discretion of the City Manager; and authorize City Manager, or designee, to execute all documents necessary to enter into the contracts, including any necessary amendments thereto. (Citywide) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_06022015_15-0488 | Speaker 1: Item 20 Report from Police Recommendation to receive and file the application of Moon for an original application of an ABC license at 149 Linden Avenue, Suite C District two.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Is there is that Commander LeBaron? Yes. To report on this, commander.
Speaker 2: This is a original application for Moon and it's at 149 Linden. There's a recommended we. We have no concerns about recommending it.
Speaker 3: So you're recommending that we approve it. And I just wanted to remind everyone that this is the location where the restaurant was and are off. I'm sorry. Yes, I know the restaurant closed. We're all very sad about it. And we wish this new group success and we don't have any concerns in the council office. So I've made the motion. And Councilwoman Gonzales, would you like to address the second? So any member of the public that wishes to address Council on item 20, seeing none. Members cast your vote.
Speaker 0: Expedition.
Speaker 1: Motion carries nine zero.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Item 21 Report from Police Recommendation to execute all documents with the Housing Authority of the County of Los Angeles to provide supplemental law enforcement services for the Carmelita Housing Development. For an estimated annual reimbursement of up to $360,000. | ABC License | Recommendation to receive and file the application of Moon, Incorporated, dba Moon, for an original application of an Alcoholic Beverage Control License, at 149 Linden Avenue, Suite C.
(District 2) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_06022015_15-0491 | Speaker 1: Communication from City Attorney Recommendation to declare ordinance amending ordinance number c6646. Writing for a change in establishing an advisory board. Read for the first time and lead over to the next regular meeting of the City Council for Final Reading Citywide.
Speaker 3: Mr. City Attorney.
Speaker 7: Vice Mayor. Members of the Council. This ordinance comes back to you at the request of the City Council to amend the Bixby Knolls Business Association to make it consistent with the other bids.
Speaker 3: Thank you. There's been a motion and a second. Councilman Austin or Councilwoman Pryce. Would you like to address it?
Speaker 11: So moves.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Is there any member of the public that wish to address Council on Ordinance 23? Item 23. Seeing Nonmembers Cast Your Vote.
Speaker 1: Motion passes eight zero.
Speaker 3: Item 24. Also an ordinance. | Ordinance | Recommendation to declare ordinance amending Ordinance No. C-6646 providing for a change in establishing an advisory body, read and adopted as read. (Citywide) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_06022015_15-0493 | Speaker 1: Communication from city attorney. Recommendation to declare ordinance amending the municipal code by adding a section establishing a taxi regulation modernization pilot program. Read for the first time and lead over to the next regular meeting of the City Council for Final Reading Citywide.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Mr. City Attorney, is this the SEC? It says first reading. Is this the first reading nightmare?
Speaker 7: Yes, that is correct. At the last meeting, if you recall, there was discussion on the notice and the motion and how it was noticed under the Brown Act. So this is back for the first reading of the actual pilot program.
Speaker 3: Thank you. It's been a motion and a second. Councilmembers. Would you like to address your motion, your anger or price? Thank you. So any member of the public that wishes to address council on this item seeing none. Members, cast your vote.
Speaker 1: Motion carries eight zero.
Speaker 3: Item. We're done with that, right? Sorry. It's crossed out. Okay. And this is the time for new business and. Members, if you will. Allow me just one moment on. Have you all queued up. And then what happened? | Ordinance | Recommendation to declare ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code by adding Section 5.80.400, establishing a Taxi Regulation Modernization Pilot Program, read and adopted as read. (Citywide) | LongBeachCC |
LongBeachCC_05192015_15-0460 | Speaker 1: Item number 26 Report from Financial Management. Recommendation to request the City Attorney to draft an ordinance establishing a pilot program to examine modification of certain elements of the current taxi permit and report back within six months citywide.
Speaker 0: Thank you. There is a motion and a second. Councilman Mongo. I know this is just a continuation of last week. You want to add an additional comment?
Speaker 5: Just I really appreciate everyone who has really recognized the city of Long Beach for taking this step forward. On a national level, this is remarkable that we are working to allow the deregulation for a more competitive environment.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilmember Austin.
Speaker 3: I echo those comments. I think this was or this is a great pilot, and I know that it will be followed by many cities and municipalities throughout the country. Everybody's watching Long Beach today. So.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Any public comment on the item? Seeing none members was going to cast your vote.
Speaker 1: Councilwoman Mungo. Councilmember Younger. Motion passes eight zero.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Uh, can I get a motion for consent, please? Give us a motion in a second for consent. Anyone want to speak on consent? CNN members, please cast your votes. I need a secondary, I think on that. | Agenda Item | Recommendation to request City Attorney to draft an ordinance establishing a pilot program to examine modification of certain elements of the current taxi permit and report back to the City Council within six months following adoption of the pilot program regarding status, findings and recommendations. (Citywide) | LongBeachCC |
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